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A new analysis reveals that more than 44% of new diagnoses are in people age 34 or younger, up from 29% a month ago. Only 30.5% are in people over age 50.
As California’s economy opens up, coronavirus cases are getting younger and younger. An analysis released this week reveals that more than 44% of new diagnoses are in people age 34 or younger, up from 29% a month ago. There’s a corresponding drop in cases among older people. The proportion of COVID-19 cases among Californians older than 50 has plummeted from 46% to 30.5% in the past month. The proportion of cases among middle-aged Californians — ages 35 to 49 — has plateaued, neither rising nor falling.
“It is striking that there is such a strong shift. Cases are much younger now than they were earlier in the pandemic,” said infectious disease epidemiologist George Lemp, who calculated the trends using historical data from the California Department of Public Health. “It may reflect the opening up of California since mid-May, particularly among younger people who may have started to move away from the practices of social distancing and consistent mask use,” he said. It’s unknown whether the shift is in part due to the increased availability of tests to everyone who wants one. California has significantly expanded its testing capacity — scaling up from just 2,000 per day in April to more than 60,000 tests per day this week. The state does not report overall trends in COVID-19 cases, by age. But Lemp recorded and archived the data from three different snapshots in time to detect the dramatic shift.
People between ages of 18 to 34 now claim the largest share of new infections in the state, with 12,919 known cases diagnosed between May 31 to June 13. The second largest group, with 9,691 new cases, are people between the ages of 35 and 49. There has been a worrisome jump in youth under the age of 17. From the beginning of the pandemic until May 13, cases were rare, with a cumulative tally of only 2,799 diagnoses reported in this group. But that number was surpassed in merely two weeks, between May 14 and May 30, with 3,455 new cases. And it was exceeded again between May 31 and June 13, with 3,930 new cases....
