THE GOVERNMENT HAS launched a campaign aimed at young people and how they have been coping with the pandemic. 

The campaign uses social media influencers to ask their followers questions they may have and put them to the Deputy Chief Medical Officer Dr Ronan Glynn.

The campaign has already begun on Facebook, Instagram, Tiktok, and YouTube, and has it’s own website AntiviralIreland.com.

Since the beginning of the pandemic, young people have been criticised for not adhering to Covid-19 restrictions strictly enough, particularly after videos of social gatherings emerged and went viral, (Berlin bar, Freshers’ Week, for example).

Others have argued that blaming young people is unfair and unhelpful, and the pandemic has had the most severe negative impact on this group – both in their personal and professional development.

At a briefing this morning, the Department of An Taoiseach’s Liz Canavan said that young people have “sometimes been unfairly highlighted for images of non compliance that appear from time to time on social media.

“We don’t believe this represents the behaviour of the majority,” she said. 

 We have seen incident rates fall among young people. We know the enormous effort and sacrifices taken.

She said that to comply with restrictions, young people have missed out on meeting their friends, not being able to attend college in person, not being able to get a job, and missing out on other “rites of passage and formative experiences”.

Canavan said that the Taoiseach’s department has been working with several other branches of government to understand what the pandemic has meant for young people and to explore how to acknowledge the sacrifices they have made.

She said the campaign aims to emphasize “the positive behaviours of the majority, and to give the silent majority a forum to make their voices heard”. 

She said it would tell stories of how young people have been “living their best lives possible, within the restrictions”.

Influencers have already gathered questions young people have and have put them to the Deputy Chief Medical Officer Dr Ronan Glynn. You can watch that video here: