Introduction to special issue. Distancing, disease and distress: The young and COVID-19: exploring young people’s experience of inequalities and their resourcefulness during the pandemic

The COVID-19 global pandemic has impacted everyone’s lives—young and old. When the World Health Organization declared the COVID-19 outbreak a pandemic on 11 March 2020 and one country after another went into lockdown, we as editors of YOUNG and youth researchers living in five different countries naturally started to think about and reflect on what impact the pandemic would have on young people’s everyday lives, their well-being and futures across different national settings. In response to this uncertainty and in the interest of capturing young people’s experiences, we as editors called for this special issue to focus on young people and COVID-19, exploring their changed everyday lives and how they adapted to the global pandemic. To accommodate the immense interest and the high quality of many of the submissions, this special issue of YOUNG is a double issue with 11 articles.