Take a gap year and do what, exactly? Sitting around your parents' house for a year is probably worse than getting the coronavirus, for an 18 year old. Maybe much worse.
This turned out to be more useful than 80% of what I learned in college.
Even for my friends that went for CS, they also said they would have loved to have had more time to apply and actually create things vs just learning theoretical/ engineering side of things in school.
Or for instance my brother if he took off from school he would have had the chance to go pro in the MLS, but it was too big of a risk to put off school at the time. Not that sports are happening now, but just gives a more diverse view.
A more HN example would be to create a business or side hustle.