Coronavirus Does Not Spare the Young

Young adults are unwitting vectors — and victims — of Covid-19

Robert Roy Britt
Elemental
Published in
5 min readMar 26, 2020

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Photo: Mondadori Portfolio/Getty Images

OOur 18-year-old son was on spring break from Northern Arizona University (NAU) last week, staying home with us just as we began some serious social distancing. Now he desperately wants to go back to the dorm. He’s loving his first year of college and, in particular, dorm life.

Wait, what? The dorm is open?

At a time when restaurants and bars are closed, large gatherings are canceled, and people are told to stay 6 feet apart in places where clear heads prevail, NAU has instituted online education so students can stay remote, but the university has also made clear the campus is open, the dorms are there for the living, and food service will continue.

That’s made us, as parents, the bad guys, advising our son not to reenter what seems like an obvious cesspool of potential infection, as students are lured back from all over the state and beyond. That suspicion is confirmed by Caroline Buckee, associate professor of epidemiology at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.

Based on early anecdotal evidence and ill-advised statements, we’ve fooled the under-60 set, and particularly teens and young adults…

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Elemental
Elemental

Published in Elemental

Elemental is a former publication from Medium for science-backed health and wellness coverage. Currently inactive and not taking submissions.

Robert Roy Britt
Robert Roy Britt

Written by Robert Roy Britt

Editor of Wise & Well on Medium + the Writer's Guide at writersguide.substack.com. Author of Make Sleep Your Superpower: amazon.com/dp/B0BJBYFQCB

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