Last December, while celebrating Christmas Eve with my in-laws in California, I observed what I just realized about the future of COVID for seniors. While everyone is swarming around bagna caudahot dipping sauces shared like fondue, it was clear that, as a family, we tacitly agreed that the pandemic was over. Spear of endive in hand, I crawled between my 94-year-old grandfather-in-law and my spirited 99-year-old sister-in-law and dug a niche. I was.
We all knew the elderly were bearing the brunt of COVID, but the concerns seemed like an early relic of the pandemic. That meant getting sick, being hospitalized, and dying.Americans over the age of 65, who make up 17% of the U.S. population, account for three-quarters of all deaths from COVID. When the death toll among the elderly started rising in 2020, she said, “I was really worried that many of my patients were getting infected without anyone caring,” says SUNY Upstate University. Sharon Brangman, a geriatrician at the hospital, told me.
But three years after the pandemic, older people are still in a precarious position. While many Americans are on the lookout for COVID and can easily prevent it when it strikes, older adults are more likely to avoid everyday activities such as grocery shopping, family gatherings, birthday parties, coffee dates, and so on. Small details continue to face real threats from disease. This is true even with a few shots of defense and a more widespread retreat of the virus. “Even with all the vaccines, there’s a fair amount of risk,” Bernard Black, a Northwestern University law professor who studies health policy, told me, adding that more than 300 people each day still have his COVID-19. died in The overwhelming majority are elderlyPeople over the age of 65 are now nearly 11 times more than adults Under 50.
Exacerbating the disease is COVID aside, everything this pandemic has changed the lives of older people. Enduring severe isolation and an ongoing caregiver shortage, they have suffered disproportionately over the past few years. Not all of them experienced the pandemic in the same way. Her 65+ Americans of retirement age are a huge population that includes varying incomes, health conditions, living conditions, and racial backgrounds. Nevertheless, due to their age alone, they live with a new reality. It’s a reality where life has become more dangerous and in many ways worse than it was before COVID.
The pandemic was destined to come after older Americans. Their immune systems tend to be weaker, making it harder to fight off infections and making them more likely to have comorbidities, further increasing the risk of serious illness. The instability we already face—poverty, social isolation and loneliness, inappropriate personal care— were poorly prepared for the arrival of the novel coronavirus.is more than 1 million people Many were densely packed and understaffed when COVID tore them apart.
The main reason older people are still at risk is that vaccines cannot fully complement the immune system.Studies recently published in journals vaccination For vaccinated adults aged 60 and over, the risk of dying from COVID and other natural causes surged from 11% to 34% within a year of completing the first round of immunizations. was shown.A booster dose reverses the risk, but other research It shows that it is also worn. Boosters are a basic precaution, but “not everyone is taking them,” study co-author Black told me. Uptake of boosters between tallest of all age groupsbut still nearly 60% of people haven’t gotten it.
For every death from COVID, more older people become seriously ill. Caitlin Rivers, an epidemiologist at Johns Hopkins University, said the risk increases with age, with people over the age of 70 “having significantly higher rates of hospitalization” than those aged 60 to 69. Unlike young people who fully recover from a COVID bout, older people have less assurance of returning to baseline health.in one study, 32% of adults over the age of 65 were diagnosed with symptoms that persisted after COVID infection. Persistent cough, pain and joint pain can persist long after serious illness, and have indirect effects such as loss of muscle strength and flexibility, affecting the ability of older people to stand on their own feet. It is possible that his elderly COVID survivor High risk of cognitive declineIn some cases, these illnesses can be part of long-term COVID. in May Become Common among elderly people.
Indeed, some older people can make a full recovery. Brangman said there are “older and frail” elderly patients who have recovered from flu-like symptoms, and younger patients who are still experiencing weakness and fatigue. is not. The antiviral drug paxlovid was thought to help blunt the wave of sickness and hospitalization in older people. 50 To 90 percentUnfortunately, however, it is not widely used. As of July, only one-third of Americans over the age of 80 were taking Paxlovid.
The reality is that as long as the virus continues to spread, older Americans will face these potential consequences every time they leave their homes. It doesn’t mean you should. Still, “every decision we make now considers a balance between risk and socialization,” Brangman said.
Long before the pandemic, the threat of disease was already very real for older people. Where America landed is not the new way of life, it’s just more trouble. Alongside other causes of natural death such as diabetes and heart failure, “one way to think about it is that this is a new risk out there. It’s a risk older Americans can’t ignore.Since Christmas Eve, I’ve been feeling insecure about how easily I normalized, even though I knew what would happen if a loved one in their 90s got sick. For seniors who have to contend with the dangers of attending similar gatherings, “there are no good choices,” Black said.
But this new post-pandemic reality also includes insidious effects on older people that are not directly related to COVID itself. For example, people who postponed non-urgent doctor visits early in the pandemic risked exacerbating pre-existing health conditions. In the first year of the pandemic, almost everyone fell into isolation, but being alone created problems for the elderly, which continue to this day.Loneliness and loneliness before the pandemic higher mortality,gain cardiovascular riskand dementia Already well established among older people. Increased isolation during COVID amplified this Association.
Naoko Muramatsu, a professor of community health at the University of Illinois at Chicago, told me that the effects of isolation are particularly acute for older adults with physical limitations. People who needed help with even the smallest things, like fetching clothes or getting dressed, had no choice. “If you don’t walk around and do nothing, we Decrease in cognitive function can be expectedMuramatsu said. She observed this firsthand in her own research.Chinese American woman interviewed investigation One senior citizen with cognitive impairment and living alone during the pandemic described the debilitating effects of sitting at home all day. She said, “I get confused a lot. I forget things.
Even older adults who survived the direct and indirect effects of the pandemic face other challenges that COVID has exacerbated. Many people have long relied on individual caregivers and nursing home staff. These workers were already in short supply before the pandemic and are even scarcer now as many have quit or have been affected by COVID. “Long-term care has been in crisis for a long time, and it’s getting worse now,” Muramatsu said, noting that many home care workers themselves are elderly. Nursing home nearly 200,000 The number of employees has decreased compared to March 2020. percentage of Americans 65+ Explode.
Older people don’t have a single approach to confronting this sad reality. Some of her patients still choose to be cautious, while others see this moment as “a grandchild or a concert.” “It’s our only chance to see each other or go to family gatherings.” Either way, older Americans will have to grapple with these decisions without many of their peers who have died from COVID.
Again, many of these people were not doing well before the pandemic, even if the whole country wasn’t paying attention. They often don’t provide social support,” says Kenneth Kovinsky, a clinician and researcher in the Department of Geriatrics at the University of California, San Francisco. Rather, ageism, a willful ignorance or indifference to the needs of older people, is baked into American life. This is probably why the pandemic has had such an impact on the elderly in the first place, as evidenced by the slow introduction of safety measures in nursing homes and the slow acceptance of her death from COVID among the elderly. That’s the main reason. If Americans have failed to commit to care at any point in the last three years, will they continue to do so?
