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Originally Posted by thelionkinglives
I would question any source that you see that says that it is MOSTLY killing HEALTHY people between 20-40. That's just not logical for any virus. I'm not saying that in underdeveloped countries that healthy young adults haven't died but I highly doubt that it is taking the healthy age group MORE than the others. Perhaps it is claiming more healthy people than typical but I can't see it being more than people who are already compromised from a health aspect.
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You'd think so, but you'd be wrong. Pandemics of new flu viruses often do kill healthy adults more than the sick, old or very young. This happened in the 1918-1919 pandemic. The speculation is that the immune system in healthy adults is stronger and can create a fatal inflammation of the lungs.
It is the fact that the Mexican cases of this virus seems to have preferentially killed people in the 20-40 y.o. range that is one of the main reasons epidemiologists are alarmed by it.
But to put the alarm in perspective, afaik all the cases in the U.S. have been mild, and only one required hospitalization and recovered. The high death rate in Mexico may be a statistical problem - they were surveilling for people with severe illness (e.g. hospitalized), and out of those 7% or so died. But they may be missing a much larger pool of people with mild illness, so the real fatality rate may be much much lower in Mexico - maybe more in line with the ordinary flu.
And, in fact, they are still not certain that the deaths in Mexico weren't caused by something else in the environment (for instance another virus).