By Jacqueline Stenson - NBC News
Before contracting COVID-19 in June, Stephanie Moir ran almost every day pushing her two young children in a stroller.
Now she has trouble getting out of bed and taking a shower.
She has been dealing with the disease for months and still does not see a full recovery in sight.
His battle has included eight trips to the emergency room and two hospitalizations for a variety of problems, including pneumonia, recurrent diarrhea, fast heartbeats, infections, kidney problems, muscle weakness and electrolyte imbalances.
You have lost 30 pounds.
"I thought I was 33 and healthy," said Moir, a mental health counselor in Tampa, Florida, "I've never had a history of anything, even remotely like this."
Moir has seen about 20 different healthcare providers, including numerous specialists, and has taken various medications, as well as supplements, but is not completely cured.
She takes comfort in the support she receives from her family, friends and an online community, where she connects with others infected with coronavirus who are also trying to cope with persistent symptoms.
"I count my
good days
and I think the most I've had so far has been eight in a row," Moir said, "and what I mean by good days are days when I literally don't feel like I'm about to. die, I don't need to go to the emergency room, nor do I feel like I'm losing the ability to walk. "
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While young adults may think they are strong and invincible, doctors warn that COVID-19 can also attack them viciously.
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Recently, Adeline Fagan's family announced that the 28-year-old Houston OB-GYN doctor of residence died of the virus after a long hospital stay.
Natalie Hakala, 22, was a healthy college athlete before having to go to the emergency room in August after testing positive for COVID-19, and she has yet to make a full recovery.
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New findings on the disease released this month further reveal how severely young adults can be affected by the coronavirus.
Research published in the scientific journal JAMA Internal Medicine revealed that among more than 3,200 adults aged 18 to 34 who were hospitalized with the disease, 21% required intensive care, 10% required mechanical ventilation, and nearly 3% (88 patients ) died.
Of those who survived, 3% (99 patients) had to be treated at another healthcare facility to continue their recovery.
Young people at a party after the coronavirus quarantine in the United States Getty Images
"While the vast majority of young adults who contract COVID-19 will not require hospitalization, those who do have a really high risk of adverse consequences," according to study author Scott Solomon, a professor of medicine at Harvard. Medical School, "is not trivial."
The results of this research are concerning because the incidence of COVID-19 in the United States is now higher among young adults aged 20 to 29, who from June to August accounted for more than 20% of all confirmed cases, according to the latest figures from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
Adults aged 30 to 39 years were in the second age group most affected by the disease.
As young adults have returned to college campuses and party again in recent weeks, multiple colleges across the country have reported multiple outbreaks.
Doctors are concerned about the spread of infections and severe cases as a result of coronavirus infections.
"We are seeing a really increasing incidence of COVID-19 in young people, and that is partly due to their activity during the summer - when states began to lift the quarantine - and obviously we are all very concerned when they return to universities," Solomon warned.
"It is unfortunate, but I think we are likely to see a higher percentage of young people experiencing these adverse outcomes as the number of infections increases in this population group," he said.
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Risk to life for patients of all ages
Solomon and his colleagues used a large database of healthcare facilities to look at the incidence of serious illness from COVID-19 in young adults hospitalized in April, May and June.
Data from the more than 1,000 U.S. hospitals that treated a total of 63,103 coronavirus patients during the study period, 3,222 patients, or 5%, were young adults admitted to 419 hospitals.
58% of young adult patients were male and 57% were black or Hispanic.
More than a third were obese, including 25% who were morbidly obese (with a body mass index of 40% or more), 18% had diabetes, and 16% had hypertension.
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Young adult patients who suffered from more than one of these underlying health conditions had the same risks as middle-aged adults without those conditions, the research concluded.
The results also showed that the risks of dying or needing mechanical ventilation were more than doubled in young adult patients who were morbidly obese or had hypertension.
While the 2.7% death rate among young adults recorded at the participating hospitals was lower than that of older adults, it is roughly twice that of young adults who have suffered a heart attack.
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While young people often tend to downplay overall health risks, they shouldn't downplay the threat of COVID-19, Solomon emphasized.
They should take precautions to protect themselves and others, he urged, and those with underlying health problems should be especially vigilant.
"Young people should not assume that they are immune to the consequences of this disease and should do everything possible to avoid it," he asked.
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In a comment that accompanied the article, Mitchell Katz, deputy editor of JAMA Internal Medicine and CEO of NYC Health and Hospitals, wrote that the findings show that "COVID-19 is not forgiving of young people."
The document states that "COVID-19 is a life-threatening disease in people of all ages and that social distancing, face covering and other measures to prevent transmission are just as important in young adults as in older people."
Gregory Poland, an infectious disease expert at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, recommended that people of all ages with conditions such as hypertension and diabetes consult their doctors to ensure their conditions are treated properly and that obese people should strive in losing weight to be healthier.
"If you have these risk factors, it's really important that you control them," Poland said. "The better controlled they are, the lower your susceptibility and risk."
Early in the pandemic, COVID-19 was labeled an "elderly disease," but researchers now know that this is not an accurate description, according to Lewis Kaplan, president of the Society of Critical Care Medicine and professor of surgery at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia.
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Even people who are young and have no underlying health problems can become seriously ill, and there is no way to know in advance how someone will respond to infection, Kaplan said.
Importantly, young adults who don't get very sick can still pass the virus to more exposed populations.
"There is no population without risk," he said, "youth does not confer security and should not support complacency."
After everything Moir has been through, she feels lucky to be alive.
"When you are young, you think that you are invincible in many ways" he concludes, "and we are not."