While younger adults have often been considered to be the ones fueling the spread of coronavirus, a new study finds that it’s a slightly older age group that has been driving up the number of cases.
According to the study from the Imperial College London's Department of Mathematics, adults ages 35 to 49 were responsible for an estimated 41 percent of COVID cases, reported Yahoo. Coming in just below them were adults between the ages of 20 to 34, who were responsible for an estimated 35% of cases.
In total, adults between the ages of 20 and 49 were likely responsible for 76% of transmissions between February and October 2020, per the study published in the journal Science.
The researchers used cell phone data to analyze the mobility of more than 10 million Americans during the eight-month period. They compared the data with COVID cases and death rates in the corresponding age groups.
“This study provides evidence that the resurgent COVID-19 epidemics in the U.S. in 2020 have been driven by adults aged 20-49, and in particular adults aged 35-49, before and after school reopening,” the researchers wrote. “These adults accounted after school reopening in October 2020 for an estimated 72.2 percent of SARS-CoV-2 infections in the U.S.”
Based on their findings, the researchers believe people aged 20 to 49 should be given vaccine priority to help slow the spread of the virus.
"This study indicates that in locations where novel highly transmissible SARS-CoV-2 lineages have not yet established, additional interventions among adults aged 20-49, such as mass vaccination with transmission-blocking vaccines, could bring resurgent COVID-19 epidemics under control and avert deaths," they wrote in the study.
Depending on where you live, the only people currently eligible to get the vaccine in that age group are healthcare personnel, some essential workers, and those with underlying medical conditions which increase the risk of serious, life-threatening complications from COVID-19, according to the CDC.
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