Coping with COVID; are Generation Z and Millennials not worried enough?

BY JANIECE CAMPBELL

Another coronavirus story… are you sick of hearing about it once again? Well, it seems as if many young people are in the same boat. In fact, according to the Pew Research Center, 35% of American youth between the ages of 18 to 29 believe that the pandemic has been made a bigger deal than it really is.

As multiple Ontario regions make the shift back to Stage 3 and restrictions begin to loosen, there is a concern that people under 40 will primarily drive the spread increase.

It’s easy to point fingers at young people. Unfortunately, it’s our demographic that’s throwing the holiday parties and going out to nightclubs. The carelessness and lack of panic could be attributed to the fact that 20 to 29-year olds only accounted for a mere 28,000 positive cases nation-wide since the beginning of the pandemic. Out of those cases, 1.3% have been admitted to hospital and 10 have died, according to the Public Health Agency of Canada. Young adults generally experience milder symptoms as well, which often leads to the question; what’s the big deal?

While only few younger COVID-19 patients suffer a long-lasting illness, the virus’s slight effect on most healthy twenty-somethings is precisely what makes the age cohort dangerous. It’s been observed that younger people tend to live and work in situations that put them at much higher risk, whether it’s part-time jobs, needing to rely on public transit, schooling, housing or social situations. They also tend to have bigger social circles, while still being attached to their families.

“You end up having different social networks,” says Dr. Andrew Morris, a professor at the faculty of medicine at the University of Toronto. “Compared to a 10-year-old whose main network is their household, plus or minus a few friends, a young adult may not live with their parents anymore, so they may have roommates. Then they’re suddenly part of a much larger bubble.”

The problem is exactly that. After working and/or socializing all day, many are often unaware of that they’ve contracted the virus and continue to live their lives normally, visiting social hotspots or having dinner with extended family and proceeding to unwittingly spread the illness. Researchers say though that it isn’t always the large, headline-making crowds that fuel the spread of COVID-19. Instead, it’s being transmitted within smaller circles.

In early September, pool parties, card games and sleepovers were linked to one single family’s social life, which was responsible for a total of 31 positive cases in Windsor. Youth ages 14 to 19 made up the majority of the infected, with a total of 19 out of 31.

“The vast majority of transmission is with close contact with someone who’s infected, typically for a prolonged period of time in an indoor environment,” said Dr. Isaac Bogoch, a Toronto-based infectious disease specialist.
It’s clear that COVID-19 isn’t disappearing anytime soon. Controlling the pandemic from this point on now lies on persuading young adults to take heed and be willing to endure a long winter of loneliness, not only for the protection of themselves but for the sake of others. The issue at hand may not be if young people take this virus seriously, but more so how can they learn to cope and live on without this constant fear of getting it.

Toronto-based neurologist and science communicator Samantha Yammine says in an interview with Healthing that it’s important to give young people harm reduction tips instead of simply pointing to accidents in order to make smarter choices.

“Instead of saying, ‘don’t do this, don’t go to parties, don’t do that,’ what can we do? What are the things we can do to minimize risk, knowing that we’ll never have zero risk, because it’s just impossible,” Yammine says. “If we focus on what we can do versus what we can’t do, we can empower people to make decisions that are more safe but allow them to live their lives.”