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?

@Sweetiecorn

Yes. We are ruining the economy and young people's futures for a disease which will barely affect 99% of people.

Do you know how many people 1% of our population actually is? Stop talking in percentages and use actual figures.

Then, if you’re feeling wild, apply those figures to the resources we actually have - look up how many hospital beds we have and how many of those are ITU beds, how much capacity funeral directors and crematoriums have.

What’s the percentage do asymptomatic spread? 40%? As you’re already doing some maths work out how many people 59% are and have a little think about how that would affect what your world currently looks like if those people were ill for significant period (average of two weeks a week maybe).

Then have a guess what the economy would look like. Don’t forget fucking brexit too.

Made the point before that these measures are primarily to protect the elderly

Depends on your perspective. From an individual point of view I’d quite like the elderly and vulnerable not using up every bit of NHS resource we have.

No one is going to take a covid patient off ventilation if my house burns down or I’m in a car crash and I need an ITU ventilator. I’d quite like my friend to have the surgery they need to but they need a guaranteed ITU bed available for that to happen.

It’s not protecting so much as ring fencing.

Older people cant have their cake and eat it. If they voted for a conservative government that enforced deadly cuts to public services they have to live with the consequences now imo.

Older poorer people voted for Brexit

A lot of very ageist assumptions being made here. Neither I, my 92year old Dad or any of my 60+ friends voted for this Government or for Brexit.

Wonder how this thread would sound like if the word elderly was replaced with disabled, or homosexual?🤔

What happened to equality for all? Let’s just savage the elderly?

@TheEmojiFormerlyKnownAsPrince

Wonder how this thread would sound like if the word elderly was replaced with disabled, or homosexual?🤔

What happened to equality for all? Let’s just savage the elderly?

And I would say to you - replace the word "young" with disabled or homosexual

It cuts both ways.

Yes

Yeah, but there’s nastiness to the elderly on here. That’s what’s different.

What @TheEmojiFormerlyKnownAsPrince said. I’m often aghast at what I read on here about the ‘elderly’ or ‘vulnerable’

@TheEmojiFormerlyKnownAsPrince

Health economics is a huge part of what the NHS does and has been for decades. That is why there are cancer drugs and treatments that the NHS will not fund even to extend the lives of middle aged people. They are too expensive.

We now seem to have thrown all those considerations out the window and are totally shutting the economy, plunging families into poverty and destroying mental health for a virus tejeré the average age of death is above the UK’s life expectancy.

Half of deaths have been in care homes- where the average resident will only survive for 2 years.

To those asking what sort of society sacrifices it's elderly, it used to be common practice for many societies to do exactly that in order to protect the younger and more able of their population. Inuits, native Americans and the Danes all participated in this in some form or another. The elder often considered it honourable to be left in the desert or jump to their death rather than slow down or make life harder for the younger.

^most definitely not saying that's what we should do obviously, but just an interesting bit of history

Personally as much as I believe the young are being badly affected, it's not practical or ethical to just let the virus spread freely as it would have too much impact on the whole economy and our way of life. Not to mention the fact that as we have the resources to protect the elderly/disabled etc we should be trying to use them.

Florentine same here.

Yes but old people vote and young people don't - so regardless of the rights and wrongs, as a politician who are you going to prioritise?

But young people can vote. They just may choose not to.

Another key point is that although we may be ‘protecting’ the vulnerable, do they now actually have a quality of life that they want protected?

Do 85 year olds actually want to be cooped up at home all day every day unable to see friends and family or go for lunch at a cafe?

Do care home residents want to be locked in their rooms for 6 months by themselves?

There are no winners here, everyone is sacrificing something
Whether it's losing their job, not being able to pay rent, having to shield, not being able to go to school as needing to isolate, losing pay because of isolating, hospital treatments being cancelled... everyone has their own story
I started shielding in March, and I'm still shielding. My parents I would say have sacrificed less as they haven't had to shield and their income hasn't been affected but they've been lucky. Everyone will think they are worse off than someone and better off than someone else
I get it's mostly elderly people dying but frankly I don't want to test that theory for myself as I'm likely to get very very ill

People blaming the suffering of the young on the older generation simply show a lack of basic intelligence. If you are unable to understand at this point after seeing how our health service is going to struggle, forget it.

But young people can vote. They just may choose not to

Actually even if the young voted en masse to change things it wouldn’t have any real impact because of the sheer size of the Baby Boomer cohort. The Cambridge economist David Runciman is very good (if depressing) on this topic.

sticks head above parapet in preparation to get shot down

No. Well yes, BUT the numbers have increased hugely since the universities opened. You see photos of raves/parties etc where there are no masks and certainly no SD. So tbh if the young buckled down and behaved we would all be out of this mess, but they won't because they aren't dying from it. So to an extent they are sacrificing themselves (or older teens are sacrificing those younger). When the govt said that the older are more at risk that seemed to be carte blanche for the younger ones to flout the rules. And they reckon the older generation are selfish!

From what I'm understand it's not as simple as sacrificing the young to save the elderly.

If the NHS becomes flooded there won't be enough capacity to treat everyone whether it's Covid, or anything else.

If a large proportion of the population become sick, there won't be enough staff to deliver essential services.

Unless anyone has an argument for this not being the case?

I'm quite distraught by all of this. The most important thing I really care about is my own children, I'm not ashamed to admit that. I don't want them to miss out on education, on enjoyment in life which could affect their life chances, to save somebody's granny. But its not as simple as that is it?

However, on mumsnet, if you dare say you want anything you're called a selfish murderer.

@TheEmojiFormerlyKnownAsPrince

Yeah, but there’s nastiness to the elderly on here. That’s what’s different.

And I would say there is a sneeringness towards the young wanting to enjoy/experience the same freedoms that many of us didnt give a second thought to in our youths.

Ecosse makes a fantastic point about many of the elderly not wanting this existence any more than the young do. What is the point of being kept alive if you're locked in a care home and unable to see your family for the next 2 years? But hey - at least you didnt get covid!

I feel that some posters would advocate for elderly people with COVID not to be given treatment in hospital, which is pretty tasteless to say the least

(women and) children first

What is the point of being kept alive if you're locked in a care home and unable to see your family for the next 2 years

Because not everyone at risk is so close to the end of their natural life that they wouldn't prioritise preserving it. It sucks, but two years is really not that big a sacrifice if you still have 10+ years to live, for example.

BurgerOnTheOrientExpress

www.google.co.uk/amp/s/www.nationalgeographic.co.uk/photography/2020/06/a-look-inside-thailand-which-prevented-coronavirus-from-gaining-a-foothold/amp

This seems to be quite a concise take on how Thailand kept COVID under control. My take would be they managed it by not giving a fuck about their poor. It's saved lives in the short term but the long term effects on the economy and the knock on effect on health are yet to be seen.

I'd quite like to see Ecosse produce some data to back up her claims that 'many' elderly people have had enough of restrictions. Because although I dont know a single elderly person who wants to live like this , I dont see many casting asides their masks and skipping off to make the final sacrifice either. The only two elderly people I know who've basically said "sod it, let's just enjoy ourselves whilst we can" both have terminal diagnoses. And even they're only seeing family freely, they're not off down the pub.