My dad died 8 weeks ago, he was 90 years old and in a rehab facility due to a broken hip. He was vaccinated and boosted. We distanced from each other, washed our hands frequently and did not go out to eat. I picked up to go orders, while he was still at home or my mom cooked. They used the pick up function from the grocery store. So other than being in a rehab facility where he had no choice about being in contact with other people, he did everything he could to stay safe. He was on oxygen so couldnt really wear a mask there but did so the few times he went out of the house previously. However, the rehab facility had covid exposed people and the nursing staff was in contact with the those people. On Jan 3, he was sent to the hospital with covid and died later that day. My Mom, after suffering such a devastating loss then had to quarantine for two weeks to make sure she didn’t have it. (she did not)
It would have been sort of accusatory if someone had asked me if he was vaccinated or what precautions he took. We did everything possible and still lost him.
I’m really sorry for your loss. And, adding on the quarantine for your mother must have been just awful. I’m glad she doesn’t have it.
If I found out that someone who was 90 died from COVID, I’m sure I wouldn’t ask, because older people are so much more vulnerable to it, and so much better about getting vaccinated anyway. Someone in their 50s or younger? I’d certainly be curious.
This. Because if the answer is yes, then I end up with egg on my face. If the answer is no, that doesn’t make it appropriate to say something negative about the deceased. Either way, it wouldn’t change my response, so there’s no sense in actually asking.
Sorry for your loss.
Part depends on the context in which I learn of the loss.
If someone tells me their parent died, I doubt I’d even ask the cause. I might ask if it was a prolonged decline or an accident, as a slow or unexpected death might effect the survivors differently than an old and/or ill person slipping away. But I suspect I’d just say, “I’m sorry for your loss. Losing a parent is always tough. Let me know if I can do anything.”
If you told me your father was in a nursing home and died of Covid, I’d presume he was vaxxed because I presume nursing homes require that.
But if a survivor chooses to tell me that someone died of Covid, it does not strike me as unreasonable or “accusatory” to inquire whether the deceased failed to take reasonable steps that would have greatly reduced their risk.
-If you said, “Yes,” I’d think (and maybe say), “That’s horrible.” And I’d think (maybe say) something abut how unfortunate it is that more people did not vax sooner.
-If you said, “No,” I’d probably think (but not say) “unless there was some specific health reason they couldn’t, they were stupid.” And if the survivor went on to tell me what a great guy the deceased was and how much they are missed, I’ll likely keep thinking, “Too bad this great guy so stupidly contributed to his own death.”
Yeah, but what’s the point, really? You don’t learn anything actionable, other than perhaps having negative thoughts about the deceased. Maybe a little bit of self-gratification that you made a wiser decision, but the publicly available statistics should be more than enough for that.
If a survivor or loved one knows that their dead relative was unvaxxed, then either they are going to make the logical conclusion on their own to get vaccinated themselves (if they are not) or they are going to double-down on making excuses/justifications/etc. In either case your asking about it isn’t going to move the needle. So it doesn’t help them for you to ask.
If a question doesn’t help the asker or the answerer, then it is probably better left unasked.
Depends on so many factors - including the perspectives of both parties and our relationship. Might allow me to react more meaningfully and personally to their feelings, instead of just generically, “Sorry for your loss.” Maybe the survivor is mad that the deceased did not get vaxxed. Or mad that despite being vaxxed, they got it from untaxed people. Maybe the survivor and deceased are both fervent anti-vaxxers, in which I’ll have useful information WRT how I wish to interact w/ them in the future. Many other possibilities.
But I agree. If I wish a relationship to remain on a superficial level, I’ll just say, “Sorry for your loss.”
Pretty much this. An older person I would assume had been vaccinated. I would be curious if a healthy (ish) person under 60 was vaccinated.
I would not, however, voice that curiosity to the bereaved. There are a number of things I’m curious about but not entitled to an answer to, and this one is potentially upsetting enough to the surviving person that I wouldn’t want to even hint that an answer was expected.
Only if I happened to be around them while I was unmasked, which is a very small number of people.
I may ask, but not the immediate family, especially if I had contact with them or someone they directly had contact with. Gotta look out for myself and my loved ones.
I’m really sorry for you loss. And for your mother. I recently needed to quarantine after my mother died of covid, and quarantining, when you desperately want company and hugs, is just awful. It must be so much worse losing a spouse that way, and somewhat unexpectedly.
I’d be curious, but i probably wouldn’t ask, for reasons mentioned here.
No, I don’t ask. Just like I don’t ask if someone smoked when I find out they’ve died of lung cancer. It comes across as rather mean spirited and just isn’t a necessary question to ask. If it was someone I was actually close to then odds are I already know the answer to the question.
I was reading about the baseball player, Thurman Munson, who died in 1979 in a plane crash.
Munson was flying his own plane with two passengers. He had taken up flying so he could go to his Ohio home from New York more easily and frequently, I guess. He had become rather overenthusiastic about the venture, upgrading his planes several times until he had a jet. When the crash happened, he was already back in Ohio. Just taking his friends up for “a spin” in his new plane, doing touch and go landings. The airport was quiet, easy flying. After a bit the airport got a bit more busy and Munson was asked to do something a bit more complicated. He got distracted or whatever, came in low and slow, made a couple of other unforced errors on his landing approach. Also, he was flying a jet now, and when he tried to fire it up to pull out, that doesn’t happen as fast as it does with a prop plane. So he crashed the plane into woods before the runway purely do to his own lack of skill in flying that plane. Furthermore, his training in that sort of plane had been rushed due to celebrity and the ability to push that sort of thing through. So the plane crashed, Munson was seriously injured, friends tried to get him out of the wreckage, couldn’t and suffered burns getting out of the flaming plane, and Munson died in the wreckage.
Munson had been talked to and warned about some of his choices by those close to him.
The point being there are many deaths which could have been avoided had people made better decisions. Once they are dead, you were either involved with them and already knew the deal, or you aren’t really that close and frankly it’s none of your business, unless someone chooses to share that with you. Do not pull the “they’re really hurting others too because they could spawn a whole new variant” bit or something else like that. Many people can do that, vaccinated people can infect others. Unvaccinated people who don’t die from Covid can as well, so the death really isn’t connected to any of that. They made a dumb decision and died, many others have done the same. Covid is no excuse to go down that road any more than anything else.