Adults aged 20 to 49 are the largest distributor of COVID-19 in the US, according to British researchers who say the reopening of the school could accelerate the acceleration of this age group for vaccination.
A team from Imperial College London used cellphone data from more than 10 million people to calculate that 65 out of 100 infections occurred between the ages of 20 and 49 in the US.
A team from Imperial College London used cellphone data from more than 10 million people to calculate that 65 out of 100 infections occurred between the ages of 20 and 49 in the US. (iStock)
They found that people in that age group make up about 72 percent of the cases after schools reopened in October. Less than 5 percent come from children and less than ten percent from teens.
Adults aged 35 to 49 were responsible for 41 percent of the new cases in mid-August, compared with 35 percent for adults aged 20 to 34, according to the peer-reviewed study published in Science.
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“We find adults aged 20-49 the main driver of the COVID-19 epidemic in the United States and are the only age groups that contribute excessively to its further spread, relative to their population size,” said Dr. Melody Monod of Imperial College said.
“While children and adolescents have contributed more to the spread of COVID-19 since the mandates for school closure were lifted in the fall of 2020, we find that these dynamics have not changed significantly since the school reopened,” she added.
Oliver Ratmann of the college said: “We believe this study is important because we show that adults aged 20-49 are the only age groups to have COVID-19 distributed throughout the US, despite large variations in the extent and timing of local epidemics.
“At least where highly transmissible variants have not yet been identified, additional interventions targeting the 20-49 age group could bring resurgent epidemics under control and prevent deaths,” he added.
Meanwhile, a new study indicates that coronavirus antibodies last at least six months after infection for the majority of people who contracted the bug.
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Research from UK Biobank found that 99 per cent of participants who tested positive for previous infection retained antibodies for three months after being infected, while 88 per cent did so for the full six months of the study, according to Sky News .
“This important study revealed that the vast majority of people retain observable antibodies for at least six months after coronavirus infection,” said Professor Naomi Allen, chief scientist at Biobank. “While we may not be sure how it relates to immunity, the results suggest that humans can be protected from subsequent infection at least six months after natural infection,” Allen said.
“More prolonged follow-up will allow us to determine how long such protection is likely to last,” she added.
This article originally appeared on NYPost.com.