In case you were still taking solace in the fact that COVID-19 ~supposedly~ isn’t too serious for young people, NSW Chief Health Officer Dr Kerry Chant has some stats for you.
Out of 37 people in NSW who are currently in hospital with COVID-19, eight of them are under the age of 35.
“Again, dispelling that myth that [COVID-19] only leads to hospitalisation for the elderly,” Chant said at a press conference on Wednesday morning.
“Of the seven people in ICU, one is in their 30s, [which is] a bit of a wake-up call to young people.”
It’s a fair point that young Aussies shouldn’t act as if we’re invincible when it comes to COVID-19, but at the same time, most of us can’t even get vaccinated yet.
People under 40 still aren’t eligible to get the Pfizer jab unless they fall under a handful of exceptions.
These exceptions include people with underlying health conditions, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, people in the NT, healthcare workers, emergency service workers, volunteers in organisations like the SES or Surf Lifesavers, some household contacts of vulnerable workers and, apparently, private school boys at Joey’s.
As for the AstraZeneca jab, it’s possible to get the shot in theory, but doctors kind of have no idea what’s going on right now.
So while it’s good to remind young people that COVID-19 is still serious, it’s a bit unfair single out the least-vaccinated age group as bring irresponsible when most of us are actually craving that sweet, sweet jab.
Meanwhile during the Wednesday press conference, NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian also singled out the Sydney local government areas of Fairfield, Canterbury-Bankstown and Liverpool for supposedly being a bit to lax when it comes to abiding by the stay-at-home order.
It’s a noticeable change of rhetoric compared to when Bondi, Vaucluse and the rest of the relatively white, wealthy Eastern Suburbs were Sydney’s COVID ground zero.
To this point, Chant added: “I don’t think any young person in south-western Sydney wants to be the cause of an illness or death in their elderly grandparents.”
Both of them reiterated these sentiments at Thursday’s press conference, too.
It’s a fair point in theory. But please just vaccinate us already, and maybe don’t come down harder on suburbs in Western Sydney compared to the East.
