Director of the National Institute for Allergy and Infectious Diseases Dr. Anthony Fauci testifies before the House Committee on Energy and Commerce on the Trump Administration’s Response to the COVID-19 Pandemic, on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC, June 23, 2020.
Kevin Dietsch | Pool via Reuters
Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation’s leading infectious disease expert, said Tuesday that doctors and infectious disease specialists are seeing “more and more” complications with Covid-19 in young people.
Early in the outbreak in the U.S., researchers said the virus appeared to be sparing young people while being particularly severe in the elderly and those with underlying health conditions.
That’s not the case, Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said during a hearing before the House Energy and Commerce Committee. “To think young people have no deleterious consequences is not true. We’re seeing more and more complications in young people.”
Fauci said he’s never seen a single virus have such a wide range of symptoms.
Some people have no symptoms while “some get mild symptoms and some get symptoms enough to put them at home for a few days. Some are in bed for weeks and have symptoms even after they recover, others go to the hospital, some require oxygen, some require intensive care, some get intubated and some die,” he said.
The comment came as officials say more young people are ignoring social distancing measures and testing positive.
Fauci added that young people who are asymptomatic, those who never develop symptoms, can also pass the virus on to others. Young people should “care” not only for their own health risks but for the “dynamics of the outbreak,” he said.
“If you get infected and spread the infection, even though you do not get sick, you are part of the process of the dynamics of an outbreak in what you might be propagating,” he said. “[And] inadvertently is infecting someone who then infects someone who then is someone who is vulnerable. That could be your grandmother, your grandfather, your sick uncle, who winds up dying.”
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.