Summer Covid surge risks long-term health issues for the young

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The expected surge in Covid-19 infections over the coming weeks could leave hundreds of thousands of younger people with long-term health problems, researchers have warned. As England prepares to remove all pandemic restrictions on 19 July, including mask-wearing and social distancing, a group of academics from institutions including Queen Mary University of London, the University of Sussex, and the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, have described the decision as “dangerous and premature”. In their correspondence published in The Lancet, they say not enough people will have been vaccinated to achieve “population immunity” by 19 July. Young people face a particular risk of catching Covid-19 and falling ill as many have not yet been able to have their second jab. “The UK health secretary has stated that daily cases could reach 100,000 per day over the summer months of 2021. The link between infection and death might have been weakened, but it has not been broken, and infection can still cause substantial morbidity in both acute and long-term illness,” they say. “This strategy risks creating a generation left with chronic health problems and disability, the personal and economic impacts of which might be felt for decades to come.” They identify five main concerns with the government’s plans to lift all restrictions at this stage of the pandemic:

• Unmitigated transmission will disproportionately affect unvaccinated children and young a