Young people are not immune to the coronavirus

The refrain from the Sound of Music’s “How do you solve a problem like Maria?” has been running through our heads lately. Except we’re thinking less about a particular person and more about a group of people. Specifically, a subset of young people who believe themselves immune to catching and carrying the coronavirus.

Before we go any further, we’d first like to thank the majority of young folk — individuals in their teens, 20s and 30s — who have taken this pandemic seriously. We’d like to remind them — and our older readers — that this is not a general rant about Millennials and Gen Z, but a message to the few who make the rest look bad. Hopefully, those who have taken social distancing and other health guidelines seriously can help us spread the message to the people who just don’t get it yet:

Young people are not immune to the coronavirus.

Early data from multiple countries showed younger folks were at lower risk for complications related to COVID-19 that could result in death. We knew people under 50 could get COVID-19; we just thought it was significantly less dangerous than it has turned out to be.

West Virginia’s sixth coronavirus-related death was a 25-year-old man from Logan County. None of the reports about his passing indicate he had underlying health problems. So a (theoretically) healthy young man died from COVID-19 after spending two weeks on a ventilator. Think about that.

The CDC reports 83 coronavirus-related deaths for people under 35, but it also notes their numbers are low because of delays in reporting. The Washington Post reports there have been 759 people under 50 who have died from COVID-19. Of those, 45 were people in their 20s, and 190 were people in their 30s.

These are people with their entire lives ahead of them.

Hundreds of futures just … gone.

If young people can’t be convinced to stay home to protect their parents and grandparents, maybe they can be convinced to stay home to protect themselves.

In Morgantown in the last week, arrests were made after a group of people in their 20s had a party, violating the executive order to keep gatherings to five people or less. More than a dozen WVU students went on spring break and returned to off-campus housing; now they’ve tested positive for COVID-19. A student in Towers (unrelated to the off-campus dozen) has tested positive.

Young people aren’t immune to COVID-19.

To everyone — of all ages — who has followed the guidelines for social distancing and other protective measures, thank you. If you see a young person who doesn’t seem to be following good health practices, treat them kindly. Remind them gently that these protections are as much for them as for everyone else. Remind them that none of us are immune. There is so much about the coronavirus we don’t know yet. We’re getting new information every day and making adjustments accordingly. It will take all of us — the young, the old, the healthy, the infirmed and everyone in between — to get through this pandemic. And the best way to do that is to work together, not against each other.