Alliance for Pandemic Preparedness

October 16, 2020

Decreasing Median Age of COVID-19 Cases in the United States—Changing Epidemiology or Changing Surveillance?

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A retrospective review of SARS-CoV-2-positive molecular testing results in the US between early (March-April 2020) and later periods (June-July 2020) found a trend toward decreasing age among people with laboratory-confirmed SARS-CoV-2 infection, but that these trends seem to be specific to the outpatient population. In the early period, the median age of individuals testing positive was 41 years, while In June-July, the median was 36 years. In addition, the positivity rate for individuals under 50 increased from 6% to 11%, and the positivity rate for those over 50 decreased from 6% to 5% between the two periods. Almost all of the samples were collected from Utah, and the authors note that this may impact generalizability of the findings. [EDITORIAL NOTE: A pre-print version of this article was summarized in the Lit Rep on July 27, 2020].

Greene et al. (Oct 15, 2020). Decreasing Median Age of COVID-19 Cases in the United States—Changing Epidemiology or Changing Surveillance? PLOS ONE. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0240783