Coronavirus is bad for the young but they won’t be the worst hit

‘The expected recession will hit young adults hardest,’ BBC presenter, Jonny Dymond, said on ‘The World This Weekend’. Almost half the programme was then given over to the dire future that awaits the UK’s 18-24 year olds, with the prospect that a million of them could become unemployed. The latest ‘Weekend Woman’s Hour’ offered a package in the same vein, as did the BBC website, with a feature headlined: ”We feel so lost’ – Young face job despair.’

Nor is it just the BBC. The media has been full of Cassandras from a variety of London-based think-tanks and plush addresses forecasting, with the same categorical certainty, that the chief victims of the pandemic will be the young. Not only will they end up footing the considerable financial bill, but their life chances will be blighted forever.

Nowhere – except occasionally in the social media or the notorious ‘below-the-line’ comments in print – will you find any challenge to the twin views that (a) the young – variously defined as today’s 18-24s or 18-30s – will be uniquely hard-hit and (b) that the older generation should feel very guilty about the sacrifices (i.e.