What’s to blame? Why young people are contracting COVID-19
Posted Sep 23, 2020 03:12:39 PM.
CALGARY (660 NEWS) – With COVID-19 cases rising among Canadians in their twenties, it’s easy to blame that trend on young people’s carelessness or immaturity. But one science writer says there’s more to it than meets the eye.
Neuroscientist and science communicator Samantha Yammine believes Canadians in their twenties are having trouble following public health orders in large part due to their living situation and work or school commitments.
This comes after Yammine received hundreds of responses on social media when she asked her followers what was causing them to slip up.
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People in their 20s are now disproportionately represented in new COVID-19 cases in Ontario.
Instead of shaming & blaming, I asked them what challenges they’re currently facing with respect to the pandemic.
After 100s of replies, some key themes emerged. Here they are:
— Samantha Yammine, PhD (@heysciencesam) September 15, 2020
“The notion of a bubble or a circle completely gets burst when you’re sharing a house with people whose actions you can’t control,” said Yammine. “They’re always having to synchronize with people to get any kind of social interaction.”
Others pointed to attending schools and working in restaurants as a reason for larger risk of exposure.
“On the customer-facing side, things are a bit better,” said Yammine. “But when you go the bathroom or lunch area, things are not consistent. So when it comes to workplaces, it is not enough just to have two metres distance apart from other people.”
CityNews spoke to some young Calgarians who echoed Yammine’s findings.
“I live with my family, so there’s actually seven of us,” said a student. “Everyone has their own friends and work, and so everybody’s always constantly going out and doing their own thing. So that does get stressful, because you never really know who they’re around.”
Added another: “If people are basing it off an age gap, that’s bias in itself. It’s based on your education level and your maturity as an individual.”