Roycroftmom, I’m been reading your posts and trying to understand exactly what it is you’re saying. It would be extremely helpful to me if you would answer Cardinal Fang’s question. TIA
I just had a routine dental appointment (cleaning etc.). The appointment originally was scheduled for March 18; that turned out to be the first day the dental clinic was closed because of a directive from the American Dental Association to clinics nationwide. The clinic reopened yesterday for routine appointments.
I had to call from the parking lot. I received a call back when the hygienist was ready to meet me at the entrance. She was fully garbed with PPE. She took my temperature (forehead). She asked me health questions. My use of ibuprofen yesterday for “aches and pains” (a term we agreed on) was considered acceptable. I had to sign a form. I was asked to use hand sanitizer after using the pen. Teeth “scraping” was done without a machine, to minimize aerosolization. I declined polishing, for the same reason. I’m 58 years old, the hygienist probably is a few years younger, the dentist is older. I’m more concerned about their health than mine, but they were well protected.
No cheating. I was responding to people who said that the over-80s would have died this year. If that is so, then the death rate for the remainder of this year will be lower.
We probably will discover that two and three years from now, the over-80 death rate is lower because the people who would have died in 2022-23 actually died in 2020. I do not think this is a good thing.
I do hope that no one here is telling me that it’s OK to lop two or three years off someone’s life, just because they’re over 80. Both my parents were over 80 when they died. Each of them enjoyed the last three years of their lives, and brought great joy into their childrens’ and grandchildrens’ lives in that time. Neither I nor they would have been willing to sacrifice them three years early. Are you willing to lop three years off your parents’ lives? I think not.
My library is starting curb side pick-up. They are starting with anyone who had holds before library was shut down, to work out if there are issues, before opening for everyone. It’ll be available from 2p-6p M-F.
I can see the death rate decreasing over three years due to the early deaths. I still don’t see the reasoning for not caring. Even the difference of 2 months would mean two more months of quality life for FIL. Three years would be a big difference.
For anyone wishing they could catch it and die, this just means the laws have to change allowing them to choose death if they want to. We are kinder to our aged and sick pets than we are to our relatives. Pets don’t even have the option to choose. Humans would. No one should have to “want” to die from a cruel illness causing you them to drown unable to breathe for days.
Not sure about relative safety.
I’m concerned about employee to employee interactions, as coworkers get “comfortable” around each other, and launch into lengthly close-distance unmasked conversations like pre-pandemic days.
The small local stores probably need your business a lot more than the big boxes?
There’s a lot of retail that falls in the space between big boxes and small local stores.
Yes, I believe that is more likely than not. There aren’t many absolute certainties with this disease so I wouldn’t bet the farm on it, but that’s the direction I would lean.
That doesn’t mean the total death rate will be the same as it would be without Covid, but that the excess deaths due to Covid will be a smaller number than the actual deaths due to Covid in the over 80 group.
It kind of does sound like what a lot of people are saying. Or maybe that elderly dying a few months or years or even ten years sooner than normal is just going to have to be the price of freedom for the rest of us. Collateral damage and all that…
Don’t hospice patients often die of pneumonia? Is Covid that much more painful if you are over 80?
https://pneumonia.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s41479-018-0052-7
I don’t know how to interpret this. Are you saying that the death total for over-80s for calendar 2020 will be about what we expected for calendar 2020? That is, similar to the death total for over-80s for 2019? If that’s what you’re saying, I don’t think you’re reckoning correctly with the life expectancy of a person over 80.
No, it isn’t. I’m saying that more 80+ will die this year in the US than would have if the virus had never left Wuhan. But some of the 80+, maybe many, that die of the virus would have died anyway. Not all, but some.
So the number of excess deaths will be smaller than the number of Covid-19 deaths.
My daughter’s orthodonist’s office called today to schedule us - happy day in our house 
She was last there March 5th. Was originally due to get her braces off in June. Scheduled for June 18th. Hoping to get them off in September now. 
Honestly, I can see both sides.
People have loved ones at risk and are obviously very concerned about losing them to COVID-19. It might be easy to conclude others are being callous or don’t care about that demographic.
I think others might be trying to express their surprise about what the data is revealing about the most susceptible demographic groups.
I, for one, was VERY scared in March. I was worried about getting infected and ending up in the hospital on a ventilator, dying without any family there to hold my hand. I remember telling my husband that very thing, with tears coming down my face.
Of course, he’s a smart aleck and said he was most scared of having to go through my desk and papers in my office!
Our 24 yo daughter was VERY scared for us, her parents. Please don’t get sick and die! Be careful!
All of us recall the day we read the article in the WaPo about the abnormal clotting from COVID-19 and young people dying of embolisms, strokes, etc. That article shook us all up – very frightening.
We just don’t feel scared that same way now. For sure, a large part of that is all three of us were infected in April and were sick, but recovered at home without any complications. We now have a small group of people we know who have been infected and recovered well. We know 2 distant family members who passed of the infection who fit the criteria for most at risk (advanced age and comorbidities).
We are looking at the information coming out from various state health departments about age and underlying comorbidities (us in Illinois, daughter in WashDC, NYS info posted here) and it just makes us feel a LOT less afraid.
At the IDPH web site, there are bar graphs showing the age demographics of the positive tests, and then the age demographics of the deaths. It’s not the impression I got in March, and I find it comforting.
If the data was showing children were dropping like flies or that the bulk of the people dying were in their 20s, 30s, 40s? The country would be hysterical, as would I.
That does NOT mean old people or people with underlying health conditions don’t matter.
Yes, and in my ideal world no one would have to die of it. They could opt for a more pain free way of dying.
My mom died from fluid in her lungs due to end stage cancer. My dad died of a heart attack. Comparatively, I want the heart attack. My mom should have legally been able to ask her doctor for a quicker end once she reached the last stage she wanted to experience. It wouldn’t have been in bed drowning for her final days on high doses of morphine (that I gave her as directed).
Anyone wishing this form of death on someone else… I’d best just end that statement.
Give me the heart attack or some other quick or peaceful method. If my end is going to be long drawn out drowning, give me the same meds we put our ponies/cats/dogs down with.
Your 80-year old population must be very unhealthy.
https://www.ssa.gov/oact/STATS/table4c6.html gives the following:
Age Male Female
%die RLE %die RLE
80 5.82 8.28 4.28 9.68
85 9.79 5.89 7.43 6.95
90 16.54 4.05 13.14 4.78
95 26.36 2.81 21.89 3.31
100 35.42 2.12 30.77 2.42
105 45.21 1.60 41.18 1.76
108 52.33 1.34 49.05 1.44
%die = probability of dying in a year (in percentage terms)
RLE = remaining life expectancy in years
Only when people get to about 108 years old would you expect about half of them to die within a year.
But that’s obvious. Clearly, some of the people who die of covid would have died within the year. But most of the people who die of covid would not have died within the year.
I play tennis with women in their late 70’s and 80’s. They don’t seem old to me at all and I’m 20 years younger than some of them.
People in that age range are, for the most part, much healthier than previous generations at the age. Or so it seems to me.
From the Inside Medicine thread, we’re seeing concerning evidence that women who have covid while pregnant have abnormal placentas that may restrict blood flow to the fetus. Maybe it’s not just the old that have to worry.
RE: the vaccination of children which was brought up a few pages ago–
"The widespread interruption of routine immunization programs around the world during the coronavirus pandemic is putting 80 million children under 1 year old at risk of contracting deadly, vaccine-preventable diseases, according to a report Friday by the World Health Organization, UNICEF and Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance…
Many public health experts say they are worried that deaths from diseases including cholera, rotavirus and diphtheria could far outstrip those from Covid-19 itself…
The problem of slipping vaccine rates is not limited to developing countries. This week, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported that coverage rates among Michigan infants had dropped below 50 percent for all childhood immunizations. New York City announced that during a six-week period of pandemic lockdown, the number of vaccine doses administered to children dropped 63 percent, compared with the same period last year.
According to health ministers and medical providers in the countries surveyed, there are a number of reasons for the disruptions.
In late March, up to 80 percent of flights to Africa that deliver vaccines and syringes were canceled. The health care workers who administer vaccines have been afraid to proceed with the supplies they have on hand, because they lack sufficient protective gear. Parents have been afraid to take children to health clinics. Many areas are in lockdown altogether. And thousands of health care workers who might otherwise be engaged in vaccination are being diverted to respond to Covid-19."
Babies here in the US may be able to “catch up” but other babies around the world may not. They are quite concerned about polio and measles.