HILLSBOROUGH COUNTY, Fla. (WFLA) – During the Hillsborough County Emergency Policy Group meeting on Thursday, a pediatrics expert recommended that local officials closely watch coronavirus trends in children and young adults.
Dr. John Curran, a University of South Florida Professor Emeritus and chairman of the county’s Health Care Advisory Board, presented a detailed report to the EPG on local pandemic data by age breakdown.
During his presentation, he mentioned the 5 to 19 school-age group on average accounts for 10 percent of the positive cases that have been reported in Hillsborough County within the last 30 days.
The age group that appears to have the largest impact of COVID-19 cases appears to be in the 20 to 24 college-age range.
While a majority of children are not as severely impacted by COVID-19 as adults, Curran said the state’s data shows that 96 percent of hospitalizations are of people older than 25 and that there is still a lot of uncertainty over how the virus is transmitted between children and adults.
Curran also mentioned that since the current positivity rates for school-age and college-age groups have taken place within the past 30 days when nearly all schools and universities have not held classes, emergency leaders and officials need to closely monitor the trends and respond according.
On Thursday, Hillsborough County reported 541 new coronavirus cases, totaling 25,432 cases in total. Additionally, the county has seen 278 total deaths and 1,085 total hospitalizations.
