Are we sacrificing the young to save the elderly?

[RubyandBen]

Reading another thread where someone was accusing the OP of wanting to sacrifice the elderly re CV. But the longer this goes on the more education and the economy are screwed is it actually the other way round?

Parents should be helping the sc through these times

Not protesting. Hey, maybe the kids want to ‘save the elderly’?

Did anyone ask them?

@JS87

I do listen to other business owners in my industry (weddings). I personally know the owners of 12 small businesses who are most likely going to have to close in the next six months and 3 who have already folded. They employ hundreds of staff between them. If our industry can't get going again in the summer then I think the whole industry will collapse. That's a £14billion industry gone. Think of the tax revenue that will be lost. The number of nurses and teachers' wages that won't be able to be funded. *

I don’t think the industry will be gone though. Yes it might sadly collapse and people will lose their businesses but a new wedding industry will emerge from the ashes in a few years time offering employment for many again. Whilst individuals may sadly never return to the industry there will be others to take their place and tax revenues will return.

Oh that's ok then. So long as new people can build businesses and create a new industry in 5 years' time, that's all that matters. Not all the business owners who have lost their income, homes, relationships and everything else that comes with it. Not all the staff who work for them. Not all the nurses and teachers and unemployed and disabled who need tax money NOW. Just hold on because like a phoenix from the ashes, other people will be a long to take their places in just a few short years. Perhaps I could use your lovely sentiments when people I know start contemplating taking their own lives.

Yes

Exactly.

@Parker231

Everyone is struggling with the restrictions but no one generation has it worse than another. It is affecting different age groups in different ways but one doesn’t trump another.

I was saying exactly to this .

@MummyPop00 ‘oldies’?

OP asked - "Are we sacrificing the young to save the elderly?".........
Whether you answer yes or no, and most posters realise that it is not a straightforward issue, we have to be very careful here.
I fear that, in their anger and weariness with all of this, people may increasingly look for someone to blame. I know I've had my moments of ranting.
Neither "the young" nor "the old" caused this virus. Neither "the young" nor "the old", as amorphous groups, are the ones making the important decisions.
Pitting generations against each other is not going to help AT ALL.
And bear in mind, "divide and conquer" can be a very effective political tool. Let's not get sucked into that, Mumsnetters!

1 death is too much, somebodies parent, child, etc...
I work in a care home, but agree with ...
' I think it's fairly evident that young people are being asked to sacrifice their education, jobs (young people are disproportionately employed in hospitality and retail), social lives and, as a knock on effect, their mental health.
A sacrifice of essentially almost everything that makes life meaningful, for the sake of a virus that they will almost certainly make a full recovery from, and for people they have mostly never met and never will - especially for those whose grandparents have already passed away'

@MummyPop00

Our economy is well and truly fecked and the younger generations are going to bear the brunt of this mess

Well, fair to say that the oldies won’t be hanging around too long post-pandemic to help pay this debt down will they?

Well the young won't be paying for it. Not with being unable to work due to disabling Long Covid.

Some people would make an ostrich proud. Heads well and truly stuck in the ground

No matter the economic experts explaining it. Still the Deniers insist we can just ignore the nasty virus and all it will do is kill and disable The Others.

The economy won't survive without containment measures - but you just keep on ignoring the experts.

@EarlGreyJenny

Getting a little fed up of hearing how unfair it is asking old and vulnerable to shield but thinking that it's ok what is happening with students. Seems like it's ok for students to be imprisoned (and be the generation that will pay for it).

This!

I keep hearing how unfair it is to ask the old/vulnerable/worried to stay home so the young and others can get on with their life, yet the alternative seems to be everyone stay home. Students don't have any in person lectures, no social activities and are demonised for daring to see their friends, they're essentially in all lockdown right now anyway. The lives of the young are being sacrificed. Life is for living, not just existing.

Not the long COVID BS again

The people we lose through these stupid lockdowns will far outnumber those saved by them. I would argue it's more selfish to want to sacrifice a great number of people for the sake of a few. That's why I roll my eyes whenever people hysterical about COVID call others 'selfish'.

@Sweetiecorn

Not the long COVID BS again

Ok. The world's medical experts are talking rubbish. The NHS is splashing out on treatment clinics for a made up illness, and the group of doctors who wrote to the BMJ about their personal experiences of suffering from Long Covid are all lying. Right you go.

Oh - and the economy will run just fine with an uncontained virus spreading through. Ok then. Let's ignore the economic experts including the IMF - and the evidence staring us in the face, that countries who've taken effective containment measures all have healthier economies.

I read a report today that there are four types of long covid and none of them are bullshit.
I am also personally sick of all this they would die next year anyway.
The average age is skewed as people were discharged into care homes with COVID and care homes didn't have sufficient PPE.
My dh is a higher rate taxpayer who would get very ill if he caught COVID ecv . He has wfh throughout. I am cv too. We have 3 dd who have not suffered throughout lockdown bar dd3 being upset that she couldn't cuddle daddy as he was shielding.
I accept that Mental Health is an issue but it was an issue before Lockdown too. Dd2 has been largely let down by CAMHS but this was before COVID.
The only people to blame for this mess is the Govt and tbe virus itself.
Incidentally when my mum was 82 she was given a diagnosis which reduced her life expectancy to about 18 months. She was devastated. Actually She died due to trauma 18 days later. No way would she have felt that those missed months meant nothing. Yet people will happily write off the last two years of other peoples lives.
I also agree that parents have a responsibility to not catastrophe in front of their dc. If parents go on about what sacrifices dc have made that will breed resentment and be a self fulfilling prophecy.

O and the dying with/of COVID pisses me off too. Having a pre-existing condition does not mean tbat you death matters less or that COVID was not to blame. My asthma is so mild that I have never been hospitalised. Yet if I die my death will be seen as with COVID not because of covid which is wrong.

@Northernsoulgirl45
Two very good posts.
I'm sorry about your mum.

Got a text message tonight to say dh's friend is positive and struggling. Weeks before a mum in our school had it and lost her sense of smell and taste and is still not back to fully breathing properly. In the summer I had it, had chest pains and breathing issues which have carried through. We are all 40 and under, all 'low risk'. People have to stop assuming only certain people get this

Yes people don't seem to realise. It's only the risk of death that starts to increase from 40 (or 45).

Long Covid is a risk for all ages (at least in adults. I don't know about children).

Thank you @SheepandCow.

The sacrifice the young are making isn't particularly about 6 months education, or even their mental health (i mean any more than any other group), it's about the changes to the job market when they exit school or university- in some EU countries, unemployment is at 15-30% for the young, and it devastates society to have those people feeling worthless and not economically contributing.

If someone can explain to me how this is because of “saving the elderly” and not because of the effects of the pandemic itself I’d be really grateful.

@MrsFezziwig
I can't see how anyone can explain. It was happening before the pandemic.
The desperate unemployment situation is all the more reason to contain Covid asap. In order to save the longer-term economy.

Only Young Lives Matter