July 31, 2020 • 6 mins
Household transmission is becoming an increasing worry as young people are infecting older family members in shared homes. Many young adults surged into bars and restaurants when things opened back up and are also among essential workers and it is only a matter of time before they come in contact with family members living in multi-generational homes. Lenny Bernstein, health and medicine reporter at the Washington Post, joins us for more.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
It's Friday, July one. I'm Oscar Emiras from the Daily
Dive podcast in Los Angeles, and this is reopening America.
Household transmission is becoming an increasing worry as young people
are infecting older family members in shared homes. Many young
adults surged into bars and restaurants when things open back up,
and are also among essential workers, and it was only
(00:21):
a matter of time before they came in contact with
family members living in multigenerational homes. Lenny Bernstein, health and
medicine reporter at The Washington Post, joins us for more.
Thanks for joining us, Lenny, my pleasure. We keep seeing
case loads rise for coronavirus. Death tolls are going up
in coronavirus hotspots, and once again we're starting to look
(00:43):
at the younger people. This story you focused on was
about household transmission and about how young people are infecting
older family members in shared homes, multigenerational homes, things like that.
Lenny tell us a little bit about it. Epidemiologists have
been warning about this for quite a while since some
of the states reopened about two months ago and younger
(01:07):
adults started returning to bars and restaurants and what the
experts have been pointing out is that a lot of
families in this country are multigenerational, but two or three
generations share the same household. Now, why is that a problem.
Because younger people tend to get infected without symptoms much
more often than older people. Then if they are living
(01:29):
in one of these multigenerational homes and they bring the
virus home, they then pass it on to people who
are much more vulnerable to the effects of COVID nineteen,
who get more severe symptoms, who end up in the hospital,
who end up in the i c U. And they
warned about this at the beginning, and now they believe
they're starting to see it happen. This is how I
grew up. It's not the situation anymore. But when I
(01:50):
was younger, I lived in a house with my grandma,
was my uncle, my mom, It was myself and my
two siblings. So there was a lot of us in there,
and it would be right for something like this, you know,
if one of us came down with it, my grandma
could get it. So I can see all of this happening,
and I know how these households work. And going back
to the younger people, generally these people that are more
(02:12):
considered these essential workers, if they work in some of
these low paying jobs, if they work at the supermarket,
things like that, so they're constantly in and out of
the house. Partying at the bars was one thing too
that was of concern, but even just in their normal
day lives, they're out and about constantly, and then they
come home. It's potential to spread it to family members.
We can't blame it entirely on young kids being irresponsible
(02:34):
or less responsible than we hope. Yes, adults in their
twenties and thirties tents socialize more. But you're absolutely correct.
People have to go to work. There's no other way.
People have jobs in retail and health care and other
places that are going to put them out there with
the public and at risk of infection. So it's not
just entirely people being cavalier about the generations they live with.
(02:59):
The other thing that we also ought to remember is
that a certain number of young people have been forced
back into their parents homes by the fact that they
no longer have worked. So we're not condemning, you know,
an entire generation of people here. Yeah, and the numbers
are there. There's a record sixty four million people. This
is about of the U S population that live in
(03:20):
these homes with at least two adult generations or something
where this's the grandparents and grandchildren under twenty five. So
these households, there's a lot of them out there. And
even just looking into the news, there was a couple
of examples that we could also kind of point to
on this. There was somebody in the President's cabinet, the
National Security advisor to the president, he just contracted COVID
(03:42):
nineteen and they were saying maybe he got it from
his daughter. So these examples are popping up in a
lot of places. The one that everybody has probably seen,
it's been pretty viral is the woman who went on
Facebook and posted a video about how she had begged
her one year old son not to let his guard down,
(04:02):
to wear his mask, not to hang out inclosed spaces
with his friends if they were unmasked, to be aware
of whom around him was infected. Well, he got infected.
He came home, he didn't tell them for a few days,
and you know, he sounds like a really good kid.
And she wasn't blaming him, she wasn't guilting him, but
(04:23):
by the time he made them aware that he had
been exposed, their whole family, their whole household was affected.
And unfortunately, his father, who's only forty two, ended up
in the i c U and ended up on eventI
LATOR for eighteen days. So this is no joke. You
have to think about the impact on yourself and then
(04:43):
the impact on anybody else you're going to come in
contact with. It's paramount that everybody wear the mask, do
all that stuff. And people say, well, I'm not gonna
get sick, But this is exactly the story of why
it's important that you do those things so you don't
infect your family members and other loved ones, and it's
stuff you know they're has been this notion of let's
reopen the economies. The most at risk can stay home
(05:05):
and the others can go out and go to work,
and trends like this kind of throw a wrench in it.
And all the more to be diligent and following the
proper guidelines social distancing and mask wearing and all that.
That philosophy just is not going to work in our society.
There is no way short of an older person living
in long term care or by themselves that they are
(05:27):
not going to mix with other generations. It just doesn't
work in our society. It was even worse in Italy.
One of the reasons that so many elderly folks died
there is that they have this huge percentage of their
population living in multigenerational households. Is just custom here. While
we may have only it's higher in ethnic communities. It
higher in Latino and Asian and Black communities than it
(05:50):
is in the white communities, and people just mix. So
the idea that we will shelter the vulnerable, you know,
in this completely impermeable protective bubble, is really not gonna work.
Lenny Bernstein, health and medicine reporter at The Washington Post,
thank you very much for joining us. Allay my pleasure.
(06:12):
I'm Oscar Ramirez and this has been reopening America. Don't
forget that. For today's big news stories, you can check
me out on the Daily Dive podcast every Monday through Friday.
So follow us on I Heart Radio or wherever you
get your podcast
It's Friday, July one. I'm Oscar Emiras from the Daily
Dive podcast in Los Angeles, and this is reopening America.
Household transmission is becoming an increasing worry as young people
are infecting older family members in shared homes. Many young
adults surged into bars and restaurants when things open back up,
and are also among essential workers, and it was only
(00:21):
a matter of time before they came in contact with
family members living in multigenerational homes. Lenny Bernstein, health and
medicine reporter at The Washington Post, joins us for more.
Thanks for joining us, Lenny, my pleasure. We keep seeing
case loads rise for coronavirus. Death tolls are going up
in coronavirus hotspots, and once again we're starting to look
(00:43):
at the younger people. This story you focused on was
about household transmission and about how young people are infecting
older family members in shared homes, multigenerational homes, things like that.
Lenny tell us a little bit about it. Epidemiologists have
been warning about this for quite a while since some
of the states reopened about two months ago and younger
(01:07):
adults started returning to bars and restaurants and what the
experts have been pointing out is that a lot of
families in this country are multigenerational, but two or three
generations share the same household. Now, why is that a problem.
Because younger people tend to get infected without symptoms much
more often than older people. Then if they are living
(01:29):
in one of these multigenerational homes and they bring the
virus home, they then pass it on to people who
are much more vulnerable to the effects of COVID nineteen,
who get more severe symptoms, who end up in the hospital,
who end up in the i c U. And they
warned about this at the beginning, and now they believe
they're starting to see it happen. This is how I
grew up. It's not the situation anymore. But when I
(01:50):
was younger, I lived in a house with my grandma,
was my uncle, my mom, It was myself and my
two siblings. So there was a lot of us in there,
and it would be right for something like this, you know,
if one of us came down with it, my grandma
could get it. So I can see all of this happening,
and I know how these households work. And going back
to the younger people, generally these people that are more
(02:12):
considered these essential workers, if they work in some of
these low paying jobs, if they work at the supermarket,
things like that, so they're constantly in and out of
the house. Partying at the bars was one thing too
that was of concern, but even just in their normal
day lives, they're out and about constantly, and then they
come home. It's potential to spread it to family members.
We can't blame it entirely on young kids being irresponsible
(02:34):
or less responsible than we hope. Yes, adults in their
twenties and thirties tents socialize more. But you're absolutely correct.
People have to go to work. There's no other way.
People have jobs in retail and health care and other
places that are going to put them out there with
the public and at risk of infection. So it's not
just entirely people being cavalier about the generations they live with.
(02:59):
The other thing that we also ought to remember is
that a certain number of young people have been forced
back into their parents homes by the fact that they
no longer have worked. So we're not condemning, you know,
an entire generation of people here. Yeah, and the numbers
are there. There's a record sixty four million people. This
is about of the U S population that live in
(03:20):
these homes with at least two adult generations or something
where this's the grandparents and grandchildren under twenty five. So
these households, there's a lot of them out there. And
even just looking into the news, there was a couple
of examples that we could also kind of point to
on this. There was somebody in the President's cabinet, the
National Security advisor to the president, he just contracted COVID
(03:42):
nineteen and they were saying maybe he got it from
his daughter. So these examples are popping up in a
lot of places. The one that everybody has probably seen,
it's been pretty viral is the woman who went on
Facebook and posted a video about how she had begged
her one year old son not to let his guard down,
(04:02):
to wear his mask, not to hang out inclosed spaces
with his friends if they were unmasked, to be aware
of whom around him was infected. Well, he got infected.
He came home, he didn't tell them for a few days,
and you know, he sounds like a really good kid.
And she wasn't blaming him, she wasn't guilting him, but
(04:23):
by the time he made them aware that he had
been exposed, their whole family, their whole household was affected.
And unfortunately, his father, who's only forty two, ended up
in the i c U and ended up on eventI
LATOR for eighteen days. So this is no joke. You
have to think about the impact on yourself and then
(04:43):
the impact on anybody else you're going to come in
contact with. It's paramount that everybody wear the mask, do
all that stuff. And people say, well, I'm not gonna
get sick, But this is exactly the story of why
it's important that you do those things so you don't
infect your family members and other loved ones, and it's
stuff you know they're has been this notion of let's
reopen the economies. The most at risk can stay home
(05:05):
and the others can go out and go to work,
and trends like this kind of throw a wrench in it.
And all the more to be diligent and following the
proper guidelines social distancing and mask wearing and all that.
That philosophy just is not going to work in our society.
There is no way short of an older person living
in long term care or by themselves that they are
(05:27):
not going to mix with other generations. It just doesn't
work in our society. It was even worse in Italy.
One of the reasons that so many elderly folks died
there is that they have this huge percentage of their
population living in multigenerational households. Is just custom here. While
we may have only it's higher in ethnic communities. It
higher in Latino and Asian and Black communities than it
(05:50):
is in the white communities, and people just mix. So
the idea that we will shelter the vulnerable, you know,
in this completely impermeable protective bubble, is really not gonna work.
Lenny Bernstein, health and medicine reporter at The Washington Post,
thank you very much for joining us. Allay my pleasure.
(06:12):
I'm Oscar Ramirez and this has been reopening America. Don't
forget that. For today's big news stories, you can check
me out on the Daily Dive podcast every Monday through Friday.
So follow us on I Heart Radio or wherever you
get your podcast
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