Young adults (in bars, especially) are going to get us all killed

Great stuff from Erin Bromage whose piece on Covid risks a while back remains, probably the single best thing I have read on Covid.  Here he is talking about the growing role of young adults in spreading the disease:

The role of the young and healthy in this pandemic is beginning to reveal itself.

The 20- to 40-year-olds appear to be spreading the infection unperceived. They are just as easily infected as the elderly, but much more likely to show no or mild symptoms. People in these age groups are the ones who have allowed the virus to smolder through our communities and erupt into flames when they make contact with a susceptible population.

Unlike the older populations, where the fraction of tests that are positive have decreased markedly over time — likely evidence that we are doing better at protecting vulnerable people — when we look at the 18 to 49-year-olds, we see that the number of positive cases has remained more or less constant throughout time.

We are now seeing that more than 60% of all infections in the US are occurring in people under the age of 50.

The skewing of the infection rate toward this younger age group, those less likely to have severe symptoms and outcomes, could explain why we are seeing a nationwide reduction in hospitalizations and death.

 

But the emerging data about the infection rate for those under 50 years old is revealing that the 20- to 40-year-old segment of our population may in fact be the force driving this pandemic.

 

A recent contact tracing study performed in Japan demonstrated how significant 20 to 40-year-olds are in the initiation of new clusters of infection. About 50% of all clusters traced — outbreaks in which at least five new people were infected — were initiated by this age group. A significant revelation from this research was that the majority of the 20-40-year-old index cases were showing no disease symptoms at the time of contact with the people they infected.

 

Eighty-one percent of all new virus transmissions, resulting in outbreak clusters, happened in the days leading up to, or on the day of symptom onset. So, these individuals were unwittingly infecting others before they experienced any symptoms of the disease themselves.

Other data shows that these infected younger folks initiated outbreaks in bars, restaurants, gymnasiums and concerts. This is of no surprise to anyone following the data, as this is a pattern we have seen repeated in South Korea and are now observing in the US. [emphases mine]

Meanwhile, NYT reports on developments here in the U.S.

After months of lockdown in which outbreaks of the coronavirus often centered in nursing homes, prisons and meatpacking plants, the nation is entering a new and uncertain phase of the pandemic. New Covid-19 clusters have been found in a Pentecostal church in Oregon, a strip club in Wisconsin and in every imaginable place in between.

In Baton Rouge, La., at least 100 people tested positive for the virus after visiting bars in the Tigerland nightlife district, popular among Louisiana State University students…

Houses of worship, which were once shut down under governors’ orders in many states, are now emerging as sources of major clusters. Outbreaks at churches have been reported in states including Alabama, Kansas and West Virginia…

Other vectors for the virus have swiftly emerged in the weeks after many states reopened businesses. At least four cases of the virus were tied to the Cruisin’ Chubbys Gentlemen’s Club in Wisconsin Dells, and several cases were linked to fraternity rush parties in Oxford, Miss.

Sorry, I know people just really love too much their alcohol and to drink it in places with other humans, but right now bars are just about the worst possible places.  And since so many of them are so loud, you’ve got people yelling/shouting and thereby sending forth huge amounts of virus.  It’s the worst.  Meanwhile, they are frequented by subjectively invulnerable (and among those before 25, not even fully neurologically mature) young adults who are not appropriately weighing risks and putting the whole damn community at risk.

And to be equal opportunity, there’s no way that church services should be happening except under the strictest protocols of masks and distancing.   Yes, people want to live their lives and open things back up, but if it is too dangerous to have fans at basketball and baseball games (it is!!), it’s too dangerous to have people act like people act at bars.  Especially, because expecting young adults to act restrained and judicious is all too often a fool’s errand.