Old People in the United States of America are better and more likely to follow the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention CDC’s covid19 guidelines than young people in order to control the pandemic spread, a new survey reports. The Team at Data Foundation conducted the survey and believe this is the reason that the number of young people getting infected with the virus has been increasing since June.
The survey involving 6500 people aged 18 or older found that the mask-wearing in the US increased from an average of every 78 in 100 people in April to every 83 in 100 people in May and around 89 in 100 people in June. Older people were higher by around 14 percentages in wearing masks than people who were younger. However, other of the CDC’s covid19 guidelines such as social distancing, avoiding crowds, and handwashing decreased or remained the same over time.
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In younger adults aged between 18 and 29 the following of CDC’s Covid19 guidelines was very less which resulted in more young people getting infected with the virus in recent months, according to the CDC. In that group, the mask-wearing only went up from around 70 in 100 people to 86 in 100 in the period from April to June. The report said that the findings show the need that clear and targeted messages should be prioritized towards young people.
The researchers said that while young adults are less likely to suffer severely from the coronavirus still in some cases the infection can get really serious. They also said that people who are mildly infected or are asymptomatic can still spread the virus to people who are very old and are the most vulnerable.
The researchers found that at every point in time when they tested people, people who were aged 60 or more were better at following CDC’s covid19 guidelines and the younger people were found less consistent in following the guidelines. The researchers wrote that this might be due to the fact that older people are more afraid of the virus because they are more likely to get severely ill as compared to young people. They added that young people may also be less likely to engage in acts that can reduce the spread due to developmental, practical, and social factors.
Although the CDC has suggested some safety measures so that the spread of the virus can be reduced, which includes mask-wearing, the president of the US Donald Trump and some members of his team have ignored those guidelines regularly. Health critics believe that the president has sent the wrong message to the people of the country by not following the mask-wearing rules. Melania Trump and Donald Trump both tested positive for the virus and so was their son. After testing positive the president ignored the requests of the health experts who told him to go into isolation but he instead made public appearances.
The US is now seeing a new surge in cases of the virus with more than 85000 new daily cases reported last Friday and also nearly 74000 new cases were reported on Monday, which is still more than the previous record daily new cases of 73,000 reported in July.