If the young were dying we would have sorted this by now?

[Chaotic45]

To be clear I think I one of the few good things about Covid is that children and young people are mostly not affected.

However I feel that if they were, we would have had much more success with controlling the virus.

If more people had been genuinely concerned for themselves, and even worse for their children they would have followed the rules more closely.

The virus spreads via person to person contact- so by being in close proximity to an infected person and sharing of surfaces. So the roles should work, and they only don't because too many people don't follow them.

AIBU to think that if young people were dying more people would have reduced social contact and the infection rate would be more under control?

@Nottherealslimshady
But the choice to save the life of a 5 year old over an 85 year old is perfectly logical and sensible

Logic it has but of an inhuman kind. It’s this dangerous thinking that justifies letting the older mother die in order to save the younger baby in a life or death childbirth situation. I don’t want to go back to those days, where older automatically means less value than any younger human.

Logic it has but of an inhuman kind. It’s this dangerous thinking that justifies letting the older mother die in order to save the younger baby in a life or death childbirth situation. I don’t want to go back to those days, where older automatically means less value than any younger human

This.

It's worth listening to Rob Newman's comedy programme "On Being Above the Law" on these kinds of so-called ethical dilemmas. It's on the BBC Sounds app:
www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m000nl89

[quote PlanDeRaccordement]@Nottherealslimshady
But the choice to save the life of a 5 year old over an 85 year old is perfectly logical and sensible

Logic it has but of an inhuman kind. It’s this dangerous thinking that justifies letting the older mother die in order to save the younger baby in a life or death childbirth situation. I don’t want to go back to those days, where older automatically means less value than any younger human.[/quote]
This scenario is irrelevant to the point as

1- the mother would be 40 years short of the life expectancy, so that would be tragic.

2- the mothers health is prioritised over and above anything until the point the baby is born

3 - the above situation is very very unlikely to occur IRL as they would try to save them both

Just to add - as it’s been pointed out on another thread - doctors/medical directors do face these kind ethical of decisions frequently.

They have meetings about where the money/treatment will be best spent, where it be the most benefit, who would get the most from it.

It’s not always about saving lives, the above more often describes situations where say for example a new drug has been proven to work, but costs tens of thousands per person. The committee will need to decide if they can justify spending that kind of money.

There’s a couple of children I know of whereby the parents have had to go abroad after securing funds from a fundraiser because the funding is not available here.

So it’s not as simple as saying age always indicates a better outcome and access to better services!!!!

[quote PlanDeRaccordement]@Nottherealslimshady
But the choice to save the life of a 5 year old over an 85 year old is perfectly logical and sensible

Logic it has but of an inhuman kind. It’s this dangerous thinking that justifies letting the older mother die in order to save the younger baby in a life or death childbirth situation. I don’t want to go back to those days, where older automatically means less value than any younger human.[/quote]
I think that only happened in the old days in rich families etc such as Royalty when the heir was way more important than the disposable womb.
I assume in most families the mother was more important than the baby, not least because they had to recover to look after the other children?

No it happened in regular families too. Not just the rich. I’m shocked fellow women do not remember how we were oppressed by this in the past. And it is common enough even today that a mother or child die every 11 seconds in childbirth in the world.

It is also completely relevant as it’s the most likely scenario where you’d decide to choose a younger life over an older one. The scenario of not enough hospital beds or ventilators only happens in once a century pandemics. Childbirth is happening 24/7. And arguing the extreme of a 5yr old versus an 85yr old is even rarer!
In real life, the logic of prioritise the young over the older, it will most commonly occur between a mother and a baby in childbirth just because we don’t need a pandemic to have this occur! It’s an every day occurrence.

@PlanDeRaccordement

No it happened in regular families too. Not just the rich. I’m shocked fellow women do not remember how we were oppressed by this in the past. And it is common enough even today that a mother or child die every 11 seconds in childbirth in the world.

It is also completely relevant as it’s the most likely scenario where you’d decide to choose a younger life over an older one. The scenario of not enough hospital beds or ventilators only happens in once a century pandemics. Childbirth is happening 24/7. And arguing the extreme of a 5yr old versus an 85yr old is even rarer!
In real life, the logic of prioritise the young over the older, it will most commonly occur between a mother and a baby in childbirth just because we don’t need a pandemic to have this occur! It’s an every day occurrence.

But in what situation would it occur that the hospital staff have to chose either the mother of baby?

That’s not something that routinely happens.

@TableFlowerss

Just to add - as it’s been pointed out on another thread - doctors/medical directors do face these kind ethical of decisions frequently.

They have meetings about where the money/treatment will be best spent, where it be the most benefit, who would get the most from it.

It’s not always about saving lives, the above more often describes situations where say for example a new drug has been proven to work, but costs tens of thousands per person. The committee will need to decide if they can justify spending that kind of money.

There’s a couple of children I know of whereby the parents have had to go abroad after securing funds from a fundraiser because the funding is not available here.

So it’s not as simple as saying age always indicates a better outcome and access to better services!!!!

It's so important that people realise these kinds of decisions go on in the medical system every day.

And they can as well in more immediate ways, not usually in a local hospital, but in poor countries, or military settings, triage decisions have real implications.

But I'd like to add something to this, which is that it's also about good patient care, not just resources.

If you are 80, and have, say, heart failure, or cancer, or are at risk from a stroke, and you come down with a respiratory infection, it would be totally inappropriate to treat it as you would in a 5 year old.

Very often, said 80 year old will have a DNR order. Not to save money, or because no one loves them, but because they know heroic measures, or even just invasive measures, to keep them alive at that age would be cruel and in many ways disrespectful. There would be pain, little quality of life, and little chance of substantial recovery.

If you are talking about a 60 year old, the situation is often different, but not wholly, if they have bad health. People can start to have serious bad health that will lead to their death at that point, you begin to see people affected by the diseases of old age. My father for example is 66. But he has diabetes, he's been on pretty powerful and in some ways damaging psychiatric drugs for decades, and he is in 4th stage kidney failure. How what kind of recovery time, would we be looking at for him, and what would be the outcome at the end? As it happens, he is realistic and also has a DNR.

A 5 year old is an entirely different scenario, they are likely to have a long life, a good chance of many years of doing well unless they suffered from a clearly fatal condition.

Everyone will die from something, and at a certain point pretending that an elderly person is the same as a child or even young adult requires a kind of wilful disregard of reality.

@Goosefoot

**It's so important that people realise these kinds of decisions go on in the medical system every day.

And they can as well in more immediate ways, not usually in a local hospital, but in poor countries, or military settings, triage decisions have real implications.

But I'd like to add something to this, which is that it's also about good patient care, not just resources.

If you are 80, and have, say, heart failure, or cancer, or are at risk from a stroke, and you come down with a respiratory infection, it would be totally inappropriate to treat it as you would in a 5 year old.

Very often, said 80 year old will have a DNR order. Not to save money, or because no one loves them, but because they know heroic measures, or even just invasive measures, to keep them alive at that age would be cruel and in many ways disrespectful. There would be pain, little quality of life, and little chance of substantial recovery.

If you are talking about a 60 year old, the situation is often different, but not wholly, if they have bad health. People can start to have serious bad health that will lead to their death at that point, you begin to see people affected by the diseases of old age. My father for example is 66. But he has diabetes, he's been on pretty powerful and in some ways damaging psychiatric drugs for decades, and he is in 4th stage kidney failure. How what kind of recovery time, would we be looking at for him, and what would be the outcome at the end? As it happens, he is realistic and also has a DNR.

A 5 year old is an entirely different scenario, they are likely to have a long life, a good chance of many years of doing well unless they suffered from a clearly fatal condition.

Everyone will die from something, and at a certain point pretending that an elderly person is the same as a child or even young adult requires a kind of wilful disregard of reality**

Aww exactly. The argument that they both require the same input is nonsense and far removed from reality. The argument they should both be treated the same is far fetched as well.

I get that no one wants to lose a loved one, regardless of age, but to try to suggest it’s ‘not fair’ that a younger person would be potentially prioritised is delusional. Again, it goes back to how likely the treatment etc is going to be of benefit.

As you point out, there comes a point where it could be considered inhumane to keep someone alive simply because we can.

But in what situation would it occur that the hospital staff have to chose either the mother of baby? That’s not something that routinely happens.

Yes it’s not routine, but a case of mother versus baby in childbirth situation does occur in real life and is more common than a hypothetical situation that has never before occurred where you’d be choosing between a 5yr old and 85yr old. It’s even a question routinely put to couples during high risk pregnancy. The woman is asked as part of her birth plan if a situation occurs where they can only focus on saving her or baby, which should they try to save first. They wouldn’t ask that question if it never came up.

@Siepie

I don't think we would have. This country could do a lot more to protect children in other ways, but has decided not to. MPs have introduced child benefit caps and voted against free school meals during half term, while pensioners still get free TV licences, for example.

Pensioners no longer get free TV licences unless they are poor enough to receive pension credit.

A 5 year old is an entirely different scenario, they are likely to have a long life, a good chance of many years of doing well

This is an ageist assumption which you acknowledge when you say unless they suffered from a clearly fatal condition

The whole impossible scenario is however in itself sn example of ageism - presenting an extreme (and close to impossible) example as a means to justify an shitty pov.

I would never support a scenario in which it was assumed that once you reach a certain age, what counted was your age not your clinical profile. Or that below a certain age it's treat at all costs