Most Brazilian COVID-19 patients in intensive care centers last week were in their 40s, the Brazilian Association of Critical Care Medicine said.
And while it’s unclear exactly why more young patients are now hospitalized due to COVID-19, a Brazilian expert told The Guardian that a new variant discovered in the Brazilian Amazon could be the cause.
“It’s obviously related to the P1 variant,” Marcos Boulos, an infectious disease specialist at the University of São Paulo, told the Guardian.
Boulos said the variant is spreading temporarily and that other young people are in poor health because of the disease.
The P. 1 variant of the coronavirus has spread to at least 36 countries and is about twice as contagious as the original COVID-19 virus, according to the Global Initiative for the Sharing of All Influenza Data (GISAID). On Wednesday, it found that the P. 1 variant is capable of reinfecting those who have already contracted the coronavirus. Felipe Naveca, a Brazilian researcher at public fitness company Fiocruz, said the variant may also have mutations that can make vaccines less effective.
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