Doctors in Italy have warned against the misconception that young people will not suffer as badly as the elderly from COVID-19.
It comes as the head of the World Health Organisation (WHO) said young people are “not invincible” and can still die from coronavirus or be confined to hospital “for weeks”.
Dr Antonio Pesenti, the head of Lombardy’s intensive crisis care unit, said many younger people were being admitted to hospital with severe cases of the coronavirus.
“50% of our patients in the intensive care unit, which are the most severe patients, are over 65 years old,” he said.
“But that means that the other 50% of our patients are younger than 65.
“We have patients who are 20 years old or 30 years old, quite a few, and those are severe like the old ones.”
Dr Pesenti said that in his experience the only difference between the two groups was that “younger people are usually healthier, so they survive more.”
Part of the reason Italy has had a higher mortality rate than other countries is because it has a larger population of older people.
However, the fact that the elderly are more likely to die from the virus does not mean young people will experience a milder form of the disease or are less likely to get infected.
In Italy almost a quarter of their nearly 28,000 coronavirus patients are aged between 19 and 50.
Speaking at an online press conference in Geneva on Friday, director general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said: “Every day, we are learning more about this virus and the disease it causes.
"One of the things we are learning is that although older people are the hardest hit, younger people are not spared.
"Data from many countries clearly show that people under 50 make up a significant proportion of patients requiring hospitalisation.
"Today, I have a message for young people: you are not invincible. This virus could put you in hospital for weeks, or even kill you.
"Even if you don’t get sick, the choices you make about where you go could be the difference between life and death for someone else.