It may be obvious from observing behaviours (drinking in pubs, lack of social distancing and similar) that younger people are the main vectors of covid-19, with the notable exception of infected cruise ship passengers who are allowed to mingle with the community.
But his morning I saw a powerful illustration of an effect that shows how the infection has spread from young to old. Check it out below:
Wow! Excellent heat map of the age distribution of new cases in Florida.
— Natalie E. Dean, PhD (@nataliexdean) July 14, 2020
X-axis = time, y-axis = age, color = new cases.
The brightest part has a triangular shape, indicating that what started as growth in younger adults has expanded into older ages.
Credit: @zorinaq pic.twitter.com/SOmHmt9RFs
Now, given what we know about Covid, while many in the 20-30 age group will suffer badly, very few will die. Even the nasty risks impacting younger patients, like stroke, tend to only impact people in the 30-50 age groups, at youngest. And of course, the boomer generation (who are now all over 50) are immensely more vulnerable than the millennials and gen Z who are currently driving Covid spread in places like Florida.
So let’s make no mistake. What is happening here is that through their decisions to not enact social distancing, the young will essentially kill the old; if not in an individual sense, at least at a societal level. As we are currently seeing in Victoria, once community spread has reached a certain level it’s virtually impossible to keep Covid out of aged care homes.
The bottom line, for those below 50, is that when someone argues that we should “take the Swedish approach”, and avoid lock-downs when required, they are saying that they favour an approach that runs a significant risk of killing your parents.