‘From hot vax summer to everyone has COVID’: Hopes dashed for young | natassiazc
Jonty Katz had been waiting two years to host a proper house party. Two prior attempts – one in March 2020, another scheduled for August 2021 – had to be cancelled due to lockdowns. In November, everything was looking up – vaccination rates were high, cases low, and restrictions almost gone – so he made a Facebook event for mid-December titled: “Birthday Party: Will not be cancelled”.
Katz’s December birthday party - the third house party he has tried to host since the pandemic - ultimately succumbed to the same fate as his earlier attempts.Thousands of Sydneysiders in their 20s have been swapping stories like this for the past three weeks as they and their friends have come to make up the greatest portion of new cases in NSW amid the latest surge in infections.
The next-highest percentage of cases have been among 30-to-34-year-olds . The larger demographic of 0 to 19-year-olds has accounted for 23.2 per cent of infections. One week before Katz’s ill-fated birthday event, Kearney and her Newtown housemates Sam Lonergan-Stewart, 26, and Caitlin Xu-Glassop, 27, spent eight hours dancing at a rave in Rozelle before leaving about 6am.
“It was the week before Christmas and we were absolutely gutted – we were isolated for the first week of what had felt like summer all year. There was a big party we had planned, a couple of gigs we wanted to go to, getting ready for Christmas,” Xu-Glassop said. Several 20-somethings have found themselves abandoning their sharehouses and moving back to their parents to escape the worst of the infectious surge. Hannah Atkin, 23, said many of her friends who travelled interstate for Christmas have decided not to come home until after the new year or the beginning of university to avoid the outbreak.Those who won’t be sick or isolating over New Year are now questioning what they should do.
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