Are the young being made effectively to lower their life span?

[SRYnegative]

i have, like many, had several changes of heart regarding covid. At the moment though, like many here, I worry that the young are being impacted more in their day-to-day lives than older people.

For what it's worth I'm 55 and rarely leave the house due to disability (chronic fatigue/fibro. overlap). I used to be a professional, and have 4 children, 14-23. So, of course, I have seen their lives affected badly e.g. school and 6th form closure, exam issues, university courses on-line etc.

I was already mulling this over with regard to the general theme of a couple of other threads. So, some would say that youngsters lives are being ruined as a lot of the rules impact them in particular (socialising being important to this group, wanting to meet a partner and so on) vs the alternative view that long covid is huge, millions will die, hospitals will be overburdened etc.

Putting all that to one side though, it occurred to me, thinking as many mothers do about their kids' best options, the following.

1. This virus is not going away. Only one virus has ever been eradicated by man (smallpox).

1. As a corona virus, immunity is likely to last 6 m to a year. However, this relates to your resistance to catching it, not to your ability to mount a successful immune response once you have caught it again. So you may well catch it again in 6m, but will likely mount a second successful immune response. This is what happens with the common cold as we have all experienced. Covid is a more severe illness in these days since we have not seen it before. People on remote islands who have never mixed with modern man have had a similar response to the current common cold viruses, which we fight successfully year after year.

So, eventually the virus will be the 4th common cold (not my idea btw).

1. What are we going to do, hide away forever? As a 55 year old, would I not be better off taking my chances now when the probabilities are more in my favour than as a 65 year old? Let's face it, we are all going to catch it in the end unless we self isolate and insist on very vigilant visitors - which I fully support btw for those who choose or need to, and I will fulfil my obligations on this, I have an elderly friend, a dad in a care home and a child with a severe vasculitic disease - I am very careful with the infirm and elderly.

1. Which brings me to the young. If I had a baby now, after it was a certain age and had a mature immune system, I think I would stop protecting the child from Covid (unless obviously if the child had a respiratory illness or such like). Because, as the virus is not going away, we need to start our complex, lifelong gaining of immunity to this new common cold. For example, a student hides away for the next 5 years, does all their classes online, then what? Ten, twenty, thirty, forty years of social distancing in work and in social life? And then, when they are 60 they might finally catch it and, like the remote islander, react badly and die?

Meanwhile, all the 60 year olds with us now, have lived to a ripe old age of 90.

Where is the sense in this?

I'm afraid that I disagree with most of what you say. I don't see anything positive in trying to catch it to get it out of the way because it's inevitable. Would you have done that during the Spanish Flu? It might help if you read up on that pandemic.
You don't mention a vaccine. Is that because you don't believe in them?

Where is the sense in this?

I thought this about your entire OP. It's projection based on nothing.

I agree with a fair bit of that. I saw an interview in the early days of all this that said the virus is not going away and we have to learn to live with it. In the past we talked about cold and flu season. In the future we would talk about cold, flu and coronavirus season. This attitude fitted with the government's original protect the nhs strategy which was just about stopping everyone getting it at the same time.

We need to protect the elderly and vulnerable until there is a vaccine. But the rest of us need to start living with this virus which is here to stay. One thing I disagree with in the OP- most people are already not hiding their children away from it - the vast majority are sending them to school and nursery where this thing is starting to circulate.

The OP also comes from the premise that we 'are not living with it'. Most of us have been working throughout, travelling on public transport, many went on holiday in the UK or abroad. People were trying to have weddings and other social events. Young people in my area have been socialising in crowds since May. All the bars have been busy with people spilling out into the streets each weekend. The nation definitely got behind the eat out to help out scheme. Parents sent their DC back to school and nurseries have been used throughout.
I find these threads where the OP portrays the majority as cowering in our homes to be disingenuous at best, and rather insulting.
OP - if you don't like the government's policies, why don't you just say that?

Except from the limited high quality data we have on reinfection, having worse disease symptoms the second time is very common.

www.ecdc.europa.eu/en/publications-data/threat-assessment-brief-reinfection-sars-cov-2

Of the six examples in this report, two were asymptomatic both times and the remaining four had fairly mild be symptoms the first time. Of those four, one was asymptomatic, one had a milder case, one was worse but not hospitalised and one was hospitalised. So far a third of proven reinfections have had a worse outcome.

There is also a Spanish doctor on a ventilator after having a relatively mild case in March. I'm not sure what level of proof they have, it may just be that he tested positive in March, recovered and tested positive again in September (the others I've discussed had sequencing and genetic analysis done).

I meant to also say that, in all likelihood, avoiding it for as long as possible is the best strategy. Treatment is improving so the IFR should reduce with time. There's also the possibility that a vaccine will be available in the not to distant future and it will be possible to avoid getting it altogether.

I agree largely. I’m interested in data on second infections. I’m not sure I believe you can get it again generally or that it will be worse. The data seems mixed and I’m very aware of a campaign of fear to ensure compliance.

If I thought an effective vaccine was only weeks away I might get it. But we can’t live this way for an extended time. Support is diminishing - except on mumsnet!

1. This virus is not going away. Only one virus has ever been eradicated by man (smallpox).

We have nearly completely irradicated polio (hampered by local politics and civil war, not any scientific reason) and have massively reduced cases of measles, once polio is irradicated then I suspect attention will turn to measles (and that will mean mumps and rubella as well). Any virus that doesn't mutate much and doesn't have an animal reserve can be irradicated, it just requires concerted political will. We don't yet know if that will be possible with Covid-19.

If covid can be eradicated I will eat everyone’s hats. Don’t be utterly ridiculous!

The best we can hope for here is working community immunity via a vaccine and herd infection. Kids getting it when young would seem ideal, with some immunity then lasting over their life, even if reinfected and then showing lesser symptoms. Personally, I suspect a natural infection when young will be preferable and longer lasting than a vaccine but you won’t hear that said much

Your post might make sense if there were no chance of a vaccine, but there is. What's another six months of limitations if by the end of it someone who is vulnerable can go back to normal?

And anyway, most parents have sent their children back to school and nursery. That is accepting the risk that they'll get it - and as rates rise again it becomes ever more likely.

I have mixed feelings on terms of Covid and not sure what my opinion is on it to be honest but I think it's an interesting point on young people. I've been reading about the students in Manchester who have been restricted to their halls and I found it really dystopian and disturbing. Imagine having your a-levels cancelled, the results fiasco and missing out on your first summer of freedom and holidays to then go to uni and be locked in your dorms? They are never getting this time back. If the government carry on on this route I think there could be civil unrest with this age group. I've even cynically started to wonder if the government's response is an effort to appease their older voter group. I hope things improve.

@Calledyoulastnightfromglasgow

I agree largely. I’m interested in data on second infections. I’m not sure I believe you can get it again generally or that it will be worse. The data seems mixed and I’m very aware of a campaign of fear to ensure compliance.

If I thought an effective vaccine was only weeks away I might get it. But we can’t live this way for an extended time. Support is diminishing - except on mumsnet!

So do you think the dozens of journal articles stretching back decades about reinfection by coronaviruses were all just written this year with dates changed to make them look older?

As other posters have pointed out, you make no mention of a vaccine. You don't talk about better treatments either. Trying to avoid catching the virus now makes perfect sense because even if a vaccine doesn't appear, we will become better at treating the virus. People who catch it now stand more chance of surviving than they did back in March because medics have more knowledge and experience; people who catch it next March will have an even greater chance. By the time your children are 60, it will either be like measles - a condition that is unusual due to an effective vaccination - or there will be effective treatments so very few people become seriously ill.

You say you rarely leave the house. That's understandable given your health conditions, but it might be giving you a distorted view of what is going on in the outside world. Most people are living as normally as possible.

It's weird to see so many posts on here written from the assumption that everyone is shut away indoors. That isn't the case, and wasn't even at the height of lockdown.

@IrishMamaMia

I have mixed feelings on terms of Covid and not sure what my opinion is on it to be honest but I think it's an interesting point on young people. I've been reading about the students in Manchester who have been restricted to their halls and I found it really dystopian and disturbing. Imagine having your a-levels cancelled, the results fiasco and missing out on your first summer of freedom and holidays to then go to uni and be locked in your dorms? They are never getting this time back. If the government carry on on this route I think there could be civil unrest with this age group. I've even cynically started to wonder if the government's response is an effort to appease their older voter group. I hope things improve.

Those students did have the option of not going to university in a city that was subject to local lowdown laws.

Most students at most universities are not shut in the halls.

DianaT196

No I am an immunologist, though have not been professionally active in the field for sometime, apart from currently doing an MSc (though I do have a PhD in clinical imm). I believe wholeheartedly in vaccines, and wonder at your closed mind that cannot imagine I am nt an anti-vaccer.

Calledyoulastnightfromglasgow

We have nearly completely irradicated polio (hampered by local politics and civil war, not any scientific reason) and have massively reduced cases of measles, once polio is irradicated then I suspect attention will turn to measles (and that will mean mumps and rubella as well). Any virus that doesn't mutate much and doesn't have an animal reserve can be irradicated, it just requires concerted political will. We don't yet know if that will be possible with Covid-19

Do you know how many viruses affect humans?

You cannot be serious in thinking we will eradicate covid!

SaskiaRembrandt

Those students did have the option of not going to university in a city that was subject to local lowdown laws.

For goodness' sake Saskia, have you no knowledge of ucas processes?

I think it makes sense to give the medical community a chance to understand the way the disease works and find better treatments. I’d rather not catch it until the chances of survival are better. If I had to choose I’d rather have hiv now than in the 1980s.

I also have chronic fatigue, fibro plus chronic pain and have just had major surgery. I get the not being out much. My dd is 12 though and at school. I think I had Covid just before lockdown. But the antibodies test I paid for came up negative - which obviously doesn’t mean I didn’t have it.

Personally I think there is a lot of difference in delaying infection risks by being vigilant 6 months to a year and 10 years. Only you can decide what course to take. I may well get reinfected. Who knows. I cannot be both hyper vigilant for myself and allow my dd live a normal life. Neither you nor I are shielding - we afterall have illnesses, which are barely acknowledged - perhaps they’ll become more of a thing when lumped with post Covid syndrome. By choice I only have chronic pain and the surgery on my medical notes and my dd needs a normal life. If I become ill again, que sera.

Would you have done that during the Spanish Flu?

This isn't the SF, all illnesses and pathogens are different.

I would. Say that one thing you have left out is the effect in young people of losing a parent or becoming a carer. I think of young people I know whose lives were totally derailed by the death or serious illness of a parent.

Location Age of patient First episode Interval Second episode Publication
Hong Kong 33 years Symptomatic 142 days Asymptomatic Peer-reviewed
Nevada, USA 25 years Symptomatic 48 days Symptomatic with
hospitalisation
Pre-print
Belgium 52 years Symptomatic 93 days Symptomatic Peer-reviewed
Ecuador 46 years Symptomatic 63 days Symptomatic Pre-print
India 25 years Asymptomatic 108 days Asymptomatic Pre-print
India 28 years Asymptomatic 111 days Asymptomatic Pre-print

123456

1000000

VirginiaWolverine

I am a very old parent. It is not until the seventh decade that covid is a particular threat.

My mum died when I was 27, I do understand.

OP, I asked if you don't believe in vaccines because you gave a long, detailed projection of the effects of Covid on society, but failed to mention it.
I can't really understand where you are coming from on this. You seem to have avoided catching it yourself, but want others to be more gung-ho about catching it. Is that correct? Because if we catch it now, society can get back to normal faster.
Who are you aiming this at? The government, or people who are staying indoors and be extra cautious, like yourself? Could you clarify?