A newborn baby is seen in a hospital wearing a protective face shield during the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreak in Bangkok
(Photo: Reuters)

It is known that most coronavirus patients are above the age of 50 and already have underlying health conditions. However, young and healthy people are also at risk.

The Director-General of the World Health Organization (WHO), Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said that young people must not be confident about not acquiring the coronavirus because of age limits.

According to him, young people are not invincible. He added that the virus could infect people in hospitals for weeks, it can even kill people and people under the age of 50 years old make up a significant portion of patients that need to be admitted into the hospital. 

This also became a contrast to the issues that suggest that only older people, people with underlying conditions and people who are potential in having life-threatening pneumonia are at risk of acquiring coronavirus. 

It was sad news when an infant who was infected with the coronavirus passed away in Illinois. Though, it is not yet verified as to whether the infant had any underlying health conditions.

Meanwhile, there was also a report that a healthy teenager died in Los Angeles after contracting coronavirus.

In the United Kingdom, there were two reported cases of teenagers who had no underlying conditions but also died after acquiring the virus. The teenagers were 13 and 19 years old. 

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Studies show that eight in every 10 people who have tested positive in the virus are over 65 years old but two of those patients are young. If it is going to be multiplied on a worldwide scale, numbers will overflow of younger patients who died of coronavirus. 

Studies also show that the people who are under the age of 50 have stronger immune systems which means that their bodies recognize a new foreign agent that enters our body which COVID-19 that acts quick in entering and destroying if it gets inside their cells, antibodies must also be produced to further make a quick response in fighting the foreign agent. 

Before coronavirus will act and cause serious damage in the body like difficulties in breathing and severe pneumonia cases in the lungs, the immune system should have fought it off the body, and the body must be well and on its way to the recovery stage suffering only fever, dry cough, and fatigue.

But, it is ironically the youth's blossoming immune system that may have been the problem as well as the root cause of why the people below 50 years old are still being infected and dying due to the virus.

As the immune system still fights off foreign entries of unknown agents in our body and attacks it, other small harmless genetic and environmental factors can also cause the immune system to go overdrive. 

The inflammatory cells in our body which are called the "cytokines" help off provide a combative environment for the infection and the inflammatory cells set off a chain reaction which is called a cytokine storm. However, there are uncommon cases like an overreaction on the part of the immune system that can cause problems.

Prolonged overreaction of the cytokine storm in the body can cause difficulties in breathing and some may shutdown completely clogging the airways that can lead to suffocation. 

To have a balance between the cases, doctors must prescribe the proper drugs for the patients for their immune systems to suppress it and stop the overreaction but not take it off completely for the body to fight the bacteria and patients must also have ventilators that will help their lungs so they can breathe properly until they can breathe on their own.