EXPERTS are warning the young and healthy not to be complacent over the coronavirus - saying they are still dying and becoming seriously ill from the respiratory infection.

The concerns further emerged on Wednesday when Dr Deborah Birx, a leader on the White House's medical task force for the pandemic, especially said that younger people must observe the restrictions and not think themselves invulnerable from being affected or from carrying the virus.

Around the world more than 200,000 people in around 170 countries have been infected with Covid-19 since the outbreak began in China in December.

Most of the 8,000 fatalities recorded across the world have been people who are elderly or suffer underlying conditions, and have weakened immune systems.

But health experts are warning that it's not impossible for younger adults to have a severe form of the disease or even die from it, even those who don't have any other obvious risk factors.

In Italy, which has been placed in lockdown,  12% per cent of those who have been treated in intensive care are aged between 19 and 50, according to official figures released last week. Around 52 per cent are between 51 and 70 years old, with the rest all over 70. 

A study published two days ago examining 2143 young patients with the coronavirus in China, supported by the Science and Technology Commission of Shanghai Municipality found that children at all ages were susceptible to Covid-19 and no significant gender difference was found.  But symptoms were generally less severe than those of adults’ patients. However, young children, particularly infants, were vulnerable.

Ms Brix said:"There are concerning reports coming out of France and Italy that some young people are getting seriously ill, and very seriously ill in the ICUs (intensive care units).

"Part of this may be that people heeded the early data coming out of China and out of South Korea that the elderly and people with pre-existing medical conditions were at particular risk.

"It may have been the millennial generation, our largest generation, our future, that will carry us through for multiple decades, there may be disproportional number of infections among that group.

"We are looking at that information very carefully."

Bruce Aylward, who led the World Health Organisation's recent mission to assess the pandemic in China, said his team found there had been many deaths in people without other health conditions, and in people decades younger than the groups deemed most at risk.

"In some areas there were less than 50, less than 20 per cent who [local healthcare workers] could identify had comorbid conditions," Dr Aylward said.

"Indeed, people who did have comorbid conditions had a much higher ratio of dying from the disease, but in most people there were no other predictors, apart from age, that they could die.

"I would also emphasise that there were a lot of people in their 30s, 40s, 50s, who were dying as well," said Dr Aylward, speaking in a webinar for Australian health protection officers earlier this month.

The Herald:

Chinese health officials carried out the biggest ever study on the never-before-seen strain of the virus, using data from 72,000 cases. They found 19 per cent of patients who died were below the age of 60 years.

Mr Aylward said it was a worrying situation that's played out in China and elsewhere.