No, Coronavirus Is Not ‘Just Killing Old People’

In the early days of the U.S.’s coronavirus response, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention advised everyone to steer clear of crowds and wash their hands more, urging “older adults” especially to stock up on food and medicine in case things got worse. The news from China was that Covid-19 had been more fatal among people who had underlying health conditions, and who were over 65 years old. The first wave of public health admonitions emphasized that strict social distancing measures were necessary to protect the vulnerable elderly.

But younger people, as is now well known, are hardly immune: Not only can heathy young adults be asymptomatic carriers that become vectors of the virus to parents and grandparents, they can also be victims of it; about a quarter of Covid-19 patients hospitalized in Italy are under 50.