Why Older People Might Suffer Most, Post-Pandemic
Thanks to advancements in medicine, skin care, and elective cosmetic treatments, our picture of aging has changed radically over the past several decades. More people are dyeing their hair when it turns gray, and we now have a better understanding of the impact of exercise and nutrition on both physical appearance and longevity than ever before. Between 1959 and 2014, life expectancy in the U.S. rose from 69.9 years to 78.9 years (though it has since plateaued and decreased slightly). In other words, being 70 in 2020 looks and feels a lot different than being the same age even just one generation ago.
And then came COVID-19. All of a sudden, people aged 65 and older were collectively labeled as “high risk” — regardless of their actual health status — and instructed to stay home and take extra precautions. According to Dr. Karen Fingerman, professor of human development and family sciences at the University of Texas, Austin, this categorization stems from the impact COVID-19 has had on residents of nursing homes. “There’s no doubt that the death rate in nursing homes is astronomical, but when you look at the statistics, only five percent of older adults are in nursing homes,” Fingerman tells Rolling Stone. “They’re very high risk, but [the residents are] incredibly sick and frail to begin with. So we’re talking about high susceptibility, but we’re talking about a fairly small portion of the older adult population.”
A recent article in the Journal of the American Medical Association on COVID-19 deaths in Italy helps to illustrate this point. According to the study’s findings, the rate of death for 60- to 69-year-olds was three to four percent — only slightly higher than the general population — but jumped to 20 percent for those over the age of 80. “We have an extremely vulnerable population that has suffered the brunt of the deaths in the nursing homes,” Fingerman explains. “But generalizing that to say it’s all older adults presents a view of old age that is very deteriorated.”
Instead, Fingerman suggests that we start thinking more like age researchers, who consider both biological and chronological age. As she recently explained in an op-ed in USA Today, “Chronological age is the number of years since birth.… Biological age reflects the physiology of a person and how well that person is functioning.” In the case of COVID-19, biological age matters most when it comes to the risk of serious illness or death. Putting all adults chronologically age 65 and older in the same category stigmatizes the entire group, regardless of individual health status.
https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-features/covid-19-pandemic-agism-older-americans-1002935/
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