| Usually I'd agree that focusing on pre-existing conditions is victim-blaming, but in this case there's a nasty braid of fear: * Some young people believe they're immune and don't care if they spread the disease. Spring break in Florida. * Some old people are envious of this and looking for reasons it isn't true. * Other old people are scared for their offspring and ready for their fears to be confirmed. * Health officials are selling the story that young people are in more danger than we thought to try to convince them to stay home. Again, spring break in Florida. * Media outlets focus on the rare youth deaths because the above factors drive clicks. The data from China is pretty clear. Young people rarely notice having COVID, and that even among symptomatic cases the level of death is incredibly low. I know we're all skeptical of Chinese government numbers but their total lockdown and testing regime gives them the unequaled opportunity to say "everybody in this town was exposed, absolutely every person, and here's how things came out." They're the only country in a position to definitively comment on asymptomatic cases. It's hard to see why they'd fake a risk curve that increases very slowly through young years and then swoops upward in middle age. Something about the Chinese respect for elders? I can't see it. Here in the West, you get a half-dozen articles about one 21-year-old who died and appears to have had no pre-existing conditions, a similar number about some doctor who died or priest who refused a ventilator, and no articles detailing each of the thousands of older people who are dying. Our culture is trying to believe that young people are vulnerable. We "want" a more even risk curve. So... is this ok? We have a weird circumstance where the usual bad science is serving a public health purpose by propagating a probable untruth. Meanwhile, the "everything's fine, it's just the flu" side is working as hard as possible to spread a different untruth that is very dangerous to public health. Is it morally defensible to tell people on the internet that young people are almost all going to be fine? Not immune, but probably fine? This is where many of you who are convinced that young people are in significantly more danger start speaking up. "Some young people do, this young person did, no pre-existing conditions, this article says half the deaths are under 50..." If the population in general had the death rate that we've seen among young people this virus wouldn't be a big deal. That's what matters. Some young people will get sick and die but not in sufficient quantities to overwhelm the hospital and mortuary systems. The deaths of the middle-aged and old are what will paralyze our countries. You probably won't know a young person who dies. You probably will know an old person who does. |