Brazil Now Has More Young Than Old Covid Patients In ICUs

The number of people aged 39 or younger in intensive care units with Covid-19 in March rose sharply to more than 11,000, or 52.2 percent of the total, said the Brazilian ICU Project.

The number of Covid-19 patients under 40 in intensive care in Brazil surpassed older groups last month, a researcher said Sunday, amid a deadly surge driven partly by a new coronavirus variant. The number of people aged 39 or younger in intensive care units with Covid-19 in March rose sharply to more than 11,000, or 52.2 percent of the total, said the Brazilian ICU Project. That was up from 14.6 percent of total ICU patients early in the pandemic and around 45 percent from September through February. "Previously, this was a population that would typically only develop a less-severe form of the disease and would not need intensive care. So the increase for this age group is very significant," said Dr. Ederlon Rezende, co-coordinator of the project, an initiative of the Brazilian Association of Intensive Medicine (AMIB).