Blame The Youth: Young People Are Being Unfairly Blamed For COVID-19
Ah October, it was finally spooky season and time to pull out the Halloween movies and our fashion forward costumes and low and behold. A level 3 lockdown and even more disruption and confusion. Our hopes of a fun filled October have been dashed.
There’s a lot of people throwing the blame around the room like a hot potato for the recent rise in cases, “it’s the governments fault”, “no it’s GAA’s fault”, “close the bars and restaurants, we all know that’s where the cases are coming from”. But the one group that everyone seems to agree that is at fault is the youth of Ireland.
I had been thinking about this for a while and it was really starting to get under my skin and when the wonderful Jessie Bennett addressed the topic on last weeks “We’re All Friends Here”, (which you can catch every Wednesday over on our Instagram) I simply had to talk about it.
We’re just as anxious as adults
There are several reasons as to why this accusation is highly unfair and unjustly placed.
At the beginning of September, thousands of students returned to schools across the country with COVID regulations in place. It was an extremely anxious experience and the changes put in place for going to school make life very difficult at times.
I don’t know about you, but I spend eight hours a day wearing a mask and at this stage I am made of 70% hand sanitiser. We have only just returned to school and I can assure you that most of us have had enough of online school to last a lifetime. The number of cases related to schools are extremely low, so we couldn’t be spreading COVID there.
What about outside of school then? Well, all if not most our extra curriculars are held online or just cancelled. We can’t hangout outside of school and if we do it’s in very small groups socially distanced. We don’t visit our grandparents or other family members. We all listen to the news and see the numbers each day. Just because we are young doesn’t mean we don’t understand the rules that are in place.
Stop generalising us
Just because a large group of students gathered together in Galway does not mean that every single college student in Galway was breaking COVID guidelines.
99% of us are following the rules and the majority are being blamed for the irresponsible actions of the minority. Keep in mind that many young people are travelling to school each day with up to a thousand other students in the same building as them, which, from experience, is not a very comforting circumstance to be in.
I believe the national media and some of our parents and teachers need to be educated on the definition of “a sweeping generalisation”. Do all girls wear make up? No. do all boys play rugby? No. Are all reality TV shows awful? No (although that one is debatable). Are all young people spreading Coronavirus? No!
We have to work together
We are just as desperate to get out of this situation as the rest of the population.
These unfounded allegations are helping no one and a game of “he said, she said” is just a waste of everyone’s time.
Unfortunately, there isn’t much that we can do to prevent people from making these assumptions accept continue to work as hard as we are working. Wear your masks, stay socially distant and remember that you can only control your own actions.
Look on the bright side, it’s only two weeks till midterm break.
Keep fighting the good fight.