Here’s some news:
Hey Bo, I also don’t think that so bad.
my Mom is 91, has broken both hips in the last 3 years. I take her to doctors appointments and such because, well, she trusts me (and the doctors are afraid of me taking notes, otherwise they sort of ignore her)
I also get her groceries and do the odd thing around her house that she needs. I, myself am well isolated at my home, and now work at home.
We had a GREAT brand new assisted living place for her set up, but she was reluctant. Now with COVID, I really can’t say “This is what is going to happen” (though I would not have forced her. She is still very much on top of things, has her faculties and uses a computer.)
I work form home and only go to the grocery store. Sure, the risk is there, but my mother needs me.
My mom has nurses visit twice a week. Turns out that one of the nurses had a husband at home with COVID. SAY WHAT!!! She is gone obviously. I’m probably safer to do this.
Just to add another vote for “visit your elderly relatives”, my mom is also frail, and probably in the early stages of dementia, but she’s definitely still capable of making choices, and she’s VERY clear that she prefers quality of life to quantity. We’ve all been trying to convince her that covid is a crappy way to die, and she should try to avoid it. And she does take some precautions, like wearing a mask.
But frankly, at this point, I’m more worried I will catch it from my mom than that I’ll give it to her. And yeah, I invited her to share Thanksgiving with us. We are now in quarantine to make that safer for her. She isn’t (and can’t be, due to health issues that need active treatment right now.) If she is physically up to Thanksgiving, we will share a brief meal, and not stay too long, and wear masks when we aren’t actually eating. But we will visit her.
She doesn’t have a lot else to live for. 
I hafta say I’m glad my mother didn’t survive to go through this. She died in March 2018 at age 93.
I don’t see the value in restricting visitors to 90+ year old parents/relatives, especially if they don’t understand what’s going on and just want to see a loving face (whether or not they are 100% sure who it is).
I know that you know this, but I’m posting it anyway:
Let me try and help you see the value:
Your mother not having visitors means she won’t get infected, which means she won’t need a hospital bed. If she doesn’t get infected then she can’t infect the staff, who then won’t go on to infect other staff and patients, meaning they won’t need hospital beds either.
It’s not just about (royal) you and your parent, it’s about the staff, about the hospital beds, about medical resources that are, in fact, not unlimited.
But really, what I thought was most striking about that article was the selfishness and entitlement that the woman I quoted seemingly displayed, and how she has no problem deciding when death is an acceptable risk and outcome for someone else so that she herself will be happy. And that’s someone she cares about, loves, even.
The mother not having visitors, enduring social isolation, increases her risk of needing hospitalization and of earlier death independent of COVID-19. Social isolation is a major mortality cause.
It also, fairly selfishly IMHO, decides that her (and others like her) suffering horribly from social isolation is price “we” are willing to impose upon them for “our” sakes.
It is very easy to judge others and to impose sentences on them when they are not the ones you love.
My mother had a DNR (Do Not Resuscitate) order during the last couple of years of her life, she requested it before the delusion/ delirium symptoms started. She kept it in an envelope with DNR written on it in big letters in magic marker.
Whenever we took her out of the nursing home she would take it with her and put it in a highly visible location, usually in the middle of the coffee table. Her concern was that if something happened when she was visiting us we might, in the heat of the moment, forget to tell the paramedics that she had a DNR.
Her nursing home probably could’ve found a reasonably safe way to allow limited in person visits if they had been allowed. They did find a way to allow these during deathbed situations. They would put the patient in the room at the end of the hall, next to an emergency exit.
Family was escorted into the room through that exit and left the same way and never had to walk through the facility. True, you did have brief contact with staff but it wasn’t any more substantial than the contact I had with staff when they came out to get the packages of sweets and personal care products I dropped off.
I think they could’ve stuff done this a little more and improved the quality of life for patients. Maybe they could’ve limited it DNR patients who would never be taking up a hospital bed under any circumstances whatsoever.
But I don’t agree with the assessment that someone that wants to be at the bedside of their parent in order to alleviate their psychological suffering is a selfish murderer.
Authorities in places with less mask and distancing use could advise so many and save lives right now, but sadly I’m not expecting that that will take place soon.
I understand the point that folks are making about visiting elderly loved ones, but this is really is key. People keep thinking about COVID in terms of life and death, but plenty of folks are able to survive this thing as long as they have good hospital care. My elderly parents can attest to this. It will be a minority of COVID-infected people–including old people–who won’t want go to the hospital when they start feeling like shit. People might say they are fine with dying, but few are willing to throw in the towel without putting up some kind of fight first.
If all the hospital beds are full of elderly folks who got infected from visitng loved ones, then that sucks for everyone. This “everyone” includes sick folks who aren’t frail or demented…folks who could have another ten, twenty, thirty years of productivity in front of them as long as they get good medical care. And I’m not just talking about ICU beds. My parents were not in the ICU but they were still hospitalized from COVID for a little over a week. Without that care, I don’t think they’d be alive right now.
Prior to getting sick, my mother was all “If I die from COVID, I’ll die from COVID. I’ve got to still live my life, right?” To listen to her, she was ready for death. But when she got sick, her tune changed big time. It was all “TAKE ME TO THE HOSPITAL!!” Which of course was her right. She deserved to be treated despite her initial devil-my-care attitude, and I would have been angry if the hospital hadn’t pulled out all the stops for her. My family was lucky that she got sick when and where she did. There was a bed for her. The hospital wasn’t swamped. No one kicked her out before she was ready.
But if everyone starts hanging out with their Meemaws and Pop-Pops right now, lots of families will not have the happy ending that mine experienced. It would have been horrible if my mother had been turned away from the hospital. And it would have been super traumatic for us to watch her die at home.
In contrast, my mom was taking reasonably good care of herself until she slipped and broke her pelvis. She did call 911, but she asked me a lot of times if they could give her a suicide pill, even though her prognosis wasn’t that bad. She doesn’t want to just throw in the towel if taking a drug will cure her. And she certainly wanted pain medication for the broken bone. But she doesn’t want to take up an ICU bed, either. And yes, she does have a DNR order.
(Physician assisted suicide is not legal in my state. Something I’ve told her several times, now.)
I’m praying nothing happens that requires hospitalization for family, friends, or myself in the coming months. Except for (most people) wearing masks in public, most Americans have quit taking the sensible preventative measures they took last spring.
62% say they’re either not isolating at all or only partially isolating. I see post after post on social media about spending time with family members posters haven’t seen in awhile. Nor is this due to ignorance that the pandemic is raging: 61% acknowledge it’s getting worse.
Maybe they’re not aware that hospitalizations and deaths are up 33%. Maybe all the reports of asymptomatic carriers and people who get mild cases have lulled them into a false sense of security. Maybe they think they won’t get COVID from family members. Maybe they figure since they were good for so long, they’ve earned family time, as if the virus doesn’t hit people who got A’s in prevention 7 months ago.
I don’t know. I only know that the more excuses we seem to make, the higher the numbers get.
I’ve actually met a 91-year-old lady who contracted and survived Covid. Tough old bird.
It would be nice to put some numbers to this … how many of the elderly are worth sentencing to solitary confinement of an unknown length, possibly the rest of their lives, per freed up one hospital bed for a week or so?
How many should die as a result of that isolation to free up that bed? How many should suffer?
To put it into some perspective by mid-September for dementia deaths alone
It’s not just among those with dementia though and it should be no surprise. Suddenly being without established close social connections is well known to kill. One aspect that is well studied is the so-called “widowhood effect”
The impact of social isolation, of loneliness, on premature mortality, let alone in diminishing quality of life is HUGE.
Meanwhile what exactly is the risk of visits by a small number of loved ones without apparent illness, doing reasonable mitigation for the visit perhaps, like wearing masks with limited time within a six foot radius? I’m not going to search right now or redo them right now, not enough time in my life, but I did some calculations somewhere earlier in the forum, and even not assuming masking and assuming household exposure level risk, the number was, on an individual basis, tiny.
Having grandpa over for big Thanksgiving is not a great idea. But one person visiting their otherwise isolated elderly father, to give him some minimal quality of life, avoiding the increased chance of his death earlier than otherwise, or hospitalization, from the impacts of isolation?
most 91 year olds are tough old birds, in my experience. 
Where are the unintended irony tags when you need them?
DNR orders do not eliminate going to the hospital or needing a bed and hospital care staff. DNR usually prevents CPR and similar extraordinary resuscitation, one might even be in an ICU for many forms of treatment, without the care being resuscitative or extraordinary. Many people choose to specify no intubation but lots of ICU care happens before that level of mechanical respiration.
Not in mine. I’ve known some pretty frail ones. But then, I work in a hospital.
Some of those are almost certainly undiagnosed covid deaths. My uncle died of diagnosed covid, but his first symptom was sudden-onset dementia. Covid causes and exacerbates dementia. I’m not sure if the mechanism, possibly due to numerous microhstrokes.
I’m not sure if it’s been covered, but here goes anyway. Yes, it’s a quality of life issue, IMHO. My wife’s mom’s mom is currently in an elder care facility and the only people allowed to visit are facility staff. There is no family visit. It’s not because of what the family would consider acceptable risk, but rather the facility (and the government of South Korea) consider to be a risk to both staff and other patients. The quality of life is lowered but the lives of the family member and other patients are protected.
If everyone decides to visit Pop on a regular basis because they think the risk of him succumbing to loneliness is greater than the risk of them infecting him, then it is certain that we will have increased suffering, not less. Because “everyone” is not going to follow the guidelines. We’ve got folks out here who are still eating out at restaurants and hanging out with friends, but who still believe they are being safe because they are kinda stupid. So if these people (along with the super intelligent ones) visit their lonely mom or dad then, yes, there will be some percentage of mom or dads who get infected, which of course will translate into some degree of infectious spread within the community. Even if we’re talking about a low risk, we’re still going to have more suffering than what we would get if everyone just stayed the fuck home.
I don’t think people who prioritize their family members are evil hellbeasts. If either of my parents were socially isolated, it would be hard for me to stay away from them. But just because it is an understandable motivation doesn’t mean it is a smart one from a public health stand-point. There are multiple ways to mitigate social isolation in the elderly. We have no way of bringing back people from the dead. And is keeping a demented 90-year-old in good spirits worth sentencing a doctor or nurse to the ravages of long COVID? I don’t think that question is a trivial one.