Elderly Covid-19 Victims Shouldn't Be Dismissed: Health Official

As the world approaches 1 million coronavirus deaths, we shouldn't dismiss victims because they’re elderly, says Michael Osterholm, an epidemiologist and director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at University of Minnesota. He also says this is a harbinger of things to come.

Covid-19 patients aged 75 to 84 are 220 times more likely to die from the disease than 18-to-29-year-olds, according to the CDC. Seniors over 85 years have a 630 times higher risk of dying. The older age of fatal Covid-19 cases has made some people think “they’re old people, they’re going to die anyway,” said Osterholm.

“The challenge I have is I hear often from critics say, well, they're old people anyway mostly, they're going to die anyway. I have a really hard time with that. And I do understand, you know, death is inevitable. If we eliminate the top 10 causes of death, there'd be 10 new ones and I am not sure they're any better than the 10 we have. But I think the idea that somehow a person is dispensable because they're older… We've seen many, many people who have been highly functional, very productive members of society who have died from this virus infection. Don't tell me, you know, that one day someone is important and someone else is not.”

Michael says we’re long way from developing herd immunity.

“Depending on what vaccines do or don't do, we got a long ways to go to get to even the concept of herd immunity of 50 to 70 percent of the population infected to try to get some kind of immunity that would slow down transmissions. I again fear that while critics have their case, they can say what they want about this number, this number is going to grow substantially. And, you know, I just know that many of those people who died are very important loved ones to so many of us that it's hard to just dismiss it as it's just a number.”

In 2017, Michael wrote the New York Times best-selling book, Deadliest Enemy: Our War Against Killer Germs. He details the most pressing infectious disease threats and lays out a nine-point strategy on how to address them, with preventing a global flu pandemic at the top of the list.

He says this pandemic isn’t the big one.

“But I think it also is a harbinger of things to come. I just want to remind everyone, the big one hasn't happened yet. This isn't the big one. This is a bad one, a really bad one. I want to make sure that we understand what the future could bring and how much better we are prepared or not prepared for it, because, again, when the big one hits, then we really will be accountable for what did you or did you not do? And I think that's the challenge of the time.”

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