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.

Are you suggesting the WHO is lying?

And do you know he was asymptomatic?

I think a lot of what the WHO has done over the course of this pandemic is questionable.

Do I know he was asymptomatic? Not 100% I'm.going to have a look now to see if any details are available. I saw the case being discussed about the situation whereby 80% of cases are spread by 20% - that a small number of individuals are responsible for spreading it to very large numbers of people, and it happens because they are symptomatic - this case was given as an example.

what all the people saying " think about the children" are forgetting is that climate change is more of a problem than a pandemic and our government is being just as incompetent in dealing with that. So in your child's lifetime - and possibly yours - it may be necessary to drastically reduce the population. One way to do that will be to kill off the people you dont have a use for - and that might include many of those complaining now about lockdown.

We didnt lockdown to protect the vulnerable, we locked down because the hospitals were being clogged up and 50 something overweight white males feared there might not be a ventilator for them. We locked down to ensure health care would still be available for the pregnant, the emergency cases and working age coronavirus cases.

No-one who has seen the inside of an ICU would say this is "just flu", perhaps they need to watch one of the tv programmes.

WHO have been wrong before - where is the evidence that asymptomatic dont spread the virus?

There are multiple articles and reports on line about this incident if you want to read them. None of them suggest that he had symptoms, he didn't test positive until 6 days after he'd visited the nightclub.

www-dailymail-co-uk.cdn.ampproject.org/v/s/www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8315161/amp/119-coronavirus-cases-South-Korea-linked-Seoul-clubs-super-spreader-visited-gay-bars.html?amp_js_v=a3&amp_gsa=1&usqp=mq331AQFKAGwASA%3D#aoh=15916913986786&referrer=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com&amp_tf=From%20%251%24s&ampshare=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.dailymail.co.uk%2Fnews%2Farticle-8315161%2F119-coronavirus-cases-South-Korea-linked-Seoul-clubs-super-spreader-visited-gay-bars.html

Nothing is suggesting that he had symptoms.

We certainly seem to be paying a massive price to help a minority who are sick and old and it sounds like as ever we get no thanks for it. It was the wrong choice in my view and I have been against lockdown and school closure and exam cancellation from the start. Lockdown is not for the greater good. We have put the old above the young even though many of the old would much rather give life chances to younger people and ensure children have an education. We will regret this choice

No-one who has seen the inside of an ICU would say this is "just flu", perhaps they need to watch one of the tv programmes

Flu can kill too. I have seen the programmes.

Some people get covid and are fine with a mild illness. Some people die of flu.

Lucky we didn't go into lockdown to protect the sick and the old then isn't it?

Tell me, how would you feel if all of us "sick and old people" caught Covid and blocked the hospital beds so that all you young healthy people couldn't get a bed if you caught it, or had a heart attack, or had an accident? You'd accept it presumably as a consequence of not having locked down right, because carrying on as normal was what you wanted.

How about now? Many of us "sick and old" have had vital hospital treatment delayed or cancelled- kind of odd given some of you insist that all of this has been done for our benefit.

Please not for the millionth time many, many of us are neither sick nor old and regardless, being elderly or being ill does not make your life worth any less

Over 60s are NOT old. Retirement age is 66.

True to character Xenia. Have you polled the old? They would really give their lives for the children’s education?

I agree with you OP. There are posts on here that veer very close to advocating eugenics. Tbh I hope they're paid-for shills trying to push the government's agenda because it's bloody depressing to think people would hold those views and have no shame in espousing them.

formerbabe

Can you give me an example of the UK locking down its population, shielding two million people to the extent they have been told not to leave home, tanking the economy and disrupting the education of thousands of children for flu?

If this was no worse than flu governments around the world would not have taken such drastic steps.

When have you seen hospitals over run with flu cases? Itus expanding to many times normal capacity, hospitals shut to everything apart from emergencies for flu?

Your views on this do not surprise me, Xenia. It seems you refuse to read the thread and have any empathy whatsoever for the lived experience of people in these groups.

I give up today having just seen a thread which proves my point (AIBU to not give a shit about the vulnerable) which has now gone up in smoke but it was there. I saw it. I feel it.

If we didn't do it to help the sick and old then it is even worse - we did it to ensure the NHS had thousands of empty beds because there is some kind of God of the NHS in the UK -look at all the empty Nightingale excel beds in London. I have favoured the Swedish solution even before Sweden adopted it.

Most older people including me most of all want to ensure their children have good lives. Plenty would also prefer to see their grandchildren every day for a year even if they are very ill because they may not have too long left anyway so 2 years without seeing them versus 1 year seeing them 365 times but catching CV19 might well be their choice.

Not all vulnerable are old or so sick that they don't matter. Those that are very sick have been asked to sign DNRs.
The clinically vulnerable have been asked to shield so they don't clog up ICU beds which clearly should be reserved for more worthy recipients.

Dh is clinically vulnerable and has not left the house since lockdown.
He is wfh in a high level job and has always worked. He is and always has been a net contributor. Yes he could react badly to the virus due to the drugs he is on but his illness won't kill him early.
Our whole family is affected. We are socially distancing un the home. Our dc are missing out on education too like everyone else. Others can hig their kids. He can't.
I am happily doing all this to protect dh but I could turn it on. It's s head and say that by doing so we are protecting the NHS more by our actions so ICU beds can be reserved for everyone else.
Getting fed up of these posts now. Think it is time to get off this thread.

I saw it too Madhairday. I have been on here a long time. That's the first thread ever that brought tears to my eyes. Absolutely vile. I will say no more and not make this a TAAT.

I know it's worse than flu...but flu can kill. I was responding to the post which said if you saw the inside of icu you'd think differently.

My view remains the same.

@Hearhoovesthinkzebras that does actually happen if it's a really bad flu year. No lockdown but hospitals overwhelmed.

US flu

Hug.

I think some of the deaths in care homes though have been incorrectly attributed to Covid. Some were ill with other conditions and whilst they may have died with Covid, they didn’t die of Covid - it wasn’t the primary condition they died from. I’m not saying that was true of all care home residents, but certainly true of many. Nearly half the Covid deaths recorded are care home residents, so I think people are saying lockdown really should be eased completely as the result to the economy could be far more dangerous. People in care homes are isolated anyway, apart from visitors and staff, who should wear Ppe for the foreseeable future to continue to protect the care homes.

I think people are worried about their children both in terms of mental health and education. About their job security and finances. At the start of lockdown it was all lets buckle down and do this together but now there is no end in sight and the goal posts keep shifting.

I wonder at what point the balance of saving lives from corona will be outweighed by the loss of life caused indirectly by lockdown. Lack of medical care, lack of mental health care, impoverishment, isolation. I'd be surprised if we don't see a rise in suicides especially in younger people tbh.

Xenia

Do you know what classifies someone as being in the shielded category? It isn't simply being old for a start off.

You wax lyrical about old people wanting to see their grandchildren - what if their grandchild was one of the shielded? What if their darling little grandchild has an illness that makes them highly vulnerable to Covid? Happy to tell that precious child, and their parents, to get over themselves and stop being so precious are you?

Do you have grandchildren yourself? If their life was at risk would you want them protected? Would you see them as expendable if we were talking about your grandchild rather than some hypothetical 90year old?

There's a vaccine against flu, so for this reason alone it doesn't cause the same damage as COVID-19. It also doesn't spread in the same way. But it can kill; I was nearly hospitalised last year when I had flu that turned into pneumonia. It left me with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, which is the reason why I ended up so ill with these COVID-19 symptoms.

And I've had symptoms that I've never had from flu, like nausea (I had a bit of this when I had swine flu) and diarrhoea. Which from what I've read about COVID-19, have been experienced by many others.

So it can be very serious (as in fatal or long-term hospital care) and moderate cases can leave people incapacitated for weeks or even months, like it's been for me. Read the thread about this on the Coronavirus page.

But it can be very mild. Hence people have treated it like a cold and that's why it spreads so fast (think how quickly a cold can spread).

Mascotte

No it doesn't. Never have we witnessed countries around the globe locking down. Never have we seen NHS hospitals close their doors because they have had to expand ITU beds into coronary care, operating theatres plus normal wards and shut down all but emergency treatment because they are fully to capacity.

Yes, in flu season there is huge pressure on beds - that looks like a holiday in comparison to this.

You cannot deny what we have just witnessed. Can you not understand what the NHS has just dealt with? Experienced ITU drs and nurses are suffering trauma, reporting PTSD type symptoms. These staff are well used to seeing tragic events on a daily basis. Does it not tell you something about what they have been dealing with that the staff most used to looking after the very sickest patients are breaking by what they've seen? And yet you all still keep trotting out the "no worse than flu" line.

It's utterly baffling how you are able to deny reality in this way.

I've trained as a nurse, worked for years as a staff nurse. I am shocked at the type of language I'm hearing from drs and nurses. It scares me frankly.

I give up today having just seen a thread which proves my point (AIBU to not give a shit about the vulnerable) which has now gone up in smoke but it was there. I saw it. I feel it

Not sure it's necessarily abelism and ageism as much as it is sheer selfish cuntism, looking after no. 1 and not giving a shit about anyone else, esp. those more vulnerable. Chances are those making obscene statements about the elderly (say, just for example) would be 'pro-elderly in other circumstances where it suited them to be so.

Not sure it's necessarily abelism and ageism as much as it is sheer selfish cuntism, looking after no. 1 and not giving a shit about anyone else, esp. those more vulnerable. Chances are those making obscene statements about the elderly (say, just for example) would be 'pro-elderly in other circumstances where it suited them to be so

Oh purlease

Garden centres, golf courses and car showrooms open. Really doing their best to improve the life of older men, who are the ones most at risk...

Yet, my children can't even play on the swings, let alone get an education despite the minuscule risk to them