COVID-19 is magnifying ageism, which could put elders at higher risk for developing COVID complications.
In recent days, many states around the country have decided to reopen their economies, ignoring the advice of public health officials who believe that continued lockdowns represent our best chance to stem the tide of COVID-19 outbreaks.
For some older adults, the message behind these decisions is clear: The lives of older Americans are not as valuable as reviving the economy.
“Ageism has been quietly pervasive in American culture for decades, according to those who work with and study the health of seniors,” writes Laura Newberry in The Los Angeles Times.
“But (older adults) fear that this particular form of discrimination has become magnified during the pandemic as those who have lost income and stability look for someone to blame.”
The COVID-19 pandemic has caused the stigma against elders to grow, according to Dilip Jeste, a geriatric psychiatrist at the University of California San Diego Center for Healthy Aging. He worries that an increase in ageism at this time could lead to weaker immune systems among elders and “could put them at higher risk of developing COVID complications.”
Ageism could even become a matter of life and death, according to the article, which cites guidelines announced by California Governor Gavin Newsom advising hospitals to prioritize younger people with greater life expectancy for care during the coronavirus outbreak. Those guidelines were swiftly retracted, but they are not without precedent, writes Newberry. She cites several cases of institutional ageism, including a determination by the Environmental Protection Agency under President George W. Bush that “people over 70 were worth just 67% of the lives of younger people.”
Becca Levy, a professor of epidemiology at the Yale School of Public Health, urges older people to question negative stereotypes of aging and resist them, if possible. Her decades of research on ageism suggest that older adults who internalize negative attitudes about aging may live 7.5 fewer years than those with positive attitudes.
There are solutions to head off an ageism wave, according to experts interviewed by Newberry. For example, increased contact between old and young can help offset intergenerational tensions. And, it might also be useful to remind young people that they, too, will grow old — if they’re lucky.