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Surge in Covid-19 cases across Europe linked to young people

<span>Photograph: Kiran Ridley/Getty Images</span>
Photograph: Kiran Ridley/Getty Images

Surges in Covid-19 cases in countries across Europe are due largely to a rise in infections among young people, data from national agencies shows, prompting fears among experts that the virus could soon spread back to more vulnerable groups.

Unlike during the early months of the crisis in March and April, when older people accounted for the biggest share of cases, in France, Germany, Spain, the Netherlands and Belgium 20 to 39-year-olds now represent up to 40% of new infections.

In Germany – which on Thursday reported a three-month high of 1,445 infections in 24 hours, against about 6,000 at the height of the pandemic – the health minister, Jens Spahn, said the rise in the infection rate among young people had been “significant”.

The average age of people being infected with the virus was now 34, the lowest since the start of the epidemic, Spahn said. He described the development as concerning because it “could indicate the spread of the illness through the wider population”.

Data from the Robert Koch Institute shows the 20 to 29 and 30 to 39 age groups account for 37.5% of new coronavirus cases in Germany. In the Netherlands, the RIVM health agency puts the equivalent Dutch figure at 41%.

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The Netherlands is recording an average of just over 600 new cases a day, more than half its total at the peak of the pandemic. The chief epidemiologist, Jaap van Dissel, told MPs this week the surge had not led to an increase in hospitalisations, intensive care admissions or deaths because “so many cases concern young people”, who generally have milder symptoms.

According to France’s Santé Publique agency, which on Thursday reported 2,669 cases, a new post-lockdown daily high, the Covid-19 incidence rate per 100,000 inhabitants in the 20 to 29 age group has risen to nearly 45 from 7 in early May.

The incidence rate has also climbed from from 6.1 to 26.5 in the 30 to 39 age group. Over the same period, the infection rate among 80- to 89-year-olds halved, while in the over-90 age group it fell from 60 to 13.

France’s health minister, Olivier Véran, confirmed late last month that those testing positive were “younger than during the previous wave” of the virus, suggesting that “people in more vulnerable groups have doubtless remained more prudent” while “young people tend to pay less attention”.

In Belgium, where the rolling average of daily cases is at 623, just under half what it was at the peak of the pandemic, young people aged 20 to 39 now account for more than 38% of new infections, while the proportion of those over 80 has fallen from nearly 30% to 5.5%.

In Spain, which has reported an average of 3,400 new cases a day for the past seven days, compared with about 7,400 in early April, figures from the Carlos III health institute show 20- to 29 year-olds now represent nearly 22% of new cases, with 30- to 39-year-olds accounting for more than 15%.

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The demographic shift appears clear, although experts warn that other factors – such as changes in testing policies – explain at least part of the increase. In France, for example, testing at the peak of the pandemic was confined mostly to older patients arriving at hospital; it has now been massively expanded.

One consequence is that compared with early May, when roughly 225 people per 100,000 under the age of 30 were being tested for the virus each week in France, the weekly total has now more than doubled, to nearly 500.

“Young people – who were simply not being tested back in March and April but were clearly being infected, even if they were displaying only mild symptoms – are now being picked up,” Martin Blachier, a French epidemiologist, told BFM-TV.

“These are young people, who obviously felt the need to start socialising again. During the lockdown they followed the instructions they were given, and they’re taking advantage of what they’re allowed to do now.”

The challenge for governments and health agencies, experts say, is to prevent the virus from spreading to more vulnerable populations. “There’s no reason to imagine it can be contained to just one age group, without affecting others, Pascal Crépey, an epidemiologist and public health expert, told Le Parisien.

“Older and more vulnerable people are certainly protecting themselves more, paying greater attention to wearing a mask, observing distancing measures. But they do not live in isolation. They have contact with their friends and families.”

The next few days and weeks, experts warn, could be critical to avoiding a potentially disastrous resurgence of Covid-19 among older and more at-risk groups.

“We need clear, consistent information to young people, but without in any way stigmatising them – they are far from being the only ones out and about in cafes and bars,” the sociologist Olivier Cousin told l’Obs magazine.

“Young people would be wrong to think Covid does not concern them,” Crépey added. “The health consequences or the pandemic may affect mainly other age groups, but theirs risks being the group that will be hardest hit by the economic consequences.”