To think the Covid 19 crisis has revealed a scourge of ableism and ageism in our society?

[Madhairday]

I see it on every thread about lockdown. The elderly (over 60s) and vulnerable (of whatever age) are again and again dehumanised and cast as less worthy of help than the young and the fit, who should be prioritised because they have longer and healthier life left before them. Phrases like one I saw just now about how these people will die soon anyway so why are children suffering?

I am really tired of being othered. I am really tired of being made the reason for the suffering endured by many in lockdown. Really tired of being told I should be grateful others are suffering for me. Just really tired.

Before all this I'd never have dreamed these attitudes would come to light, but in the past months I've been repeatedly punched in the gut with some of the words thrown out against the aged and the disabled and chronically ill. It seems that we truly live in a world where not all lives are equal, where in fact many are worth less than others.

Lots of people are suffering due to lockdown and the effects will continue to cause suffering. The shielded know this and are affected by it as much as everyone else. I have lost my income as well as not being able to touch another human being for nearly 3 months. Many of my shielded friends mental health is shot, too, yet on threads about mental health the shielded are yet again othered and in fact blamed for the mental health issues of those not shielding.

Many are suffering in lockdown. We know this. We know the NHS has cut off much treatment (largely because the spread of covid in hospitals is so uncontainable that they cannot risk bringing already vulnerable people onto wards as covid would exacerbate conditions and kill in greater numbers, as well as the risk for frontline staff, yet many people here seem to think the NHS has narrowed down 'because only covid deaths are important to them' )

I am deeply concerned at the level of ableism and ageism I see on here every single day at the moment. If we said someone else's life mattered less because they were black or gay we would rightly be torn to pieces, but so many are saying lives are less due to age and vulnerability, and this is going unchallenged, again and again and again.

I see it. I see it every day. I feel it deep down, a sense of worthlessness because I have long term chronic illnesses. I am likely to live many more years, however, but that doesn't fit in with the narrative so many have built around the shielded and those dying of Covid, that they must be near death anyway.

Do lives really rank one over the other due to age and illness? Is this where we are now?

I agree lockdown is hurting people. I am not one of the lockdown should last forever people. I'm just getting on with shielding quietly and carefully. But I do fear for a second wave if it's relaxed too quickly.

I would like to ask for some compassion today in the way people speak. I'd like to ask that people don't denegrate others as less worthy or state that covid is just a bad cold. Have a care for those who feel othered and dehumanised by the rhetoric that flies at us day after day.

I have spent many years being a useful member of society. Now I’m made to feel worthless and sacrificial, that it’s inevitable that I’ll suffer and that I shouldn’t mind being separated from everything that was meaningful, because it will be of benefit to others if older people shuffle off.

The ageism is breathtaking in its appalling attitude. I really resent the attitude that people like me are expendable. Just because a person is older doesn’t mean that they have nothing to offer and are past it.

We have adhered to all the advice and recommendations. I haven’t seen friends or family or been anywhere other than walking round this area. Now I’m scared to go out and scared to see anyone. I’ve wept on the phone to my GP, I’ve referred myself for counselling, but who knows when that will happen.

As someone who had worked hard to achieve mental and physical health, it’s distressing that it’s all gone to pot. This is simply existing and I can’t see an end.

The post in question was saying that a 95 dying is an equal tragedy in that family as a child dying.

Yes, this is ludicrous!

Perhaps this is just a matter of terminology. Not a ‘tragedy’, no, but extremely saddening all the same, even if it was expected. Does that help?

I haven’t seen what you are talking about op. It’s not people who are “discriminating” it’s the virus. The vast majority of people who have died have had underlying health conditions and are in older age groups. No one is saying that’s ok or their lives are worth less. But it’s fact and there’s no point pretending it’s not.

Answering OP directly think.its because age and underlying conditions are real clinical risk factors where sexual preference is not and now we know that people from certain ethnicities are also higher risk.
I can see how being in any risk factor is "othering" and work with a population group where many of them are shielded. I feel we are offering up our older and more "at risk" populations as some sort of sacrifice to COVID. My patients feel like they should be feeling grateful to those who are able to work. From one young man with Cerebral Palsy who is 21. ....COVID can go "@##$ itself everything has gone to shit......I agree. OP please don't ever feel beholden to people nobody asked for this💐

I completely agree with you op.

It's disgusting to see some.of the comments made - that those who are shielding would have died within the year anyway, and a newcomer this week describing those of us shielding as low hanging fruit - presumably meaning we can be picked off more easily.

Even the comments where people think they are being nice-" we all need to get back to normal but obviously shield the vulnerable (all 20 million???) but let everyone else get back to work and school" literally choose to ignore what shielding means - stay indoors, stay two meters apart from people you live with, sleep in separate beds,clean the bathroom after every use of you don't have a separate bathroom, pack a bag ready to take to hospital just in case, don't spend too long in the same room as other members of your household - does no one have any idea what this is like? Nearly twelve weeks now we've been living like this. Twelve weeks and only this past week have we been given the ok to go out for one walk of we are careful.

My employer has told me that they are extending my shielding until end of July, ahead of government advice so presumably shielding is set to continue.

But, yeah, it's so easy for everyone else to just glibly say"let us go back to normal and shield the vulnerable".

I am sorry @CayrolBaaaskin but they really are.
People with health conditions or older have been called low hanging fruit with no value to society.
Someone else has said the problem is that we are overpopulated as a country so the virus is a way of thinning the population out.
They have been blamed for children missing school.
I am sure there are other examples but I need to sleep.

I lost my grandparents in their late eighties. I was very upset but it wasn't a tragedy by any stretch That's understandable can you not understand that lots of these people catching covid are not 95 some are young vulnerable adults parents, you kept mentioning the 95 in your posts.
Many 95 year olds died I'd bet none of the 600 healthcare workers were 95? Or workers infected with public facing jobs, bus drivers, train drivers, ticket inspector, florists.

Why do people keep speaking about 95 year olds? It's been pointed out over and over again that people who are vulnerable or shielding can be a lot younger and have very active lives, so not at death's door at all.

@Mittens030869

Why do people keep speaking about 95 year olds? It's been pointed out over and over again that people who are vulnerable or shielding can be a lot younger and have very active lives, so not at death's door at all.

It makes it easier to justify their position. Ive seen it so many times where posters say "they would have been dead within a year anyway". They really don't want to accept the truth which is that many, many of us have many years left to live because it makes it harder to justify putting is at risk so that they can go back to normal.

Someone earlier described those of us shielding as being locked away in an institution so that society doesn't have to see us or think about us - that is so true. I've never thought of it like that before but that post really resonated.

How do posters propose we move forward? We can't remain in this state of limbo waiting for a vaccine at some point in the future, and in some shape or form we do need to get going again, we need to get the (deemed) less essential frontline services back up running again as well as many other sectors.

A lot of discussions had are on a population level, which is interesting (and necessary) but is painful on an individual level, unfortunately though policy is dictated at population level, always has been, always will be.

I am not sure what other countries are doing, I am guessing they have found a balance somehow.

There are many countries dealing with lockdown and easing lockdown very well.

There are effective measures that can allow easing of lockdown safely yet our government haven't done them and aren't doing them.

The whole way through this there's been inconsistency and lack of planning from the government.

They publish plans and targets and then abandon them and change course. They ignore their own guidelines - the "Nando" scale is a prime example. They assured us that lockdown would only be eased when the risk was sufficiently low. Risk hasn't come down but we're easing lockdown anyway.

They were going to implement a track and trace system, to be in place before schools opened. Well that now appears to be dead in the water and we're going for test and trace - but that's not ready yet.

Look at the protests - if one of those tests positive in the coming days is there any chance of them being able to trace who they came into contact with while there? Of course there isn't.

People travelling to work on the tube - any chance of tracing the people they might have spent an hour pressed up against on a journey? Nope even though standing less than 2 metres away for more than 15 minutes is a known risk.

Many other countries that have opened schools are insisting on everyone wearing masks but we aren't.

There are so many things they could do to make this safer. One scientist said that had they delayed lockdown by just another two weeks then the risks would have been much lower.

How do posters propose we move forward? We can't remain in this state of limbo waiting for a vaccine at some point in the future I'm not suggesting that we don't move forward, the thread is about the language & othering around ageism and ableism.

I am fed up.
I have not seen my severely disabled dc for weeks. they have lds and can't talk so even face time doesn't cut it.(although lovely to see them)
young people like them, who live in residential settings have been forgotten.
people complaining about schools not opening, I get it. but think yourselves lucky, you can see your kids.
then we have the media full of people gathering in masses, going to the beach. all this will no doubt mean it will be longer until I see them again.

A few days ago I was told that people whose mental or physical disabilities prevent them wearing a face mask shouldn’t be allowed out in public. This came from a gay man who’s spent his entire life preaching tolerance and inclusiveness. It’s shocking.

I've found it really hurtful that so many posters on here talk as if "the vulnerable" are a totally different species that couldn't be reading their posts. Things like addressing a thread of people to say, "We shouldn't have to suffer. The vulnerable should stay inside and let us get on with their lives." There's no understanding that "the vulnerable" are also reading and participating in the thread; we don't matter. We're Other.

It's been really sobering. I don't look disabled so I've never suffered much direct ableism, but I've realised over the past months just how people see me.

Ok, I understand people's fears.

So, how do we get out of lockdown? Interested to hear ideas and views.

Stating the fact that the risk is not equal, is not othering. It is important that people understand risk.
Obviously on any one day, and all other things being equal, an old person is more likely to die than a young person. Equally, all other things being equal, unhealthy people are more likely to die earlier than healthy people.
This isn't rudeness, or ableism, or hatred, simply a fact of life, because we are mortal.

So, how do we get out of lockdown? Interested to hear ideas and views.

This thread isn't about that. Ask in one of the dozens of threads that ARE about that.

Equally, all other things being equal, unhealthy people are more likely to die earlier than healthy people.

What do you mean by "unhealthy"?

People with disabilities aren't necessarily unhealthy, I don't consider myself unhealthy thanks. I have a disability but I'm not likely to die any younger than anyone else.

The ableism and othering is truly shocking.

I have a disability but I'm not likely to die any younger than anyone else.

Then your disability doesn't affect your risk.

The majority of people who are dying aren’t 95 though.

But 91% of those who die do have underlying health problems, which just feeds into the narrative that the disabled are expendable, it just looks less prejudice when you use a 95 year old as an example instead of a 25 year old.

This is a very slippery slope. At the moment people are saying that the vulnerable shouldn’t be “allowed” out, where shall we draw that line then?

Should disabled children be deprived of an education so that the able-bodied can have one? You do know that it only became law for the learning disabled to be educated in 1982? So you don’t have to step too far backwards to get back there...

What about younger disabled people? If a woman gives birth to a baby with disabilities should that baby be placed into institutionalised care to keep society safe from it? Because while we talk about needing to keep the disabled safe from COVID, let’s not kid ourselves that it’s actually more about keeping society safe from those who are more vulnerable to COVID.

What if a woman has disabilities confirmed during her pregnancy? Should she be encouraged to terminate that pregnancy so that she’s not bringing another disabled person into the world who will need “protecting?”

How many 95 year olds are there in the UK?

And how many others who are living full lives but happen to be vulnerable to COVID.

Because I don’t imagine even a fraction of the 20 million (so that’s a 3rd of the UK population) who are considered to have a vulnerability, are anywhere near 95.

I suspect that many of the people demanding the end of lockdown or declare it shouldn't have happened in the first place don't know anyone who has had the infection let alone become seriously ill or died because of it. If they did they wouldn't be so flippant. It's easy to be dismissive when you have no personal experience of it.
I've nursed critically ill patients with covid in their 30s, 40s and 50s, all economically productive, some with busy physically demanding jobs. Some have survived but still have a long way to go before they are anywhere near previous levels of health. Yes they are in the minority but it's almost like russian roulette, no one yet knows what made these people more susceptible than others. One had mild asthma, that was it, so why did his body respond differently to someone else ?

I have a disability but I'm not likely to die any younger than anyone else.
Then your disability doesn't affect your risk.
Do you actually know the difference between the term possible and likely? No? Didn’t think so.

You see, there are some disabilities/conditions which might increase the possibility of someone dying or being seriously ill at a younger stage, but this doesn’t mean that they are definitely going to die younger.

let’s look at someone who is severely asthmatic for instance. They may use inhalers and steroids to mitigate the risk of their asthma. As long as their treatment is stable, then so are they. Their risk of death comes only from the severity of one attack or the circumstances which might lead to that attack. That doesn’t mean they’re more likely to die earlier. They’re not.

Besides which, if we look at this notion of people more likely to die earlier and that being ok, how do we make that cut-off?

Someone with an underlying health condition is more likely to die from COVID (and you do know that even then the risk is only around 5%) than anyone else. So using that argument, someone who has, for instance, had a transplant is more likely to die younger than someone who hasn’t, by virtue of the fact that the body can reject the organ, they can be susceptible to other conditions due to being immunesuppressed. Should we therefore not bother doing transplants because that person is going to die sooner anyway?

What about the cancer patient? Should we dispense with cancer treatments because that person is more likely to die younger anyway?

In fact why even bother having a medical profession at all other than for those who have cuts and sprains which aren’t going to affect their quality or life???

At the moment people are making these “people who die younger are about to die anyway” type statements feel they are free to do so because this is COVID and it affects their lives too.

But there is a bigger picture here which shows that in terms of equal rights we have made no progress in this country at all.

@AlternativePerspective Well said.
Some pp's would favour spartan times take the deformed or disabled babies throw them off the cliff.
Many of the verbal 95y.o analogy posters are overweight therefore at risk of dying from the virusor have SEN DC they are setting the bar.
In 20 years or so if another pandemic hit our SEN DC will be those vulnerable adults.
I read somewhere people with autism were been advised to sign a DNR during Covid19 saving ventilators for those able bodied who can pay tax