'Young people are not invincible': WHO warns the young party-goers

As the summer break started in Europe and the US, young people let down their guards and flocked to beaches and home-made clubs to spend time with friends and have fun.

However, that may not have been the best idea during a pandemic and may have caused a surge in the positive coronavirus cases.

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This has even raised concerns and fears of a possible second wave of the novel coronavirus in various western and Asian countries.

The World Health Organization (WHO, on Thursday issued a statement warning young people and urging them to stay home and stay safe.

“We’ve said this before and we’ll say it again: young people are not invincible,” WHO Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told a news briefing in Geneva.

The fears of possibility of second wave have even forced some countries to reimpose travel bans and prepare for another complete lockdown if need be.

According to Tedros, the spike in coronavirus cases is “driven in part by younger people letting down their guard during the northern hemisphere summer."

Maria Van Kerkhove, a top WHO epidemiologist, told the same briefing that nightclubs were “amplifiers of transmission”.

“The majority of young people infected tend to have more mild disease. But that’s not always consistent,” she said.

The WHO had earlier in June said it would be updating its travel guidelines in time for the northern hemisphere summer holidays, but has not yet done so.

As of now, the WHO has urged travellers to wear face masks at all times during travelling and to be informed about the surge of cases in the countries they are travelling to and travelling from.