The novel coronavirus has affected hundreds of thousands of people across the globe , according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. And while the majority of COVID-19 cases continue to largely affect older adults or those with preexisting health conditions, experts stress that the coronavirus can be extremely dangerous for the young and healthy, too.

Weve unfortunately seen very young people have severe cases of coronavirus, said Aaron Glatt , chairman of infectious diseases and hospital epidemiologist at Mount Sinai South Nassau in Hewlett, New York. There are people who are in their 20s, 30s, 40s, and certainly in their 50s who are unfortunately getting very sick. It is a myth that healthy young people have nothing to be concerned about.

Heres why young and/or healthy people should be concerned about coronavirus, and what to do about it:

Early data is what led experts to believe young people werent as susceptible

COVID-19 is a new strain of coronavirus that were experiencing, making any data experts have to examine extremely limited.

Early tracking reports of coronavirus from China showed that young people tended to get milder cases of the disease, said Seema Sarin, director of lifestyle medicine for EHE Health in New York. But we now know as we experience the virus first-hand there are cases of young adults and children getting extremely sick and even dying of the virus.

Original guidelines showed that the focus should be on elderly and those who are immunocompromised, added Janette Nesheiwat , a family and emergency doctor based in New York. And its true that those individuals are the ones who are at risk the most and need protecting.