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You are here: Home / Healthcare / COVID-19 / Nutpicking the Olds

Nutpicking the Olds

by @heymistermix.com|  March 18, 20208:31 am| 53 Comments

This post is in: COVID-19

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Yesterday, Cole posted a WSJ article detailing how the youngs were being irresponsible. Now, just to show that you can nutpick any age group, here’s the Globe and Mail telling us that the olds are the true irresponsibles:

As Barb Choit, 42, read news in mid-February about the ill-fated Diamond Princess cruise ship, on which the coronavirus eventually spread to more than 700 of those on board, she couldn’t help but bring it up every time she called or messaged her parents, seasoned cruise-goers, who had a voyage coming up in mid-March.

Her parents, both in their 70s and with underlying health conditions, were quick to dismiss her concerns: Thanks to a friends-and-family discount from a relative, they’d been loyal to the Holland America cruise ships for two decades. Barbara, they told her, these ships are clean and professionally run. There was no need to worry.

They were going to drive from Vancouver to Seattle and then fly to San Diego before boarding the ship, which would take them to Mexico and back. Ms. Choit brought up that there had been outbreaks in Washington state and California, but they said they would be quickly passing through and told her not to worry.

As the cruise drew closer, Ms. Choit sent a text message to her sister, a doctor in Australia.

“Okay they’re [expletive] insisting on going on this cruise. They’re flying to a ship in Seattle where the outbreak that killed a bunch of seniors is still happening. What do you think? Is this an intervention situation?”

As Ms. Choit tells it, her sister called her parents to scream at them. The next day, they cancelled the trip.

I thought that anecdote was really funny, because it captured the circle of life with aging parents: surprise that the people who raised you are going to do something that stupid, expletive-filled texts between siblings to figure out who’s going to have a confrontation, tense confrontational phone calls, and finally sense prevails.

My point here, obviously, isn’t that the olds are any worse than the youngs, just that in any widespread crisis, you’ll find people of any age that are doing something stupid. From what I’ve seen in my community and among friends and family, the vast majority, old and young, are being smart.

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Reader Interactions

53Comments

  1. 1.

    guachi

    March 18, 2020 at 8:37 am

    No one is blaming Gen X for anything. Probably because everyone forgot about us.

  2. 2.

    p.a.

    March 18, 2020 at 8:37 am

    Bit ot, but everyone has seen those ‘flatten the curve’ graphs. Do we have enough US info that anyone has included scales on the x & y axes? They would of course be projections, but is there enough data to make any projections, and has anyone seen any?

  3. 3.

    OzarkHillbilly

    March 18, 2020 at 8:39 am

    just that in any widespread crisis, you’ll find people of any age that are doing something stupid.

    And it’s usually some fucking hillbilly in a “hold my beer” moment doing it

  4. 4.

    OzarkHillbilly

    March 18, 2020 at 8:40 am

    @guachi: I blame you guys for everything.

  5. 5.

    zzyzx

    March 18, 2020 at 8:44 am

    I think what makes this so hard is that the goal of this period isn’t to reduce new cases to zero. That would be bad because it means it’ll just fire back up when we finally drop our new rules. It’s trying to thread this insanely narrow path of building herd immunity without overwhelming the system that’s so difficult. I think in part it’s because all we really know is the flu (seen as no big deal) and The Stand/Last Man on Earth/etc where it’s if you catch it, you automatically die. This case where odds are in the favor of any one individual – even at risk people have 4 in 5 odds of surviving – but the statistics on large groups is really bad is the blind spot in our brain.

  6. 6.

    Just One More Canuck

    March 18, 2020 at 8:45 am

    Every hillbilly I know are all kind, warm, brave and humble

  7. 7.

    sdhays

    March 18, 2020 at 8:47 am

    Someone needs to check on Cole: Coronavirus Officially Reaches Every State In the US After West Virginia Reports First Case.

  8. 8.

    OzarkHillbilly

    March 18, 2020 at 8:48 am

    @Just One More Canuck: I, am the exception to the rule.

  9. 9.

    Another Scott

    March 18, 2020 at 8:48 am

    ‘morning everyone.

    ICYMI, the BBC has been showing “Wuhan – Life during lockdown”. A shorter version is on YouTube. (15:33).

    As you might expect, it’s quite harrowing but important.

    The lockdown there started around January 23…

    :-(

    Wash your hands!!

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  10. 10.

    MattF

    March 18, 2020 at 8:48 am

    @p.a.: Kevin Drum has been tracing the rise in cases in several countries, compared to Italy. You can’t separate the rise in cases from the rise in reporting of cases, but looking at data from several different countries all shows identical trends.

  11. 11.

    zadig

    March 18, 2020 at 8:52 am

    It turns out, much to everyone’s surprise, that 40 years of being told you can’t trust the experts because the facts have a liberal bias will take its toll.

  12. 12.

    different-church-lady

    March 18, 2020 at 8:52 am

    Your daily reminder to RESIST GLOOM PORN.

  13. 13.

    different-church-lady

    March 18, 2020 at 8:54 am

    @guachi: I kinda blame you for Nirvana.

  14. 14.

    WereBear

    March 18, 2020 at 8:56 am

    My point here, obviously, isn’t that the olds are any worse than the youngs, just that in any widespread crisis, you’ll find people of any age that are doing something stupid.

    From what I’ve seen, the worse offenders are the ones whose brains automatically put risk lower than their own convenience.

    Like my MIL, who was a teacher, piano player, and spoke two languages fluently; and completely refused to wear a seat belt. For some vague and never articulated reason.

    Except when she drove with me. I always insist :)

  15. 15.

    zzyzx

    March 18, 2020 at 8:56 am

    @different-church-lady: ooooh. I like that phrase. I’m going to steal it and claim it for my own. Sorry. Mine now. YOINK! ;)

  16. 16.

    Red Cedar

    March 18, 2020 at 9:06 am

    @p.a.: Yes, the NYTimes has an article this morning about a Harvard study that puts numbers to the graphs, at least in terms of hospital beds. There are “flatten the curve” charts showing what happens if 20, 40, or 60% of adults are infected over 6 months, a year, 18 months. And of course basically we’re pretty screwed no matter what: our best hope is 20% infected over 18 months, and that’s way way below most “moderate” estimates.

    These Places Could Run Out of Hospital Beds

  17. 17.

    OGLiberal

    March 18, 2020 at 9:07 am

    @zadig: Newt Gingrich is in Italy so he is taking it seriously now but he said pretty much that in response to a “why didn’t you believe it at first?” question.   Assneck.

  18. 18.

    OGLiberal

    March 18, 2020 at 9:12 am

    Our Fox New friends turned on a dime the minute Trump and the prime time Fox talking heads started taking the whole thing somewhat seriously.  They are all “freedom” and “independent thinking” but they are just fucking sheep rounded up by the racist herding dogs.

    Of course, it’s still Obama’s fault.  And her emails.

  19. 19.

    p.a.

    March 18, 2020 at 9:14 am

    Tks all…

  20. 20.

    Mathguy

    March 18, 2020 at 9:18 am

    @zadig:

    My brother and I called our parents multiple times to make sure they weren’t doing something stupid. Both are devoted diners at the wingnuttery buffet.

  21. 21.

    SW

    March 18, 2020 at 9:19 am

    I think this is exactly right. Stupid knows no boundaries. Age, race, religion. None. Attempts to divide us along those lines are mistakes. Find the stupid and confront it wherever you find it.

  22. 22.

    Dupe1970

    March 18, 2020 at 9:23 am

    I called my parents made sure they were social distancing. They said I sounded like my older brother but yes they were. Time to call them again and see if they have neighbors who can grocery shop for them. They are both in their 80s.  Very healthy but still have ailments that I would be upset if they caught the virus.

  23. 23.

    Punchy

    March 18, 2020 at 9:26 am

    I really think that when (if?) this pandemic ends, they will crunch the numbers and I fully believe that the death rate in the US wont necessarily correlate to age, but to Fox News viewership.  Yes, that’ll be mostly the Olds, but plenty of 40-something mouthbreathers from ‘Mizzipy and a sufficient 30-year old Jeebus freaks from TX….

  24. 24.

    Nora

    March 18, 2020 at 9:29 am

    Someone pointed out on Facebook (yeah, I know) that Trump’s tone about the pandemic got a lot more serious after he was tested.  True?  It would be irresponsible not to speculate . . .

  25. 25.

    drunkenhausfrau

    March 18, 2020 at 9:31 am

    I can relate to this post: MIL is turning 90. Volunteers at a hospital gift shop. Has underlying health issues too. Doesn’t read “real” news, so just information from Fox addled friends. took all three of her sons and 2 DILs scolding, calling, emailing, texting to get her to stay the fuck home! No more hospital shop, no more gym, no more daily mass! (And I’m still not sure she’s being honest with us.)

  26. 26.

    bemused

    March 18, 2020 at 9:31 am

    Indifference to coronavirus contagion in crowds of younger people out partying at beaches and bars is a lot more eyecatching than senior citizens in casinos and wherever they don’t self-isolate.

  27. 27.

    WereBear

    March 18, 2020 at 9:35 am

    @bemused: Not to mention the well-known stubbornness when anyone tries to get them to stop doing something they have been doing for decades, from sky-diving to driving to the store.

     

    Adaption to new circumstances in this group is horribly LOW.

  28. 28.

    jonas

    March 18, 2020 at 9:41 am

    @OGLiberal: Yep. The latest gaslighting project I’ve seen pop up is to now call Trump’s anti-Muslim travel bans from earlier this year some farsighted response to a growing global pandemic that all the libs were against before they were for it.

    *headdesk

  29. 29.

    khead

    March 18, 2020 at 9:43 am

    The Villages, two days ago.  Things have… changed since then.

  30. 30.

    Jay Noble

    March 18, 2020 at 9:56 am

    @p.a.: Go graph happy

    https://www.ft.com/content/a26fbf7e-48f8-11ea-aeb3-955839e06441

  31. 31.

    Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism

    March 18, 2020 at 9:56 am

    @p.a.: I saw one this morning that did an almost identical graph based on Philly and St. Louis during the 1918 pandemic. It was on @VANMit’s Twitter feed.

  32. 32.

    WereBear

    March 18, 2020 at 10:00 am

    @khead: That article gave me a bad feeling about the future.

  33. 33.

    Jay Noble

    March 18, 2020 at 10:04 am

    @Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism: I put that graph up on my FB feed a couple days back. Real life example that is so close to the examples they put up it’s creepy!

  34. 34.

    waspuppet

    March 18, 2020 at 10:14 am

    When you’re young, you think you’re invincible because you’re young and strong and don’t know any better. When you’re old, I’m guessing, you think you’re invincible because you think you’ve seen it all and you think anyone younger than you is just a worrying ninny.

  35. 35.

    Dorothy A. Winsor

    March 18, 2020 at 10:19 am

    @WereBear:

    I find that resistance to change in myself and it’s embarrassing! Tonight my writer group is supposed to meet on Zoom. I downloaded the app and it looks easy, but I’m still grumbling about having to learn new tech. Mr DAW says I should be happy to do it because otherwise I’ll turn into a stereotype. He’s right.

  36. 36.

    Jinchi

    March 18, 2020 at 10:23 am

    Worth keeping in mind that whenever you read a story about some idiot casually risking the health of his community during this crisis, it’s probably a rightwinger.

    It’s not old folks or millennials. It’s Republicans.

    Only one factor has outscored partisanship as a predictor of coronavirus attitudes: support for President Donald Trump.

  37. 37.

    orchid moon

    March 18, 2020 at 10:24 am

    Member of the nearly deads group, and mistakenly believed we would isolate if coughing, etc. until I participated in an exercise class with a man in his 80’s next to me who coughed, sneezed, and blew his nose for the entire time.  Stopped attending the gym within a week after that.  Daughter-in-law dad says he’s healthy despite having a major chronic disease.  Go figure, obtuse behavior knows no age limitations.

  38. 38.

    wvng

    March 18, 2020 at 10:57 am

    I have been having conversations with “olds” (of which I am one) who have said things like “well, I’m old. If it’s my time then that’s ok.” My response is that if they become infected they will likely infect several others before they become symptomatic and, if they become seriously ill, they will need hospitalization and hospital space will soon be at a premium or non existent. So, please do everything you can to not get infected.  So far this has been well received.

  39. 39.

    Shalimar

    March 18, 2020 at 11:03 am

    @Nora: Trump is intentionally over-reacting to this to take himself down.

  40. 40.

    Bmaccnm

    March 18, 2020 at 11:11 am

    @drunkenhausfrau: At 90, maybe your MIL doesn’t see an isolated life as something worth prolonging. It’s her life.

  41. 41.

    lee

    March 18, 2020 at 11:16 am

    Thankfully my Dad at 87 is using common sense.

    Last week his Senior Living Apartment Complex said ‘No more visitors’. At first he was a bit miffed but I explained why he was totally cool with it.

    I think they are still taking their meals together which of course is an issue.

  42. 42.

    lou

    March 18, 2020 at 11:30 am

    The Washington Post had a story about the hellhole of The Villages retirement community exhibiting such an attitude. Then Reuters followed up with talking to The Villages types on election day. They’re more worried about the stock market than their health.

  43. 43.

    Robby-D

    March 18, 2020 at 11:34 am

    In Canada we have socialized medical, but when we travel abroad we are out of pocket and usually purchase travel medical insurance (which is cheap, btw). As the Cdn Gov has advised all Canadians to avoid cruises, insurers consider that a “Level 4 Travel Advisory” and are denying all travel medical coverage for anyone on a cruise that left on or after Mar 9.

    That alone should’ve been enough for this couple, or anyone, to cancel their “mid-March” trip.

  44. 44.

    Robert Sneddon

    March 18, 2020 at 11:36 am

    @zzyzx: “Herd immunity” is something else, for the next wave of coronavirus that will spread across the world in a year or two from now. By then over half the population of cruiseliner Planet Earth will have been exposed to SARS-CoV-2, this years whoopee cushion and the survivors will have developed some immunity to it and its cousins so when they drop by in the future (as they will) the repercussions will be less severe.

    “Spreading the curve” is a cold-hearted realistic appraisal that we can lose fewer lives if it takes longer for this coronavirus to infect, sicken and kill a bunch of people since it means more medical attention time per patient. Pretty much everyone who would get sick WILL get sick, fewer of them will die (we hope). It also gives us a chance to find some antiviral drug treatments to slow things down and maybe Big Pharma can pull a workable vaccine out of its hat but I wouldn’t hold my breath on that score.

  45. 45.

    planetjanet

    March 18, 2020 at 11:59 am

    @p.a.:  The last I saw, we were still exponential.  Hard to extrapolate from that.

  46. 46.

    Baquist

    March 18, 2020 at 12:10 pm

    “I thought that anecdote was really funny, because it captured the circle of life with aging parents: surprise that the people who raised you are going to do something that stupid, expletive-filled texts between siblings to figure out who’s going to have a confrontation, tense confrontational phone calls, and finally sense prevails.”

    This is our family right now.  Different reasons for travel, but the EXACT same situation.   This spoke to me on a visceral level.

  47. 47.

    Ruckus

    March 18, 2020 at 1:53 pm

    @p.a.:

    Projections would be no more helpful.

    The curves are what exposure does. Massive exposure gives massive results and all at once. Given those results that would massively overload an already overloaded healthcare system. Changing the curve doesn’t change the overall disease numbers dramatically but it slows it down, makes it more controllable, gives a chance that a vaccine can be found and allows the most vulnerable to shelter and possibly avoid/cut the death rate by building herd immunity.

    The world has what 6/7 billion people in it, the virus has spread around that world because we are dramatically more mobile than in any time before, you can travel around the world in 24 hrs, not 80 days. The virus can and pretty much has done the same. Most of us look at the world as our little bit of it, but it’s not any more. We, all of us are part of the world. There are too many of us to separate into our own little clicks. This pandemic is proof of that. What one does effects everything else. That trump is so pathetic in his response to this is because he sees the world that he thinks revolves around him. And it doesn’t, and of course it never did. But now that outlook hurts not just him, not just the 300+ million in the US, but the world. It’s the same for all countries. Many in the US think that we are the center of the world but we aren’t. We never really were but WWII gave that impression and politicians, mostly republican have bought that concept, that we/they are the center of the world, the power. GWB’s middle east war was about this, that it’s our destiny to shape and mold the entire world into their perceived image.

  48. 48.

    JaneE

    March 18, 2020 at 2:48 pm

    Even though I am over 70, I had planned to attend my normal water aerobics class and have lunch out as usual on Monday.   We have no cases in our county yet.  The place we normally go was closed to dining, so that meant I had to cook for an early dinner before exercise class.  I had just put on my swimsuit when it was cancelled.  OK.  It is an abundance of caution at this point.  The governor wants all us elderly (ha) to stay at home.  Will do, but I still have doctor’s appointments that haven’t been  cancelled or converted to tele-medicine.  One appointment was.  We will survive, but I really hope they get a vaccine as soon as possible.  Our town’s business model is tourism, and we have an abundance of restaurants that can’t survive on local traffic only, and now there won’t even be that.

  49. 49.

    Jess

    March 18, 2020 at 3:16 pm

    @JaneE: “We have no cases in our county yet” that you know of! It appears that much of the contagion is spread by people w/o symptoms, or very mild symptoms. By the time your acquaintances start showing symptoms, it’s probably too late for you to isolate yourself to avoid infection. I don’t have a link, unfortunately, but there’s a graph out there showing the testing results from S.Korea and Italy that reveals how many young people w/o symptoms were in fact contagious. Stay safe!

  50. 50.

    Jess

    March 18, 2020 at 3:22 pm

    @Jess: Found the link: https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/world/2020/03/coronavirus-new-graph-shows-people-in-their-20s-are-more-asymptomatic-and-not-being-tested-for-covid-19.html

  51. 51.

    not_a_cylon

    March 18, 2020 at 5:13 pm

    I’ve been calling my mom, who is in her 60s and does not read american news, and urging her to stay home as much as possible. We agreed that heading out to a store “because I have a week’s worth of eggs and cat litter left, and I’m running out of honey” is not reason enough to head out a grocery store at first opening, esp the morning after Inslee announced restaurant closures and other measures. I offered to drop off groceries for her, and thought I’d talk her into it later in the week.

    Next day, she tells me she went anyway because she “didn’t want to be a bother”, and when I asked how many others were there, she hesitated and said “I found a shopping cart eventually.” But it’s probably okay! Because there were store employees at the entrance asking people if they had symptoms, and there were sanitary wipes to wipe down the cart handles!

    It’s extremely frustrating.

  52. 52.

    Goatwoman

    March 18, 2020 at 6:17 pm

    @orchid moon: Oh, I’m sure it’s just his ragweed allergy.

    In March.

    Right?

  53. 53.

    J R in WV

    March 18, 2020 at 8:55 pm

    @Just One More Canuck:

    Every hillbilly I know are all kind, warm, brave and humble

    Thank you, Thank You Verra Much~!!!~

    We do try…Thas all a hillbilly can do! Do you need a jump start? ‘Cause I can he’p with that!!

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