Americans between the ages of 20 and 49 were responsible for more than 70% of the spread.
A new study reaffirms that while severe coronavirus disease and death affect older people more, younger adults are the cause of the spread.
Americans between the ages of 20 and 49 were responsible for more than 70% of the spread of COVID-19 last year, according to a study by the Department of Mathematics at Imperial College London.
The report, which was published Tuesday in Science, noted that deaths in late summer and fall were mostly from people over the age of 50 and not from the younger population.
“This addresses this underlying false narrative … that if you protect the most vulnerable, you can let the virus go,” Dr. John Brownstein, epidemiologist at Boston Children’s Hospital and contributor to ABC News. “If you let it run in younger age groups, it will still affect the elderly and vulnerable groups.”
As the country begins to return from the second wave of cases and vaccination increases, the authors of the paper asked young adults to heed health warnings to curb the spread.
The researchers used mathematical equations, mobility data, and other information to determine the correlation between age groups and the spread of coronavirus.
The report concluded that one of the most important factors in the spread was the general movement of young and middle-aged adults among them.
“Some age groups, such as young adults, dropped their guard,” said Brownstein, who was not involved in the study. “[The report] puts more responsibility on those younger age groups who were trying to live a normal life and had a bit of fatigue from COVID. “
The authors of the paper also found that after the reopening of schools in the fall, children and adolescents aged 0 to 19 years contributed to 15% of COVID-19 cases. According to the report, the children did not have as much mixing with other groups.
“This adds to the growing body of knowledge that allowing school-age children to return to classrooms with good protocols in place will not be the main driver of transmission in the community,” Brownstein said.
The report said that “additional interventions among adults aged 20 to 49” would prevent the spread of COVID-19.
“I think we know we need to get the vaccine to the most vulnerable, but strategies that allow us to combine different age groups and have more access are also good,” Brownstein said. “If we have an oversupply … it’s not wrong to extend it to others.”
Eric Strauss of ABC News contributed to this report.