Center for Latino Adolescent and Family Health, New York University, New York, New York, USA.
Adolescent AIDS Program, Department of Pediatrics, Children's Hospital at Montefiore Medical Center, Bronx, New York, USA.
Clin Infect Dis. 2021 Jul 30;73(Suppl 2):S146-S163. doi: 10.1093/cid/ciaa1348.
Evidence regarding the important role of adolescents and young adults (AYA) in accelerating and sustaining coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) outbreaks is growing. Furthermore, data suggest that 2 known factors that contribute to high severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) transmissibility-presymptomatic transmission and asymptomatic case presentations-may be amplified in AYA. However, AYA have not been prioritized as a key population in the public health response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Policy decisions that limit public health attention to AYA and are driven by the assumption of insignificant forward transmission from AYA pose a risk of inadvertent reinvigoration of local transmission dynamics. In this viewpoint, we highlight evidence regarding the increased potential of AYA to transmit SARS-CoV-2 that, to date, has received little attention, discuss adolescent and young adult-specific considerations for future COVID-19 control measures, and provide applied programmatic suggestions.
越来越多的证据表明，青少年和青年人（AYA）在加速和维持 2019 年冠状病毒病（COVID-19）爆发方面发挥着重要作用。此外，数据表明，导致高严重急性呼吸综合征冠状病毒 2（SARS-CoV-2）传染性的 2 个已知因素——症状前传播和无症状病例表现——可能在 AYA 中放大。然而，AYA 并未被优先作为 COVID-19 大流行公共卫生应对的重点人群。这些政策决策将公共卫生注意力限制在 AYA 身上，并受到来自 AYA 人群中无症状传播风险较低的假设的驱动，这可能会无意中重新激发当地传播动态。在本观点中，我们强调了迄今为止很少受到关注的有关 AYA 传播 SARS-CoV-2 的潜在风险的证据，讨论了针对未来 COVID-19 控制措施的青少年和青年特有的考虑因素，并提供了实用的项目建议。
