COVID-19 patients were younger in early 2021 vs late 2020

The average hospitalized COVID-19 patient was younger this past spring than last winter, researchers at a large Pennsylvania health system found.

They analyzed data from nearly 39,000 COVID-19 patients, including 7,774 who were hospitalized. People who tested positive in March and April 2021, when the Alpha variant of the coronavirus was circulating, were younger and less likely to die compared to those diagnosed between November 2020 and January 2021.

Among patients under 50, those who tested positive the spring were three times as likely to be hospitalized and twice as likely to require ICU admission or mechanical ventilation as those diagnosed in the winter before Alpha was widely circulating, according to a report posted on Wednesday on medRxiv ahead of peer review.

“The widespread availability of highly effective vaccines holds promise,” they said, “but infections and deaths from the disease continue…This dynamic is particularly concerning in light of the continued emergence of novel SARS-CoV-2 variants.”