- While the figures for the coronavirus are increasing in France and the fear of a second wave is accelerating, the culprit is all found: the youth, allegedly incapable of respecting barrier gestures and who would take the epidemic frivolously.
- Criticisms that have accelerated since the publication of the incidence rate at Santé Publique France, which shows a much greater contamination among 20-29 year olds than in other age groups.
- But these criticisms are not so well founded as they seem, and in any case seem far from being constructive.
You may have noticed it, but at 20 Minutes , we don't do an editorial (and we are rather proud of it). However, to see for a few days the articles and the comments multiplied on an alleged frivolous bad behavior of the young people vis-a-vis the barrier gestures and the coronavirus, one would almost want to take the first red scarf come (sorry, blue, let's be corporate) and to tour the TV shows as a columnist defending youth and the orphan in the face of criticism.
Of course, the numbers are there. According to data from Public Health France, beautifully graphed by Le Parisien , the incidence rate (change in the number of cases over seven days per 100,000 inhabitants) is 44.7 among 20-29 year-olds, when the whole average the combined age group is barely 17.3. But is it necessary for all that to consider that the youth would in no way respect barrier gestures and would not have the slightest sense of the collective?
At the big tests, the grateful homeland
Antoine Flahault, director of the Institute of Global Health at the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Geneva, takes the opposite view instead: “Far from wanting to be anathema, the nation can be indebted to the young people who are going to test when they themselves are not risking much to their health. They do so with altruism, in order to better understand their virological status, thus establishing a virtuous circle that breaks the chains of transmission. The same defense of the twenties in François Buton, researcher at the CNRS and specialist in the history of epidemiological surveillance who believes that if many young people are being tested with positive results, it is good that they are being tested. Proof that they have a more collective thought than one would like to say.
Above all, the researcher warns against the attempt to divide the population between responsible and irresponsible people. “The important thing is the pedagogy, the progressive learning of the rules, and not the denunciation or the blame. We should not make the same mistake as with AIDS by pointing to categories of the population allegedly at risk, instead of emphasizing that it is the practices and situations that are at risk and must be considered. It is not by condemning that we will change attitudes. "
A socially more risky life
As you can see, scolding the youth does not seem very relevant. But are you in your right to still think in your corner that most of the less than thirty freelancers are a bunch of carefree little ones who respect nothing? Not even sure. Already, there is nothing to indicate that compared to March, there was a relaxation on the part of young people quite simply because in March, for lack of sufficient tests, they were not tested (only people admitted to the hospital were tested , ie overwhelmingly elderly), recalls Antoine Flahault. In this case, it is difficult to establish observations and parallels: “It is quite possible that young people have always been more positive to the virus than other age groups, even in the heart of the epidemic. Without a test, it is impossible to see it because it is a population that is mostly asymptomatic or with extremely mild symptoms. "
Certainly, but young people who are more infected than others, whether since March or August, is proof that they are less concerned about the risks, isn't it? Here again, we must temper hasty conclusions and judgments. “Sociologically, young people also share their office more often than seniors, generally at a higher rank in the corporate hierarchy; young people more often live in smaller dwellings, yet we have seen that many dormitory towns have been the object of clusters in Singapore or the United States for example, perhaps there are more young people to occupy more manual jobs or simply more exposed ”, identifies the director of the Institute. In short, if young people are more infected than others, it is perhaps more suffered than provoked.
A youth more martyr than guilty?
Especially since for the moment, the events having generated the most comments, such as the gathering at the Canal Saint Martin in May or the crowded parks, have not been identified as having generated clusters. “Of course, we can denounce the parties outside, but how many clusters have there been linked to these parties? It seems to me that the most risky situations are transgenerational family gatherings, indoor parties, and especially workplaces or public transport, in which it is to be hoped that wearing a mask will be enough to reduce the transmission of the coronavirus ” , notes François Buton.
The researcher wants to be realistic, moreover, and does not deny certain lightnesses, especially with the sun, the beaches and the despé: “The summer season is also a period of relaxation, of going out, all the more important for young people. that containment and post-containment have not done much. We can regret it but except to confine everyone, people have to breathe. "
But once again (you will have understood the angle of this paper), there is no point in tapping too much on youth. Basically, she is more a martyr for the coronavirus, having sacrificed herself for the collective, than a person responsible for the epidemic recovery recalls Antoine Flahault: "It is clear that young people more than all today pay a very heavy price. social and economic to this pandemic, all the more serious as they are ultimately little affected by the health consequences of this coronavirus but on the other hand suffer the full brunt of the economic and social consequences in the short, medium and long term. They must find it very unfair that we are debating their role in the possible second wave today, although they have so far been rather cooperative at the time of the strict and general confinement, which they have applied - as all - barrier measures when they have become mandatory, and they willingly submit to the test at the slightest symptom. "
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