More Houston-area residents younger than age 60 are testing positive for the novel coronavirus than are older persons considered most at risk of developing serious complications from the illness.
Middle-age adults — those in their 40s and 50s — account for the lion’s share of cases where there have been positive tests, according to a Houston Chronicle analysis.
A review of 164 cases from March 4 through Monday in counties with confirmed diagnoses — Harris, Fort Bend, Montgomery, Brazoria, Galveston, Liberty and Chambers — show around 78 percent of COVID-19 cases in the Houston region are of children and adults under the age of 60. People older than that, who federal health authorities say are more likely to require hospital care if infected, make up about 21 percent of those who have tested positive.
The data does not include Fort Bend County from March 22 onward as officials there have since stopped publishing individual case data, such as age and gender.
The review also does not include people who tested negative for the virus because most counties have not provided that information.
U.S. Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, a Houston Democrat, last week noticed a similar trend among seniors at United Memorial Medical Center, a private hospital in Acres Home. She concluded that fewer seniors were showing up to be tested. The municipal health jurisdictions consider data from third-party testing sites, such as the hospital, to be unconfirmed until they have reviewed it.
About 40 young adults in their 20s and 30s tested positive for the illness during the nearly three-week period, as local governments increased their calls for social distancing, according to the analysis.
Even a handful of children in the Houston region tested positive for the novel coronavirus.
Dr. Umair Shah, executive director of Harris County Public Health, was aware of the trend of younger people contracting the novel coronavirus.
“People like me, who feel like they can go out and do everything — we, too, can test positive,” Shah said Tuesday morning at a news conference, where officials also announced a stay-at-home order.
“All of us have the potential of transmitting that to others,” he continued.
Harris County’s stay-at-home order was issued as an attempt to drastically reduce the number of new COVID-19 cases before the virus overwhelms the local healthcare system.
Already, the Houston area’s rate of hospitalization has been higher than what was recorded in the Chinese city of Wuhan — where COVID-19 originated — and in New York, where authorities have watched more than 25,000 cases unfold. Health officials have attributed the increased hospitalization rate to the initial inability to test as the pandemic first crept into the community.
Both ages groups — those under 60 and those older — have had nearly the same number of hospitalizations, data shows.
The majority of the initial cases for the Houston region were from patients in their 60s, most of whom were vacationers on board a Nile river cruise in Egypt.
While it is nearly impossible to compare local numbers to the national trend due to the lack of consistency among local health authorities on how to disclose the age of those testing positive, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported last week that 29 percent of U.S. cases — of 4,226 people — were among those 20 to 44.
Persons age 65 to 84 accounted for 25 percent of the case total.
Data from the initial outbreak in China has indicated that older adults, especially those with underlying health issues, are at a higher risk of complications — even death — than younger people, according to the CDC study.
nicole.hensley@chron.com
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March 26, 2020 at 10:43AM
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Middle-age Houstonians highest group testing positive for coronavirus, analysis finds - Houston Chronicle
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