“But Marcos Boulos, a leading infectious disease specialist, said he had no doubt the P1 variant was contributing to Brazil’s soaring caseload: “There’s no way of hiding this.” Boulos also said anecdotal evidence from hospitals around Brazil suggested the variant was also producing more serious cases in young people. “We don’t yet have the data to categorically affirm this but it’s possible, from what doctors are seeing,” said the University of São Paulo professor.
“Here in the hospital we’ve got a 20-year-old woman in our ICU in serious condition. Today you have serious patients in ICU from all age groups. Before we’d say it was almost 90% elderly. Today they’re still the majority, but not in same way,” Boulos added.
“We don’t yet know how this works, but it’s what we are seeing … There’s no other reason why young people would suddenly start suffering from a more serious disease.”
São Paulo’s health secretary, Jean Gorinchteyn, this week told reporters that in many of that state’s ICUs half of patients were now under 50. “I’m talking about 26 and 29 and 30-year-olds – often in a very grave condition,” he said, urging citizens to avoid crowds and remain at home. “We all need to understand that what is happening right now is a different pandemic from the one we saw last year,” Gorinchteyn claimed.”
