Most COVID-19 ICU patients in Brazil are now under 40 years old. Experts think the spread of a variant is to blame.

Most of Brazil's COVID-19 patients in ICUs last week were under 40, the country's Association of Intensive Care Medicine said.

And while it's not entirely known why younger patients are now being hospitalized with COVID-19, a Brazilian expert told The Guardian that a new variant found in the Brazilian Amazon could be to blame.

"It's clearly connected to the P1 variant," said Marcos Boulos, an infectious disease specialist from the University of São Paulo told The Guardian.

Boulos said the variant is spreading quickly and that younger people are being sickened by the disease.