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Understatement
May. 20th, 2020 11:29 amYesterday, I read an Irish Times article by Naomi O'Leary about the number of European Covid-19 deaths that have taken place in care homes. It didn't tell me anything I didn't already know, but stood out for being beautifully written.
I remember a few months ago when "first world" governments fell all over themselves to explain why an outbreak wasn't going to happen here like it did in Italy (obviously we're not Asian). The big hope pegged as a sober and reasonable reason to not prepare: well, Italy's elderly are integrated into the fabric of society! They live in multi-generation homes! Of course they'll get infected, whereas we have safely hidden the olds away, densely packed into invisible spaces with a handful of carers going from room to room, visiting everyone!
This is not like cruise ships. We are very noble to hide the elderly and their infirmities from ourselves, unlike stupid Italy. Haha, Italy, you thought you were so superior with your non-age-segregated communities and very long lives and financial support for home care, family care, but it is your downfall!
I've watched the gruesome stories as infection sweeps through old age homes in Spain, in Sweden, in the UK, and here in Massachusetts in a US veterans' home, killing whole floors, whole corridors of people. I have several friends with parents in long-term care facilities where everyone has it, where everyone is dying. It's not all of the care homes, just like it wasn't all the houses.
I feel pretty confident at this point that multi-generational family homes weren't the primary problem, and socially segregating ourselves by age has not been a miracle protection against death.
Each family has done what it could within the bounds of what was possible for them, both before the pandemic and now. Meantime, the policy blind spot has been breathtaking, both before the pandemic and now.
I remember a few months ago when "first world" governments fell all over themselves to explain why an outbreak wasn't going to happen here like it did in Italy (obviously we're not Asian). The big hope pegged as a sober and reasonable reason to not prepare: well, Italy's elderly are integrated into the fabric of society! They live in multi-generation homes! Of course they'll get infected, whereas we have safely hidden the olds away, densely packed into invisible spaces with a handful of carers going from room to room, visiting everyone!
This is not like cruise ships. We are very noble to hide the elderly and their infirmities from ourselves, unlike stupid Italy. Haha, Italy, you thought you were so superior with your non-age-segregated communities and very long lives and financial support for home care, family care, but it is your downfall!
I've watched the gruesome stories as infection sweeps through old age homes in Spain, in Sweden, in the UK, and here in Massachusetts in a US veterans' home, killing whole floors, whole corridors of people. I have several friends with parents in long-term care facilities where everyone has it, where everyone is dying. It's not all of the care homes, just like it wasn't all the houses.
I feel pretty confident at this point that multi-generational family homes weren't the primary problem, and socially segregating ourselves by age has not been a miracle protection against death.
Each family has done what it could within the bounds of what was possible for them, both before the pandemic and now. Meantime, the policy blind spot has been breathtaking, both before the pandemic and now.
