More young people are being admitted to hospital in Italy with coronavirus, as the outbreak continues Younger people with lots of social contact are more at risk of contracting the disease if they do not stick to social distancing rules

Younger people are contracting coronavirus in Italy, according to a health official, as more than 17,600 people are infected in Europe’s worst-hit country.

Luca Lorini, the head of anaesthesia and intensive care at a northern Italian hospital believes the type of coronavirus patient is changing.

He said: “They are a bit younger, between 40 to 45 years old and the cases are more complicated.”

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Dr Lorini works at a Bergamo hospital and told the radio programme RaiNews24: ”People are arriving who got ill six or seven days ago and treated themselves at home – and then their conditions became more and more critical.”

The virus has spread

According to official figures released last week, twelve per cent of those who have been treated in intensive care are aged between 19 and 50.

Approximately 52 per cent are between 51 and 70 years old, with the remainder all over 70.

Local media reports reveal how Lombardy hospitals have witnessed citizens aged between 25 and 50 diagnosed with coronavirus, and subsequently hospitalised for treatment.

Pierluigi Lopalco, a professor from Pisa University, told the Italian newspaper Il Corriere della Sera : “Even if the data is only preliminary, the fact there are more young people hospitalised and in intensive care compared to the first wave can be interpreted as a natural phenomenon.

“In Italy, the first clusters of the infection started around hospitals, more commonly frequented by older people, and in small towns.

“Now the virus has spread, it is travelling around the whole country way more and it is younger people, with lots of social contact, that are more at risk of contracting the disease if they do not stick to the rules of social distancing.”

The whole of Italy was placed in lockdown last Sunday, as confirmed cases of coronavirus skyrocketed.

More than 1,400 people who tested positive for coronavirus have died in Italy, with 21,157 infections to date.

On Friday the country recorded 250 deaths from coronavirus in one day, the highest number so far within a 24 hour timespan.