Bloomberg reports:

Covid-19 is increasingly a disease of the young, with the message to stay home for the sake of older loved ones wearing off as the pandemic wears on.

The dropping age of the infected is becoming one of the most pressing problems for local officials, who continued Wednesday to set curfews and close places where the young gather. U.S. health experts say that they are more likely to be active and asymptomatic, providing a vast redoubt for the coronavirus that has killed almost 130,000 Americans.

In Arizona, half of all positive cases are people from the ages of 20 to 44, according to state data. The median age in Florida is 37, down from 65 in March. In Texas’s Hays County, people in their 20s make up 50% of the victims.

At the start of the pandemic, young people were told to stay at home as an act of selflessness: Do it for dad. For grandma. For your neighbor. Then states started reopening and, almost instantly, photos began circulating of packed clubs and crowded restaurants. There were massive street protests over police brutality and racial injustice. Case counts soared to record levels.

“We did jump the gun on reopening too soon,” said Ian Grimes, 27, of Austin, home of Texas’s flagship university, scores of technology companies and a self-consciously bohemian party culture. “Especially us Austinites, we’re impatient when it comes to having fun.” [Continue reading…]