Impact of COVID-19 on Young People
Introduction
The novel corona virus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a serious pandemic that is affecting families and economies across the globe (Efuribe et al, 2020). Communities are facing unprecedented times and today, young people are among those being asked to make significant sacrifices to protect the health of older adults and other vulnerable populations (Efuribe et al, 2020).
Young people in Nigeria and other parts of sub-Saharan Africa are affected by the virus as most of them are unemployed as a result of the disruptions cause by the COVID-19 pandemic, where many jobs had to be put on hold and many schools and community centres are inoperative.
Some of this young people have abusive parents and relations, their only escape as it were was their schools and campuses, but had to endure the hardship of staying at home with these often abusive parents and relations.
Most young people have suffered gender based violation during the COVID-19 lockdown restrictions.
One can only imagine the traumatic experiences some of these young people have been exposed to over the past couple of weeks due to COVID-19 restrictions.
This research is aimed at uncovering some of the direct and in direct impact of COVID-19 on young people in Jos, Plateau state.
CDC estimates that while youth under the age of 18 years comprise 22% of the U.S. population, they represent only 1.7% of current COVID-19 cases [1]. Although adolescents and young adults are least likely to be severely affected if they contract COVID-19, drastic measures are being taken that affect large populations of youth to slow the rate of infection.
As the lockdowns eases in most parts of the world, the world is witnessing a renewed surge in the number of new cases of COVID-19 pandemic and there is every likelihood that more measures will be put in place to prevent further spread of the virus, it is important for policy makers to ensure that young people are in the front burners of their agenda to minimize the effect of some of these policies.
