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Long social distancing: how young adults’ habits have changed since COVID
Some young adults are hanging onto COVID habits – but less so than older people.
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After two long, difficult years of the pandemic, life has started to return to normal – or at least something resembling normal – for many people.
With all major COVID restrictions now removed in the UK, recorded cases at their lowest rate in about a year, and vaccines and booster coverage relatively high, many people are keenly settling back into old habits. Mobility data suggests that – with the exception of travel on public transport and travel to workplaces, which are still below average – we are starting to get out and about as much as we did before the pandemic.
This article is part of Quarter Life, a series about issues affecting those of us in our twenties and thirties. From the challenges of beginning a career and taking care of our mental health, to the excitement of starting a family, adopting a pet or just making friends as an adult. The articles in this series explore the questions and bring answers as we navigate this turbulent period of life.
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But for a significant number of people, the habits that were picked up during the pandemic are still very much a part of life. For example, recent data suggests that just under one-third of people in the UK are continuing to avoid crowded places, while about one-third say they’re maintaining social distancing when meeting up with people from outside their household. More than half of people (54%) report still wearing face masks at least sometimes.
This phenomenon – which has been called “long social distancing” – is not unique to the UK. For example, in many countries, including France, Spain, Italy and Germany, more than four in ten people have reported they’re still avoiding crowds.
Meanwhile, US research has found that 13% of Americans say they plan to continue to socially distance after the pandemic is over, with another 46% saying they plan on only a partial return to normal activities.
But who is practising long social distancing, and why? And where do young people fit in?
Let’s take a look
One obvious group is those who are clinically vulnerable. For example, people with disabilities – many of whom, depending on the nature of their disability, might be at higher risk of serious outcomes from COVID – are more likely to believe that their lives will never return to normal. Similarly, adults aged over 70, also at higher risk of serious illness from COVID, are more likely to still be wearing face masks.
There are certainly differences in behaviour by age. Data from the UK finds that younger adults are less likely than older adults to either be still socially distancing or wearing face masks. Research from the US meanwhile finds that younger people are less likely to continue socially distancing after the pandemic is over.
Younger people may have been quicker to return to social activities, compared to older adults. Recent UK data suggests that over the first few months of 2022, during and just after the initial omicron wave, more than 80% of 18 to 29-year-olds said they had met up with friends during the previous week, compared to around 60% to 70% of people in older age groups.
Even so, data shows that 16% of those aged 16-29 are still socially distancing, and 40% are still wearing masks outside of their homes at least sometimes.
The pandemic has been hard on young adults
Young adults have tended to get a bad rap during the pandemic, often unfairly. Although some surveys have suggested that rule-breaking was higher among younger adults, others have found that compliance in this group was as high, or at certain points even higher, than it was among older adults.
Notably, young adults have been one of the groups who have found the pandemic, and the policies designed to contain COVID, most difficult. General life satisfaction has been significantly lower among younger compared to older adults throughout the past two years. It’s possible that the “social losses” experienced during the pandemic have been more challenging for younger adults, for whom we know socialising is crucial for development and wellbeing.
Young adults have been among the most likely to experience mental health problems, and not to look after their physical health – for example having a poor diet, drinking a lot of alcohol, or not doing enough exercise. As we continue to emerge from the pandemic, problems such as anxiety and depression tend to remain higher among younger adults.
Why a return to ‘normal’ won’t be uniform
Behaviour is complex and often if not always the result of many factors. Research has invariably shown how everything from political affiliation to personality traits affects how people have been behaving during the pandemic. Conscientiousness and neuroticism, for example, have both been associated with greater adherence to infection-reducing behaviour.
Similarly, these sorts of factors are likely to affect the extent to which different people return to their pre-pandemic social habits. Certainly there’s a significant minority of the population who remain at least somewhat worried about the effect of COVID on their lives – four in ten according to recent UK data.
Interestingly, US data suggests people on lower incomes, and with less formal education, are the least likely to feel as though they will return to normal pre-pandemic activities.
Further research is needed to explore why this is the case. One possible explanation is that people from more deprived communities have been at greater risk of more serious outcomes from COVID. They have also been most affected by the economic and social impacts of pandemic policies. So for them it’s perhaps unsurprising that getting back to “normal” seems like a distant, if not impossible, goal.
Read more: Two years into the pandemic, which of our newly formed habits are here to stay?
In our Public Views During the COVID Pandemic project, we have been following people using a combination of focus groups and surveys since March 2020. One of our aims is to continue to explore some of the reasons behind why, and for how long, social distancing might be a part of some people’s lives.
Simon Nicholas Williams has received funding from Swansea University, the University of Manchester, Senedd Cymru and Public Health Wales for research on COVID-19. However, this opinion article reflects the views of the author only and no funding bodies were involved in the writing or content of this article.
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Removing antimicrobial resistance from the WHO’s ‘pandemic treaty’ will leave humanity extremely vulnerable to future pandemics
Drug-resistant microbes are a serious threat for future pandemics, but the new draft of the WHO’s international pandemic agreement may not include provisions…
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In late May, the latest version of the draft Pandemic Instrument, also referred to as the “pandemic treaty,” was shared with Member States at the World Health Assembly. The text was made available online via Health Policy Watch and it quickly became apparent that all mentions of addressing antimicrobial resistance in the Pandemic Instrument were at risk of removal.
Work on the Pandemic Instrument began in December 2021 after the World Health Assembly agreed to a global process to draft and negotiate an international instrument — under the Constitution of the World Health Organization (WHO) — to protect nations and communities from future pandemic emergencies.
Read more: Drug-resistant superbugs: A global threat intensified by the fight against coronavirus
Since the beginning of negotiations on the Pandemic Instrument, there have been calls from civil society and leading experts, including the Global Leaders Group on Antimicrobial Resistance, to include the so-called “silent” pandemic of antimicrobial resistance in the instrument.
Just three years after the onset of a global pandemic, it is understandable why Member States negotiating the Pandemic Instrument have focused on preventing pandemics that resemble COVID-19. But not all pandemics in the past have been caused by viruses and not all pandemics in the future will be caused by viruses. Devastating past pandemics of bacterial diseases have included plague and cholera. The next pandemic could be caused by bacteria or other microbes.
Antimicrobial resistance
Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) is the process by which infections caused by microbes become resistant to the medicines developed to treat them. Microbes include bacteria, fungi, viruses and parasites. Bacterial infections alone cause one in eight deaths globally.
AMR is fueling the rise of drug-resistant infections, including drug-resistant tuberculosis, drug-resistant pneumonia and drug-resistant Staph infections such as methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA). These infections are killing and debilitating millions of people annually, and AMR is now a leading cause of death worldwide.
Without knowing what the next pandemic will be, the “pandemic treaty” must plan, prepare and develop effective tools to respond to a wider range of pandemic threats, not solely viruses.
Even if the world faces another viral pandemic, secondary bacterial infections will be a serious issue. During the COVID-19 pandemic for instance, large percentages of those hospitalized with COVID-19 required treatment for secondary bacterial infections.
New research from Northwestern University suggests that many of the deaths among hospitalized COVID-19 patients were associated with pneumonia — a secondary bacterial infection that must be treated with antibiotics.
Treating these bacterial infections requires effective antibiotics, and with AMR increasing, effective antibiotics are becoming a scarce resource. Essentially, safeguarding the remaining effective antibiotics we have is critical to responding to any pandemic.
That’s why the potential removal of measures that would help mitigate AMR and better safeguard antimicrobial effectiveness is so concerning. Sections of the text which may be removed include measures to prevent infections (caused by bacteria, viruses and other microbes), such as:
- better access to safe water, sanitation and hygiene;
- higher standards of infection prevention and control;
- integrated surveillance of infectious disease threats from human, animals and the environment; and
- strengthening antimicrobial stewardship efforts to optimize how antimicrobial drugs are used and prevent the development of AMR.
The exclusion of these measures would hinder efforts to protect people from future pandemics, and appears to be part of a broader shift to water-down the language in the Pandemic Instrument, making it easier for countries to opt-out of taking recommended actions to prevent future pandemics.
Making the ‘pandemic treaty’ more robust
Measures to address AMR could be easily included and addressed in the “pandemic treaty.”
In September 2022, I was part of a group of civil society and research organizations that specialize in mitigating AMR who were invited the WHO’s Intergovernmental Negotiating Body (INB) to provide an analysis on how AMR should be addressed, within the then-draft text.
They outlined that including bacterial pathogens in the definition of “pandemics” was critical. They also identified specific provisions that should be tweaked to track and address both viral and bacterial threats. These included AMR and recommended harmonizing national AMR stewardship rules.
In March 2023, I joined other leading academic researchers and experts from various fields in publishing a special edition of the Journal of Medicine, Law and Ethics, outlining why the Pandemic Instrument must address AMR.
The researchers of this special issue argued that the Pandemic Instrument was overly focused on viral threats and ignored AMR and bacterial threats, including the need to manage antibiotics as a common-pool resource and revitalize research and development of novel antimicrobial drugs.
Next steps
While earlier drafts of the Pandemic Instrument drew on guidance from AMR policy researchers and civil society organizations, after the first round of closed-door negotiations by Member States, all of these insertions, are now at risk for removal.
The Pandemic Instrument is the best option to mitigate AMR and safeguard lifesaving antimicrobials to treat secondary infections in pandemics. AMR exceeds the capacity of any single country or sector to solve. Global political action is needed to ensure the international community works together to collectively mitigate AMR and support the conservation, development and equitable distribution of safe and effective antimicrobials.
By missing this opportunity to address AMR and safeguard antimicrobials in the Pandemic Instrument, we severely undermine the broader goals of the instrument: to protect nations and communities from future pandemic emergencies.
It is important going forward that Member States recognize the core infrastructural role that antimicrobials play in pandemic response and strengthen, rather than weaken, measures meant to safeguard antimicrobials.
Antimicrobials are an essential resource for responding to pandemic emergencies that must be protected. If governments are serious about pandemic preparedness, they must support bold measures to conserve the effectiveness of antimicrobials within the Pandemic Instrument.
Susan Rogers Van Katwyk is a member of the WHO Collaborating Centre on Global Governance of Antimicrobial Resistance at York University. She receives funding from the Wellcome Trust and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.
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Repeated COVID-19 Vaccination Weakens Immune System: Study
Repeated COVID-19 Vaccination Weakens Immune System: Study
Authored by Zachary Stieber via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),
Repeated COVID-19…
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Authored by Zachary Stieber via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),
Repeated COVID-19 vaccination weakens the immune system, potentially making people susceptible to life-threatening conditions such as cancer, according to a new study.
Multiple doses of the Pfizer or Moderna COVID-19 vaccines lead to higher levels of antibodies called IgG4, which can provide a protective effect. But a growing body of evidence indicates that the “abnormally high levels” of the immunoglobulin subclass actually make the immune system more susceptible to the COVID-19 spike protein in the vaccines, researchers said in the paper.
They pointed to experiments performed on mice that found multiple boosters on top of the initial COVID-19 vaccination “significantly decreased” protection against both the Delta and Omicron virus variants and testing that found a spike in IgG4 levels after repeat Pfizer vaccination, suggesting immune exhaustion.
Studies have detected higher levels of IgG4 in people who died with COVID-19 when compared to those who recovered and linked the levels with another known determinant of COVID-19-related mortality, the researchers also noted.
A review of the literature also showed that vaccines against HIV, malaria, and pertussis also induce the production of IgG4.
“In sum, COVID-19 epidemiological studies cited in our work plus the failure of HIV, Malaria, and Pertussis vaccines constitute irrefutable evidence demonstrating that an increase in IgG4 levels impairs immune responses,” Alberto Rubio Casillas, a researcher with the biology laboratory at the University of Guadalajara in Mexico and one of the authors of the new paper, told The Epoch Times via email.
The paper was published by the journal Vaccines in May.
Pfizer and Moderna officials didn’t respond to requests for comment.
Both companies utilize messenger RNA (mRNA) technology in their vaccines.
Dr. Robert Malone, who helped invent the technology, said the paper illustrates why he’s been warning about the negative effects of repeated vaccination.
“I warned that more jabs can result in what’s called high zone tolerance, of which the switch to IgG4 is one of the mechanisms. And now we have data that clearly demonstrate that’s occurring in the case of this as well as some other vaccines,” Malone, who wasn’t involved with the study, told The Epoch Times.
“So it’s basically validating that this rush to administer and re-administer without having solid data to back those decisions was highly counterproductive and appears to have resulted in a cohort of people that are actually more susceptible to the disease.”
Possible Problems
The weakened immune systems brought about by repeated vaccination could lead to serious problems, including cancer, the researchers said.
Read more here...
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Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Banned By Major Social Media Site, Campaign Pages Blocked
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Banned By Major Social Media Site, Campaign Pages Blocked
Authored by Jack Phillips via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),
Twitter…
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Authored by Jack Phillips via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),
Twitter owner Elon Musk invited Democrat presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. for a discussion on his Twitter Spaces after Kennedy said his campaign was suspended by Meta-owned Instagram.
“Interesting… when we use our TeamKennedy email address to set up @instagram accounts we get an automatic 180-day ban. Can anyone guess why that’s happening?” he wrote on Twitter.
An accompanying image shows that Instagram said it “suspended” his “Team Kennedy” account and that there “are 180 days remaining to disagree” with the company’s decision.
In response to his post, Musk wrote: “Would you like to do a Spaces discussion with me next week?” Kennedy agreed, saying he would do it Monday at 2 p.m. ET.
Hours later, Kennedy wrote that Instagram “still hasn’t reinstated my account, which was banned years ago with more than 900k followers.” He argued that “to silence a major political candidate is profoundly undemocratic.”
“Social media is the modern equivalent of the town square,” the candidate, who is the nephew of former President John F. Kennedy, wrote. “How can democracy function if only some candidates have access to it?”
The Epoch Times approached Instagram for comment.
Interesting… when we use our TeamKennedy email address to set up @instagram accounts we get an automatic 180-day ban. Can anyone guess why that’s happening? pic.twitter.com/0G8oRnoXTv
— Robert F. Kennedy Jr (@RobertKennedyJr) June 2, 2023
It’s not the first time that either Facebook or Instagram has taken action against Kennedy. In 2021, Instagram banned him from posting claims about vaccine safety and COVID-19.
After he was banned by the platform, Kennedy said that his Instagram posts raised legitimate concerns about vaccines and were backed by research. His account was banned just days after Facebook and Instagram announced they would block the spread of what they described as misinformation about vaccines, including research saying the shots cause autism, are dangerous, or are ineffective.
“This kind of censorship is counterproductive if our objective is a safe and effective vaccine supply,” he said at the time.
Read more here...
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