A COVID-19 Surge in Young People May Sabotage Reopening
After months of lockdown, public congregation increased exponentially last week, as residents of major cities from coast to coast took to the streets in huge numbers to protest decades of black death at the hands of police officers, and specifically the killing of 46-year-old George Floyd in Minneapolis.
But even before the unrest and the possibility of attendant contagion, warm weather across the country prompted people to sun in public parks, take day trips to beaches, and drink in groups as states eased COVID-19 lockdowns. Relaxed restrictions have also sent thousands of young people sidelined from service industry jobs back to work in states from Texas to Vermont.
As public health experts have warned for months, any return to pre-pandemic behavior—whether at bars in Waco or demonstrations in cities like Los Angeles—could come at significant cost. In fact, if an analysis from the first COVID-19 hot spot in the United States is any indication, young people have, for weeks, appeared to be setting the stage not for a second wave of an infection, but a deadly extension of the first one.
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