The Vulnerability of the Young
By Albert B. Kelly
A journalist a few weeks back pointed out the irony in the
fact that we’re supposed to come together to fight this pandemic by staying six
feet apart. As I think about it, these days are filled with irony- like the
fact that we’ve spent so much of the last decade distracted by our screens- now
screens are the only way we can really connect.
We’re fighting an enemy that we can’t see and one we don’t
really understand in a battle that we only have a vague sense of when it began
and no real idea of when it will end or even what victory looks like- sort of
like Vietnam. We don’t yet know the extent of the damage and we won’t for some
time to come. For now, progress will be defined by “flattening the curve”.
Beyond flattening the curve, a small victory will be getting
our people back to work. For others, victory might be going into a store
without needing a mask, though I think it will be a while before we get there. But
I worry a lot about the young these days because their youth works against them-
their strength and vigor gives them the false belief that this pandemic is no
big deal.
Yet in looking at the daily tally of confirmed Covid-19
infections in our county and particularly in Bridgeton, it is the young who are
increasingly being infected. As I write this on the first weekend in May, no
less than 50% of positive cases in Bridgeton are among those in their thirties
or younger. County-wide, as well as in Millville and Vineland, those numbers
are 36%, 28%, and 30% respectively.
We’re working hard to get the word out to young people on
social distancing, masks, and hand-washing. We’ve spoken with the folks running
the Mr. Softy Ice Cream Truck about insisting that customers observe social
distancing. Our police have issued citations for the dirt bike posse both for
the riding and the lack of a mask. I fear that the young are getting complacent
about protocols. Now is not the time.
This is not just about protecting us elders. Within the last
couple of weeks has it emerged that young adults who have tested positive for
Covid-19 are also suffering major strokes from blood clots. This virus is
responsible for pulmonary emboli in otherwise healthy young people. Beyond
that, a recent study in the British Journal of Hematology pointed to the fact
that when it comes to Covid-19, the incidence of blood clots are much higher in
African-Americans as compared to Caucasians and Chinese.
My point is that we will not see the type of
curve-flattening we want or need until we convince young adults and teens to
make wearing a mask, maintaining a proper distance, washing hands and whatever
else emerges as guidance a regular part of their daily lives for however long
it takes. It sucks that they have to grow up in a world where such things
become normalized, yet each generation has had to answer the call of history as
it came.
I think about the generation that had to grow into adulthood
during the Great Depression only to find that when they got there, they had to
go off to war to beat back Hitler and the Japanese in World War II. If that
generation is the measure, then maybe wearing a mask, social distancing, and
washing your hands raw doesn’t seem that bad. It all depends on your frame of
reference.
This coming summer will likely be devoted to a lot of
planning as schools all the way up to colleges and universities figure out what
they’re going to do and how they’re going to do it. If we’re going to succeed
in enlisting the help of the young in containing this pandemic, much of it will
have to happen in these halls of learning. My sense is that it will take more
than simply insisting on a set of rules and protocols. The effort will involve
educating them on the science.
This next year or so will be about buying time; time for science
to develop an easy and affordable test that gives quick results, time for
medicine to catch up and develop a vaccine or a treatment or both, time for
supply chains to revive, and time to educate our young people on the dangers of
taking this pandemic lightly.