Why does reducing viral spread matter even for the healthy?

Covid is known to disproportionately kill the old and the vulnerable.[1] This has led many healthy young people to think that reducing the viral spread between the healthy doesn’t matter. Is it true?

There are three considerations to make: direct risks, indirect risks, and societal costs. 

Let’s see them one by one.

Direct risks

For the healthy and young, the direct risk of dying from COVID is indeed quite low. 

That said, it isn’t zero.

Moreover, many people believe to be healthy but, after a hospitalization, they discover they were not as healthy  as they thought (maybe they had some cardiovascular condition they weren’t aware of, etc.). Hence, whereas it is true that a healthy person’s risk is low, there is a chance that a person’s risk is higher than they imagined it to be.

Finally, death is not the only direct risk. A COVID infection might lead to a painful hospitalization and/or a long sequelae of symptoms.

Indirect risks

If community spread is high, the hospitals get overcrowded and the doctors sick, leading to a deterioration of healthcare capabilities. That results in worse outcomes for the conditions that might lead a young adult to visit a hospital – for example, a road incident or a suspicion of cancer.

Societal costs

During the pandemic, many people suffered immensely from having been denied visits to their dying parents in the hospital. While this was a heartbreaking practice, it had a reason to exist: preventing the risk that a sick visitor brings the virus inside the hospital and infects the vulnerable patients therein. This risk is higher when community spread is higher. Keeping community spread low makes cruel policies less necessary (and lowers the risk that one’s parents end up in the hospital following a respiratory infection).

Most of us want to be able to visit our parents. However, the higher the number of COVID cases within the general population, the more likely we are to expose our parents to the virus while visiting them. If we want to keep them safe and be able to have dinner with them, keeping the community spread low is of paramount importance. (There are alternatives, though.)

Finally, there are plenty of young people who suffered from COVID despite not falling sick to it: for example, everyone who lost a parent or spouse.[2]

Conclusions

The risk of falling severely sick to COVID is only one of the reasons one might want to keep viral spread low. This article listed a few other reasons why young and healthy people have an interest in preventing and fighting a respiratory pandemic.

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