Careless youth driving some Covid spikes, says WHO

GENEVA: The WHO on Thursday warned that spikes in coronavirus transmission in a number of countries were being driven by young people “letting down their guard”. “Young people are not invincible,” WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told a virtual news conference in Geneva. While the pandemic has disproportionately impacted the elderly and people with pre-existing conditions, he stressed that “younger people are at risk too”. “Young people can be infected, young people can die, and young people can transmit the virus to others,” Tedros said.
He pointed to evidence that “spikes of cases in some countries are being driven in part by younger people letting down their guard during the northern hemisphere summer”.
WHO’s technical lead for Covid-19 Maria Van Kerkhove said that nightclubs in a number of places had become “amplifiers” of transmission. “We are asking for all people, including young people, to be your own risk manager and avoid behaviours that can increase transmission of the disease.”
Michael Ryan, WHO’s emergencies director, said that very little is still known about the long term effects of even mild Covid-19 infections. “This disease while it may be mild, it may be moderate, it can affect many organs,” he said. “We just don’t know what the long-term impact of those infections will be,” he said. He pointed out a study in Germany on Covid-19 patients who were never admitted to hospital. “MRI scans of their hearts had found shown inflammatory changes in the cardiac linings of the heart and the cardiac muscles,” he said. “Use your brain. Don’t take a risk that you cannot quantify.”