UKH

I've noticed quite a few younger people thinking they'll be OK should they manage to catch CV19.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/jul/06/coronavirus-covid-19-...

Obviously, I don't know how wide these spread these cases are or how long they are likely to persist.

Still, food for though, maybe

I also get the impression (from running around my park and local areas) that younger people are less likely to be concerned about social distancing, group gatherings etc. 

The article doesn't have anything to do with "I'm alright jack" though. The implication is that young people aren't concerned about their own health risk, when perhaps they should be. "I'm alright jack" is about being self-interested and not wanting to help solve other people's problems.

They are almost certainly right. 

I've noticed quite a few older people thinking that it's no big deal and not taking social distancing measures too.

Just possibly this isn't an age thing but an attitudes thing?

Except that the chances of getting a severe case of covid is significantly higher if you are older. So, really, it is an age thing.

I think it's fair to say that young people are generally less risk-averse, especially in regards to relatively nebulous risks to their health, than older people.  Among other things, it's part of the reason car insurance is so much more expensive for them.  Also I suspect their social lives are rather more urgent for them than for the oldies too.

Me too.  And I have to say those that I've noticed directly violating my Covid-expanded personal space, as opposed to failing to properly 'socially distance' among themselves, have tended to be older.

Hard to generalise from this of course, older people are more likely to be shopping impatiently in supermarkets and being an increasingly grizzled old git it may also be that the young are repelled by my appearance.  (Particularly whilst running - since 'lockdown' forced me to include a bit of suburban terrain I've caught sight of my reflection in a shop window once or twice.  Oof.)

Aside from the under 18s, risks are not insignificant according to data. 1% risk of hospitalisations for the 20s is pretty high, given a large percentage of those seem to have ongoing issues after this.

https://www.imperial.ac.uk/news/196573/covid-19-one-five-over-80s-need-hosp...

I think most of the bad behaviour on public display is more about denial than evil intent. I think teenagers are most on show, middle aged miscreants will be more often in private parties like this one:

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jun/05/tory-mp-bob-seely-attended-lo...

One of the issues with this is the fact that so few people below 35 have died with CV19. Therefore the disease isn’t a real threat to them. In fact they are at more risk from dying from a car crash than CV. 

It is, on a population basis, and being sensible about it.

But I know that when I was in my twenties, I would not have spent a lot of time worrying about a 1% risk of hospitalisation if I caught the illness, multiplied by whatever the risk of actually catching it was. I've chosen to go to places where I suspect I was at greater risk than that of being hospitalised by malaria, for example.

Emphasising to gung-ho young people how they can be putting other, more vulnerable, people at risk is probably more productive than trying to make them fear for their own safety - especially as it does appear that the vast majority of them are really quite unlikely to suffer seriously from covid-19.

It's probably not great to claim to be making an argument from science and lump together 'young people' and 'old people' into one homogeneous group. Ignoring network effects for a moment; the risks for a 15 year old, a 21 year old, a 30 year old, a 40 year old (and so on and so forth at 10 year increments) and distinctly different, as are the behaviour patterns you're likely to see, and the social pressures they're experiencing.

It's not like you can claim a 15 year old's behaviour, attitude to risk, or need to meet rent or work commitments is going to exemplify everyone under 30, and the same is true of any given individual above a certain threshold representing the old.

Edit: This isn't specifically directed at Cobra_Head, just the general trend of thinking about 'young people' as a useful grouping for covid. Just because the risks are generally low for those under 45 doesn't mean that they are all alike.

The thing that increasingly annoys the hell out of me isn't peoples attitudes towards catching it, its peoples attitude to spreading it.  Lots of discussion recently about going abroad on holiday and 100% of people mentioned whether or not they would feel safe (e.g. 'we are thinking of going to Cyprus which has low covid so we should be fine') yet no-one spoke about they are travelling from an area of high infection to an area of low infection, therefore more likely to be a 'spreader of' rather than a 'catcher of'.

However, there is increasing evidence that even ( young) people who get mild Covid and are not hospitalised are finding that they are being left with a whole array of other strange symptoms. 

In my experience as you get older life becomes a complex array of strange symptoms regardless of the prevalence of new viruses

Not enough people spend time in Eyam walking round the whole village and reading the accounts of what happened to the family who lived in each of the dwellings.

come to think of it perhaps Dominic should be sent there for an eye test at each house by reading the details and carrying a heavy weight on his back as a penance, dressed in full CBRN/PPE

That stat about car crashes isn't true. Covid case fatality rates from China were around  0.2% across that age range who were known to have caught it and that's way higher than any car crash mortality data (about 0.005% annually) and pretty similar to Malaria (typically case fatality of around 0.3% for infected returnees of that age to the UK)

https://ourworldindata.org/mortality-risk-covid

Which goes back to the youth in the park - they may think they're immune, but they are also just not that bothered about the danger they could put others in (and after months of public health messaging they must know this is the case).

Yes, how selfish many people are. Thinking only about how safe they are, and not caring a damn about being a potential carrier.

Sigh.

The attitude is influence by the consequences of the outcome. 

So you are more likely to not give a shit if you are young, as you are less likely to be severely impacted.

I realise the article doesn't, there have been a number of threads on UKC where many people have thought, because they were young, it wasn't a big deal for them, and are prepared to take the risk.

I think because they mostly see it as not affecting them much, but we only really get deaths and recoveries reported not, people who have recovered but are still damaged. Also, as the article points out, there are a range of other issues, besides recovered.

Wercat - you'd need a death toll round 45 million to match the black death... Eyam is certainly food for thought though

the stat comes from Sir David John Spiegelhalter (Winton Professor of the Public Understanding of Risk in the Statistical Laboratory at the University of Cambridge) On more or less 23min 46sec

https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/more-or-less-behind-the-stats/id26730...

But you could Devils advocate this by saying that many older folk aren't bothered about the danger to education, livelihoods, prospects and general wellbeing of young folk. Younger people are being asked to make sacrifices that are disproportionate to the level of risk to themselves. You could fully shield yourself and not be at any increased risk of the social activities of teens or twenty year olds.

Folk who are drawing or very close to drawing pensions are expecting people to lose livelihoods to help protect their health. I had my youth, I've earned a pension. Who's alright Jack?

This is over simplified and not representative of my own opinion, but is a factor to consider. 

I get that, I sincerely do. I am neither of the pensionable “I’m alright jack” age nor am I one of the youth. But what they (the youth) perhaps haven’t quite grasped is that a perpetuation of this virus, regardless of the danger it poses to their family and friends, is that it is also destroying their future opportunities - university, jobs, careers etc. If the virus prevails there will be less opportunities for those who most need it, especially those leaving school/uni going into the real world or those facing the choice of whether to go to uni or not. 

Alright Jack in Cornwall was on the news this evening with his mates, on a Saturday night outing, caught by the camera having a barney with someone from Reading on holiday and telling them to go home. "You've got Corona", they shouted. Mr Plod attended, and everyone moved on. The plucky reporter then interviewed the lads and asked how the town was doing. "Yer", said the spokesman, "we want the money, we don't want the tourists".

Clearly a Brexit supporter.

Yes, that too!

The flaw there is the measures taken so far has severely damaged their future opportunities. Those people entering the workforce around now are likely to have their long term earnings permanently suppressed anyway. So something lowish risk to them has already had very high costs.

In fairness, and I realise this is purely anecdotal, I work with a lot of teenage and twenty-somethings who all (and I do mean all) are reluctant to mix socially because of risk of spreading the virus to their elderly grandparents.  I didn't expect that, but it's what I'm seeing.

that wasn't really what I was alluding to, but rather the fact that even though young people might well carry out the social distancing and follow the rules, there have been a number of people on UKC who seem to think, because they're young they'll be OK should they catch CV19.

The thread about opening the climbing walls, is one of many, which had a number of people suggesting they'd be fine, even if they caught the virus.

I understand the attitude because CV has been presented as a very black or white outcome, either you catch it and die (especially if you are old or unfit for some reason) or you catch it and get better. Since we're not getting news about the people damaged by catching it, people, mostly the young, seem to see it as trivial for them, the stats look that way, while many still see the threat to their family and friends so continue to do the right thing.

You're right but I have no idea where his data came from. Those case fatality numbers from China  are real as is the 0.005% risk of annual UK road deaths. I can only think he is using an estimated UK true mortality rate for young people with no underlying health conditions. At best he is misusing statistics by not being very clear. I'm normally a big fan of David.

That's refreshing to hear, be really interesting to know what percentage of the "youth" feel this way. Here (Manchester) for some weeks now its been common to see large groups hanging out very much not in a socially distanced way. But maybe for every gang of 20 sat getting pissed up there are 200 sat at home? 

Anyone with any sense going on holiday will hopefully be taking an extra risk adverse approach in the weeks running up to their holiday. For both their own health and for the increased social contact being away might create. 

If they did contract the illness before leaving they lose their money and if they are ill while on holiday it becomes more complex. Contracting a severe case and being hospitalised in a foreign country must be a really scary experience. 

However I’m not sure everyone jumping on next plane out of here will have thought through the risks and consequences. 

I'd go as far to say only a small minority of holidaymakers have thought through the  all risks and consequences (or they are just plain selfish).

Yep. Think about the number of young people there are in your community and how many of those you see hanging out pre-covid times.  Of the 100 or so people in my school year I have only seen about 10 of them out on the piss in town in 20 years, and of those only about 4 more than once.

I think age is irrelevant - the percentage of oldies failing to social distance is going to be about the same percentage as 40 somethings and teenagers.  A certain percentage of the population are going to have certain attitudes to life and beliefs, and the majority will pass those onto their kids.  Sometimes a kid will break the mould, but most won't.

I'd be surprised if age was irrelevant. I know I would have been behaving irresponsibility if this had happened when I was a teenager. My need to socialise, get high, and attempt to procreate would have far outweighed my weak sense of social responsibility. 

I hate to think what it must be like to be a hormonal teenager in 2020.

Remember that Glasgow research showing that covid-19 hospital admissions would be cut by half if the national diet were reformed ? Remember BJ coming out of hospital and declaring the changes needed making ? Did anything happen ?

There's your food for thought. Real change to natural immune resistance. Doesn't cost a bean on a personal scale. When I see the government take the necessary action promised I might begin to respect other 'seeming' instructions for the national welfare; and not before. 

Other than that - discount the lot as politics.

Many folks diets are reasonable, they just eat too much of it and move too little. The body can cope with a modest amount of excess fat and sugar in food, if it wasn't sat around all day. 

Younger people have far more to worry about than a virus which kills mainly older people.  They don't worry about dying in a car crash either, so there are two or three local lads who don't bother with seat belts.  

Its not exactly the plague anyway.

 

Yes that well know natural resistance to Malaria, smallpox etc.

Isn't that the point of the article, it doesn't just kill older people, it can severely damage younger people too, it's not a get better or die virus, as it is sometimes portrayed in the media.

No you're right it's not the plague, which is much easier to treat than CV19.

Let's keep things in proportion - In the developed world NCDs (Non Communicable Diseases) are already responsible for way more premature deaths than cv19 'in themselves'. If on top of this they also pre-dispose ppl to a cv19 death then it is fundamental to correcting the factors pre-disposing NCDs