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1./ What’s driving the spikes in COVID across Europe? I’ve just arrived back in Venice after filming in Croatia and had to have a test proving I was negative 24 hours before entering the country. I was thankfully (thanks for asking).
2./ In Croatia many bars were packed with mainly young locals getting hammered (sometimes with foreigners in places like Split but not so much in less popular cities like Rijeka). Loud noisy singing and the breaking down of social distancing. You get the picture.
3./ In Rijeka, there were 2 or 300 people dancing and singing the Macarena unmasked at an open air event. Temperatures were being taken on entry but social distancing was being observed in the way it always is by the high spirited or worse for wear.
4./ Should we really condemn such behaviour? Maybe not. In Venice last night the behaviour of the young was also less than serene. It always was a myth that “young people on the continent don’t drink to get drunk” and in bar after bar boundaries were being broken big time.
5./ The young (and young in spirit) were singing, screaming, and in some places the fun had moved inside. In restaurants here you have to put your mask on to walk to the loo. In these bars you wore your mask hanging from your wrist like a polite signal or not at all.
6./ Just how effective masks -as the majority of us wear them -really are is another question but under the influence of booze and friends they’re a token gesture. Outside one bar guys were wrestling drunk. In another competitive shots were being poured. Loudly.
7./ We know that singing and shouting can contribute to transmission. That’s why church choirs have been closed until further notice. I suspect throaty shouting into each other’s faces as those young people were doing last night is even more effective.
https://www.npr.org/2020/08/10/888945949/is-singing-together-safe-in-the-era-of-coronavirus-not-really-experts-say
https://www.npr.org/2020/08/10/888945949/is-singing-together-safe-in-the-era-of-coronavirus-not-really-experts-say
8./ So if hundreds of thousands of young people are unwittingly spreading the disease across Europe what are we to do? We can try to tell them to behave better. That has had, shall we say, mixed outcomes as Venetians can testify since the 11th Century when records began here.
9./ But are we even sure this would be a good idea? IF -and it is a huge IF- we can protect the old and vulnerable might it not in the long run be better for young fit and healthy people to get infected now before winter comes? The chances of a vaccine being ready soon are low.
10./ Most of the front runners are based on technology never used for human vaccines before. They will have to be safety tested for many months perhaps years before being given to millions or billions of people. We need to avoid the shock delivered by the dengue vaccine.
11./ Developed over a decade it was thought entirely safe until some of the vaccinated encountered wild virus again. Then it magnified the disease impact in a significant minority. Vaccines can surprise us which is why we must move slowly with them. https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2017/12/04/health/dengue-fever-vaccine-dengvaxia-philippines-intl/index.html
https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2017/12/04/health/dengue-fever-vaccine-dengvaxia-philippines-intl/index.html
12/ No govt could ever encourage young people to get infected even with a virus that affects so few of them. But if we are to salvage our economy and the livelihoods of those young people having fun in the streets of Croatia, Italy or indeed Birmingham we may need another way.
13./ We can’t keep them locked up and when “allowed” out they are clearly going to do what older people have complained about since time immemorial. So what if maybe they’re right and we’re wrong? It wouldn’t be the first time.
14./ Unwittingly the young may have hit on a strategy as good as anything else we have come up with. We protected our health services from the first wave - that’s a job well done. Now let the young have fun.
15/ If millions of young people do end up immune this could be an essential virus firewall during winter. Maybe it’s time for Rishi and the rest of us to buy Britain’s young peeps a few rounds for a big end of summer party. It’s time to trust young people more.
