I agree with this article on older people

[Orangeblossom78]

Like many of us, i have been trying to emphasise to parents over 70 about staying in through this etc, and have been reading the several threads about others frustrated with there parents refusal to comply and get deliveries etc..

then I was reading this by Janice Turner in the Times today. It really made me think. I agree with what she is saying. We need to leave it up to them really.

How much of it comes down to our own need to feel we are 'keeping them safe' perhaps, so we feel Ok about that?

Here is the article:

The old have the right to decide what’s risky
Condemning the over-70s to long-term lockdown takes no account of an individual’s health, needs or desires

Janice Turner
Friday April 24 2020, 5.00pm, The Times
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Maybe it’s the sunshine, but something shifted this week. Social distancing in the supermarket queue has a bored, desultory air. People pass on pavements rather than leap into the road: evening strollers in the park are larkier, the mood less tense. Like a spring plant, the country longs to unfurl.

Yet the price of the majority returning to school, work, to pub reunions with friends, to regaining the million tiny pleasures we never knew we’d miss, will be the continued self-isolation of the old. Details are sketchy. The health secretary Matt Hancock has said it will apply to the over-70s for four months, others suggest the over-60s for 18. On Wednesday, health minister Lord Bethell refused to clarify if a grey lockdown will be advisory...

Link to full article (paywall).

[Post edited by MNHQ]

If one wants to look at this quite dispassionately, actually the older you are, the more you have paid into the NHS and therefore you are more deserving of care!

I remember an episode of More or Less (maths programme on Radio 4) somebody had heard it quoted that this generation of pensioners had been subsidised by younger people at about £200,000 each. In that, what they had received from the state in education, healthcare etc was worth £200,000 more then they had paid in taxes. More or Less investigated this and found that it was largely true.

Which is it though?

Both. Its an illustration of the stupidity of assuming one rule works for an age range which includes working 60 somethings to centenarians.

Moondust0001

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No one has actually said that there will be lockdown for 18 months .

I am getting sick to death of the media.

We don’t even have lockdown now anyway as far as I can see . Not compared to other countries .

We are shielding but had to go to a shop yesterday and I don’t think anyone was taking much notice of the distancing rules .

@Moondust001 - well said, thank you.

Absolutely agree

More or Less investigated this and found that it was largely true.

That is quite misleading.

If its the programme I recall the cost factor was more related to expensive new treatments coming along that percentage of income given during a lifetime and also factored in social care costs.

If you want to make a case for mass euthanasia over a certain age then do it honestly, not via mealy mouthed ageism.

I'm in my early 60's and take prednisone for Lupus. It helps keepinflamayikn and pain under control. It also makes me immosupresent.
With my Doctors permission and advise I'm am coming off it. I would rather have the pain than the thought if being indoors until a vaccine is available.
What if there never is.
I want to see my Grandchildren. I want to see my friends. I just want to leave the house.

@Moondust001, posts like yours make me yearn for a like button. Well said, that woman

Brilliant @Moondust001

My DP is 66 and I’m quite a bit younger. We are both still work full time and plan to get back to normal ASAP.

Ive been encouraging my father in his 80s to go out for a daily walk. He is thin with probable osteoporosis and normally keeps very active. If he stopped doing weight bearing exercise he is highly likely to lose muscle tone and fall and break a bone. Indoor exercise is less good for people with arthritis prone to vertigo on sudden position changes. Walking is much better. He has someone to do his shopping. That's the bit to avoid. Quality of life is more important to him than quantity now

Tbh this is not all about age is it ? There are plenty of younger people that are at high risk because of various illness . So protecting the vunerable is going to apply to all sorts of people in the community.

So whatever the answer is it is going to affect a lot of people .

I have a close relative in the extremely vunerable group who is only 27 with young children . Not sure how she is going to cope . She is terrified of the children going back to school and bringing the virus home .

I think the government advice is right. I also think the over 70s have the right to say thanks but I’ll take my chances. The difficulties is, if they take their chances and fill up icu, we’ In trouble.

I haven’t read the article but if people are finally realising the elderly are not children and should make their own choice - thank fuck for that - but you should wonder where your brain went initially.

I think there’s a difference between expecting older generations to stay at home for 6-18 months and expecting them to stay at home right now, which is what most posters have been dealing with.

I don’t think it’s fair to expect them to stay isolated indefinitely. It’s cruel. But in the very short term, the first week or two of lockdown, I would still really really have preferred it if my elderly relative with an existing lung condition had stopped “just popping out to M&S/Tesco/Co-op” all the time when she lives in a Covid hotspot.

Give everyone the option for “do not treat” if you’re that worried about us clogging up precious NHS.

My dad is in the shielding group. I have been very strict with my parents but I went to water his allotment last night and I realised that there is absolutely little to no risk to him going there.
So he's going today with my absolute blessing.
I have also been to see them in their large garden when I drop their shopping off.
However most people don't have allotments, many don't have gardens. Its easy for me to preach isolation from a position of privilege and we should all be mindful of this.

“ Its easy for me to preach isolation from a position of privilege and we should all be mindful of this.”

Halle fucking lujah.

I hope many posters on MN are starting to get a grip.

If you want to make a case for mass euthanasia over a certain age then do it honestly

Where exactly have I done that?
I've just challenged the mantra of "they've paid in all their lives, they deserve something back". I haven't even said that I don't think they should be subsidised.

I don't agree with @Moondust001 She says I am therefore more than fucking capable of making my own decisions and making my own risk assessments. I have lived with and through more things than this virus can throw at us. And with and through more things than most people, full stop and I disagree because, moondust, we cannot have 2 sets of rules - one for clever people like you and one for everyone else. Not everyone can make value judgements like you can. Not everyone has several doctorates and has learned from life experiences and are now wise. Not everyone has read up on how this virus behaves. How would it work in your not patronising world - who would approve a list of who can and who can't form their own judgement about when to go out, when to wear a mask, who to visit? I would question whether your good judgement is as sound as you think it is.

The people talking about 18mths lockdown here - that is not what scientists or politicians have said.

I agree. I am in my 50s, no health issues except i am a bit fat, but my adult dd is always nagging me about staying in. (I do anyway) i think a lot of it is just younger people thinking they know best. There have been a few threads on here with people who are 'furious' with their parents. Ridiculous.

We do have to treat grown ups as if they are grown ups. If an individual shows themselves incapable of it, then take action - if necessary - against that individual.

Give everyone the option for “do not treat” if you’re that worried about us clogging up precious NHS

I wonder if people who are more likely to be vulnerable to the effects of Coronavirus are also more likely to have a higher viral load and to spread it more to people when they get affected?

So affecting everyone else?

I agree with this. It wasn't that long ago when health professionals were citing loneliness nearly as high a factor as smoking in reduced life spans.

It is so important to look at ways in which the elderly can resume some kind of life again, obviously taking into consideration the same risk factors as everyone else in slowly returning to their daily lives.

Certainly whilst the weather is warmer over the next few months we need to encourage friends and relatives visiting and sharing cups of tea, glasses of wine on driveways, gardens . For all ages this is gives far more benefits than the risks entailed.

Ideally we should all, whatever age, have the choice of whether we go out or stay in. Everyone should be allowed to make their own choice about risk vs liberty.

However, the flip side of that is that if enough of us choose to go out, resume normal life, there will be a huge peak (at least that is what we’re being told) and the NHS will not be able to treat us all.

It will have to triage, and those who are older or have significant health problems will be at the bottom of the list because they are less likely to recover.

The article says “Some suggest over-70s should live freely only if they sign away rights to ICU care if they get ill” with a sense of horror that anyone might suggest this. The reality is, if there are too many cases all at once, the over 70s will be refused treatment anyway (whether they have signed it away or not) as they are statistically less likely to benefit. That is what we saw in Italy.

So, by all means, let us all go out. Let us all resume normal lives. But if we all do that, we all have to take our chances of ending up at the bottom of the triage pile. And the chances of being at the bottom of that pile are for the over 70s (and other at risk groups) are greater. Not for ageism reasons but for medical reasons.

Those saying over 70s and other at-risk groups should be able to make their own decisions, do you also accept that they would come last on the list for treatment?