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Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin

(107,919 posts)
Sun Mar 15, 2020, 03:58 PM Mar 2020

Older Americans are more worried about coronavirus -- unless they're Republican

Seventy-year-old Sal Gentile, writing in response to a question from The Washington Post, suggested that he wasn’t particularly worried about the coronavirus outbreak.

“Yep, I have a pacemaker and recent fusion,” he wrote; “however my love for quality of life is more important to me than being rattled by a TV station.”

Gentile is one of the Americans most at risk from the virus. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has warned those 60 and older and those with medical conditions to be particularly wary of its spread, given the higher mortality rates associated with those factors. Gentile would seem to fit into both categories, but, like many other residents of the Florida retirement community The Villages who were profiled by The Post this week, he doesn’t seem particularly worried.

The Villages has become something of a benchmark for older America, surging in size as the number of older Americans has steadily increased. A visit to the community earlier this week found that residents were continuing their social activities as they normally would, most as unrattled as Gentile. For some readers it spurred nothing short of bafflement: young people are forgoing social activities to halt the spread of a disease that isn’t particularly dangerous for them but those most at risk are living life as normal?

Part of the issue may be that The Villages isn’t necessarily as representative of America’s older population as it may seem.

-snip-

Why might The Villages be an outlier? Because it’s more heavily Republican.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/03/14/older-americans-are-more-worried-about-coronavirus-unless-theyre-republican/

5 replies = new reply since forum marked as read
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Older Americans are more worried about coronavirus -- unless they're Republican (Original Post) Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin Mar 2020 OP
The Villages and Marco Island are going to be hot zones in FLA maryellen99 Mar 2020 #1
so Fox News is convincing people not to self-distance Skittles Mar 2020 #2
It's almost as if Fox News literally wants to kill off Trump supporters lettucebe Mar 2020 #4
Yeah--Republicans are immune. Sure they are. NT eilen Mar 2020 #3
My parents live in The Villages. Mariana Mar 2020 #5

Skittles

(153,147 posts)
2. so Fox News is convincing people not to self-distance
Sun Mar 15, 2020, 04:08 PM
Mar 2020

they literally care about Trump more than they care about the health of everyone

lettucebe

(2,336 posts)
4. It's almost as if Fox News literally wants to kill off Trump supporters
Sun Mar 15, 2020, 04:50 PM
Mar 2020

because they are certainly encouraging them to go out and enjoy crowds. Weird but not surprising considering the source.

Mariana

(14,854 posts)
5. My parents live in The Villages.
Sun Mar 15, 2020, 05:08 PM
Mar 2020

They told me all the swimming pools were crowded, when I talked to them yesterday. Those people are not going to believe it's real until they and their friends start dying. Even then, they'll blame Obama.

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