Virus risks; time for young people to behave more responsibily – Neil McNicholas

IT is perhaps understandable that for those of us of, shall we say, “a certain age”, the reality of death is never too far away, whether the awareness of our own mortality or our increasing attendance at the funerals of family members and friends.
Are young people heeding social distancing rules? Neil McNicholas thinks not.Are young people heeding social distancing rules? Neil McNicholas thinks not.
Are young people heeding social distancing rules? Neil McNicholas thinks not.

It’s hard to remember the glorious days of our youth when we thought we would live for ever.

Of course the immortality of youth is still alive and well and can be the only explanation for the care-less-ness (and I deliberately hyphenate that word) and total disregard that we see young people demonstrating in the face of Covid-19.

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Typically these days young people have very little personal experience of death, living as we do in a very sanitised society, a situation that is even more true of the United States where even the onset of old age is increasingly hidden away not only in care homes but also in specially designated retirement communities.

Is the country becoming complacent over public health?Is the country becoming complacent over public health?
Is the country becoming complacent over public health?

As the pandemic took hold, the impression was given that it was an “old person’s disease” when those over the age of 70 were said to be at greatest risk and told to take particular precautions. This immediately allowed young people to consider it as something they didn’t need to be overly concerned about in terms of the risk of them contracting the disease.

This was further confirmed by the recommended practices of hand-washing and gelling, and later of social distancing as ways of guarding against becoming infected. It seems to me there wasn’t an equal emphasis placed on guarding against infecting others: the possibility of asymptomatic individuals – those having the virus but without knowing it – passing on the virus, and therefore we have seen time and again, in all kinds of public situations, young people mixing and mingling as if they were immune to catching or carrying it.

All throughout the lockdown, but especially since it began to be eased, I’ve seen young people walking along the street past my house as closely gathered as ever, including boys and girls hand-in-hand or with their arms around each other.

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Is it ignorance of the true scale of a disease that is infecting people in their tens of millions and killing them in their hundreds of thousands all over the world? Do they honestly not appreciate how serious the pandemic is?

Do they never listen to anything on the news or on their smartphones? Do their parents not ask them where they are going and lecture them about social distancing? Or is it that young people really don’t care? Is the requirement of youth to get together – close together – too much to resist even at the risk of infecting (possibly fatally) members of their family when they get back home from their social gatherings?

Maybe it all comes down to the fact that young people rarely experience the reality of death and perhaps even more rarely do they consider their own death which they expect to be a long way off – “three score and ten” at least. And so if you think you are going to live for ever, then I suppose the coronavirus can seem like a great deal of fuss about nothing, something that is happening to other people – older people – somewhere else.

The pandemic is continuing to kill people in unprecedented numbers. So why do we see so many people of all ages ignoring the rules put in place to safeguard us all? Why are people insisting on the “right” to gather socially regardless? Why are people still walking round in public without a face mask, possibly infecting others, even if they don’t care about becoming infected themselves? It’s not about their rights and freedoms but other people’s lives and wellbeing.

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The other day I noticed two elderly ladies walking along side by side then stopping and having a conversation right into one another’s faces. Then they walked all of six feet, stopped, turned and talked into one another’s faces yet again. So what was their excuse, I wonder? It certainly wasn’t the folly of youth!

And if older people think they are above the law and beyond the reach of the virus, little wonder, therefore, that young people are behaving in the same way, possibly following their bad example, ignoring the rules, taking great risks with their own health and the health of others.

No one is teaching anyone to do as they are told for once – if only out of consideration for others. And young people are going to become a whole lot more familiar with the reality of death if we don’t all play our part in conquering this virus. Simply ignoring it isn’t going to do it.

Neil McNicholas is a parish priest in Yarm.

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