Has Covid Doomed our Seniors?

For the elderly, there's no rainbow in the offing, just death

It's a bit hard to stand back and take stock of the situation in the middle of an epidemic, especially with so much misinformation and fake news being bandied about, most of which comes not from Facebook or the internet, but rather from our government and established media.

They keep telling us that the virus affects all of society, not just the elderly. Our televisions are flooded with images of young people dying or battling the virus.
Recovered teens are recruited to remind other young people that they too are imperilled.

It's a horrifically distorted view, perhaps meant to frighten young people into blindly following confinement orders based on fear.
Or it could just be the media looking for the 'man-bites-dog' story because seeing old people die of the virus is just not as interesting to a strapping young teen in the flower of youth.
It's about as honest as showing a teen-age car accident fatality as proof kids should not drive.
It's gratuitous and dishonest.

All that fake news belies the fact that Covid-19 is a deadly menace to the nursing home set and not much of a threat to others.

In fact, emerging evidence is showing that up to one-third of society has already been infected with the virus with nary a symptom, giving us hope that herd immunity is achievable.
Our mainstream media and government overstate the threat to the majority and understate the threat to the elderly.
In fact, Covid-19 is so deadly to the elderly that I wonder if they can survive the future without sheltering in place forever.

Let's examine our Covid-19 reality
These numbers were taken a few days ago and so the death rate you're probably reading about today is higher, but that doesn't change the awful reality of how and who Covid-19 affects.

Hmmm....
Of the 887 Quebec deaths resulting from Covid-19, only 20 occurred in those under 60 years old and in about half of those deaths, prior underlying health problems were a major contributor.

Before we go on to the second chart let us consider that for fully half our Quebec population, those under the mean average of 42 years old, there were just 6 Covid deaths for 4.25 million Quebecers.
And of those six deaths, at least three had compromised health issues.

When I crunched those numbers, I re-checked and re-checked, shocked to see a reality that our media and government hide in order to frighten us into submission.

I'm starting to believe that the idiot spring breakers in Florida who scoffed at the concept of social distancing were actually right about getting the virus. It's clearly no big deal when getting the virus at a young and virile age, preferable to waiting it out and taking your chance later on in life.
Most of those healthy young beach goers will never know that they were positive, some will have a headache for a day or two and a tiny minority will have symptoms and be laid up, but almost none will die.
In fact, if every healthy citizen under 60 got the virus in a slow and controlled manner, keeping hospitalizations at a tolerable rate, we'd be better off as a society.
There would certainly be some deaths, but if we isolated the health-compromised during this burn-off, that rate would be minuscule and represent a risk to reward ratio that is more than acceptable on a societal level.
If as the emerging studies indicate that one-third of people have the virus and don't even feel any symptoms, then pushing the other healthy two-thirds of society who are under sixty years old won't even stretch the health system very far.

Now the argument is offered that young people who are not affected will serve as vectors to the elderly and immuno-compromised also doesn't hold water because the covid virus is already out of the bottle and trying to smother it through isolation and quarantine is a case of a day late and a dollar short, in other words, a futile effort.

When the Ebola virus struck Africa, it did so in a relatively small and remote geographic area and was contained through quarantine and isolation of entire villages. But these areas were relatively small and affected relatively few people. Nobody was travelling from these remote African villages to the four corners of the Earth as in the case of Covid-19.
In our case, isolation and quarantine may help slow down the spread and flatten the curve, but it won't stop the virus dead in its tracks. Even if we are successful to any extent, scientists tell us it is likely that the virus is to become seasonal, another frightening scenario for the elderly.

Given that grim reality, let us consider the utter and complete disaster that Covid-19 represents to the elderly, especially those in communal homes.
Of all the Covid deaths in Quebec so far, 75% occurred in nursing homes or senior residences, not really a surprise because of the close living conditions in these establishments, coupled with staff interaction between residents and indeed homes, a perfect recipe for transmission.

In Quebec being a member of the 1% doesn't denote privileged wealth, it is a frightening demographic of those over 90 years old who suffer 30% of the covid fatalities.
It's a hard number to get our head around.
Yes, 1% of our society, that is those over 90 years old, continues to bear the brunt of the disease, suffering  30% of the covid deaths.
Consider that grim statistic for a while....

The second part of the chart above shows just how deadly Covid-19 is to the elderly who make up 26% of the general population and who suffer 97% of the covid fatalities.

Even if our self-isolation flattens the curve and the numbers come down, the evil genie that covid-19 represents is out of the bottle and will haunt and hunt seniors for the rest of their lives.

Presently hundreds of our senior residences and nursing homes have the virus burning through the ranks with reckless abandon. Some 4,000 residents are already infected and more are being stricken each day with some homes registering 75% infection rates.
It's only going to get worse and with a fatality rate up to 50% and higher, the body bags will pile up.

The big question that I consider here is that for other senior homes that did lockdown in time (commendably so) and who have kept the virus out, what will the future bring?

I'm sadly afraid that they will never, ever, ever be able to unlock the doors and return to normal, or at least what we considered normal two months ago.
While society will get over the virus, because the vast majority of us can and will beat the virus, not so for the elderly. ...they are doomed.

Covid-19 isn't going to be eliminated or contained as Ebola is in Africa. We are being told that this virus looks to be seasonal, just like the flu.
Given the lethality, the elderly and health-compromised will never, ever be able to resume a normal life, doomed to hide and shelter.

The only hope is a vaccine, but I'm not holding my breath, after forty-five there's still none for Ebola haemorrhagic fever.