COVID among us elders

Reading this article -- As U.S. Nears 800,000 Virus Deaths, 1 of Every 100 Older Americans Has Perished-- I found myself wishing, as I do frequently, that Ronni Bennett was still among us to talk about it. But I'll try my own inadequate observations.

Yes -- the headline is just weird. I wish headline writers would work harder to be clear about statistics. Old people die from all causes in large numbers. We know that. What I am doing below is pulling out numerical excerpts which draw the picture of how COVID has struck among U.S. old people -- that means age 65 and up, I assume, although this long article does not explicitly define its age parameters.

Seventy-five percent of people who have died of the virus in the United States — or about 600,000 of the nearly 800,000 who have perished so far — have been 65 or older. One in 100 older Americans has died from the virus. For people younger than 65, that ratio is closer to 1 in 1,400.

... Since vaccines first became available a year ago, older Americans have been vaccinated at a much higher rate than younger age groups and yet the brutal toll on them has persisted. The share of younger people among all virus deaths in the United States increased this year, but, in the last two months, the portion of older people has risen once again, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. More than 1,200 people in the United States are dying from Covid-19 each day, most of them 65 or older.

... By now, Covid-19 has become the third leading cause of death among Americans 65 and older, after heart disease and cancer. It is responsible for about 13 percent of all deaths in that age group since the beginning of 2020, more than diabetes, accidents, Alzheimer’s disease or dementia. 

... The virus deaths of older people have sometimes been dismissed as losses that might have occurred anyway, from other causes, but analyses of “excess deaths” challenge that suggestion. Eighteen percent more older people died of all causes in 2020 than would have died in an ordinary year, according to data from the C.D.C.

Perhaps this presentation of the statistical evidence seems so disjointed because it wasn't really the authors' main interest. Interspersed with the stats they offer anecdotes about how old people are weathering the pandemic. Guess what? We elders come in all kinds and our experiences have been very individual. Some have hunkered down and ended up feeling unhappily isolated --while others rather enjoyed the quiet. Some have greatly restricted their activities; others refused to cut back on their lives despite public health warnings. Elders come in all sorts.

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It never hurts to learn more about how other elders are managing (or not). For the heck of it, I'll tell a bit about the evolution of my personal responses to the pandemic in my age-70s  -- please add your story in the comments if interested.

When COVID first came among us in March 2020, I was badly scared. It was described as a respiratory virus and I have learned painfully that my body is not good at clearing viral infections in the sinuses and lungs. Big trouble. We had one of the earliest and more restrictive lockdowns here in San Francisco. I found I didn't mind such adaptations as staying home, ordering groceries, and seeing only a very few other people. I found I could make myself useful by doing no-contact food deliveries to shut-ins through a Mission community organization. And I never stopped Walking San Francisco, a fascinating exercise in uniquely car-free streets.

In the fall of 2020, I was frustrated by not being able to join Democratic election work in Nevada as planned, but taught myself to contribute via national union phone banks. And I had always hated phoning! Hey, we even kept on going to help elect the two Democratic Senators from Georgia on January 5, 2021.

When the vaccines arrived, I was fortunate to figure out how to be close to first-in-line for shots among the healthy old people cohort.

And once vaccinated, this city's life and most of my activities have resumed. Our church finally resumed in-person worship. By fall 2021, I felt I could get on buses again. Despite the transit system still being under a continued mask mandate, this nevertheless makes me nervous. In September we flew to a delayed memorial service on the other side of the country. Nobody got sick. Though I've been resistant to online meetings and classes, I now participate in two regular ones.

Folks I know got boosted promptly. Some much older (age mid-90s) friends are still staying more strictly away from group contact. But mostly people I know are acting as if the pandemic was under control. This area is extremely well vaccinated. Omicron may prove our hopes wrong. Or not. We're somewhat inured to chances and changes.

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Again, any elders wanting to describe how the pandemic has struck them, do add your story in comments. We're all different.