As coronavirus cases continue surging across the country, new studies show that infections among adults ages 25 to 39 are the main source of the increase.
Cases in this age group accounted for up to 50% of new monthly infections in July, up from 35% in May.
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Dr. Peter Chin-Hong, Professor of Medicine Specializing in Infectious Diseases at UC San Francisco, said there are four main reasons this age group is more affected that others.
"This is the age group that's the bulk of our workforce, so they have been moving around a lot more since the reopening of the state," Dr. Chin-Hong told KCBS Radio news anchor Liz Saint John.
"The second reason, of course, this also happens to be the lowest vaccination rate in our county," he continued. "As we know, vaccinations really drive carriage of this virus. So the lower you are into the proportion of individuals vaccinated, the higher the proportion of virus carried by this group."
"The third, of course, is the highly transmissible Delta that's upending all roots," Dr. Chin-Hong added. "We do know that more than 85 percent of cases now use the Delta. So, the bulk of the proportion of these cases, since there are new cases in the last 7 days, would be thought to be Delta as well, if not all the cases."
"And the fourth is," he continued, "this age group has been going out, which myself included, have been enjoying the reopening not knowing what's to come."
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Dr. Chin-Hong pointed to one explanation for why vaccination rates are lower among younger adults.
"Lower vaccination in this age group comes with the idea that... they're young invincibles," he said. "I think most of it has been prioritization of vaccinating the older individuals. Not saying that young folks don't get serious disease, they don't get long-COVID chronic symptoms, but again, there's been a reemphasis now in the young individuals to get vaccinated."
As for reasons people give for not getting the vaccine, Dr. Chin-Hong has pretty much heard them all.
"Probably the most common reasons is, you know, I was just too busy, I didn't really know. A second group of reasons has to do with worried about the side effects but then regretting it later on," he said. "There's a fear of losing work if I got side effects. But if you get sick with COVID, you're going to miss a lot more work. So I think its just that immediacy of maybe it won't happen to me. But again, Delta is changing all roots. What worked for you in 2020 may not work for you in terms of staving off the virus in 2021."
At the end of the day, the only way to prevent the spread of COVID and stop further mutations and variants from happening, Dr. Chin-Hong said, is with vaccinations.
"Please go and get vaccinated," he said. "There's still time. We can still tell the end of the story with a much happier ending. We can do it right now."
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