Dod101 wrote:Wizard
No one has paid a cent for me, I can assure you. Your views I, on the whole, agree with, but here you are 'way off beam. I think you may well find that most of the over 60s, 70s or however you define the ancients who do not matter, were in care homes which, in the first wave, were almost entirely neglected, and not only that but had old folks from hospitals foisted upon them with no testing or anything to ensure that they were not transmitting the virus to the homes. The care homes thus produced an enormous number of deaths from the first wave in the stats.
Most elderly people that I know (sadly I am one of them) kept themselves either to themselves or took exercise where they might as well have been with themselves and at no cost to anyone.
It is outrageous and totally politically unacceptable to suggest that the older generation pay for the cost of Covid or even a disproportionate cost.
I have no problem with making the State pension means tested but it then throws up a huge amount of other stuff into the melting pot and I doubt that younger folks would end up any better off. We are in this together as was the original mantra. To try to say this one or that one was better served by it, what on earth is going on with society today?
Dod
Given the high degree of respect I have for most of what you say, I am very flattered that you think we agree on many things.
You say that "...I think you may well find that most of the over 60s, 70s or however you define the ancients who do not matter, were in care homes...". First, I have never said anyone in any age group does not matter. Second, based on ONS statistics you are just plain wrong in your claim. I have drawn the following figures from two reports from the ONS, the first covers deaths in April and May the second from March 2nd to 12th June this year, which covers a large proportion of Covid-19 deaths:
https://www.ons.gov.uk/releases/deathsinvolvingcovid19englandandwalesmay2020https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/deaths/articles/deathsinvolvingcovid19inthecaresectorenglandandwales/deathsoccurringupto12june2020andregisteredupto20june2020provisionalIn the first link it states at the very start that "There were 46,687 deaths involving coronavirus (COVID-19)...". Further on in the report in Figure 9 it shows the breakdown by age for England and Wales, over 90% of deaths were in the age ranges above 65. That suggests more than 42,000 deaths amongst the over 65s involving Covid-19.
In the second link, which in addition to the first covers all of March and nearly two weeks of June, the total deaths amongst care home residents involving Covid-19 was 19,394 (this includes deaths actually in the care home and of care home residents in hospitals). Of these about 3,000 were "suspected" to involve Covid-19 by the doctor issuing the death certificate, but were not confirmed.
So over a longer sample period the number of deaths in care homes was still less than half the number of total deaths amonst over 65s measured in the shorter period. So, to say "...most of the over 60s, 70s or however you define the ancients who do not matter, were in care homes..." is wrong. Most deaths amongst over 65s were actually amongst people who did not live in care homes.
As Spet has pointed out, the point is not that elderly people did things to help prevent the spread of Covid-19. The point is that younger people did at least as much, though I personally believe made much more significant sacrafices in order to help stop elderly people dying from Covid-19.
If the death rate from Covid-19 had been at the same level per 100,000 for all age ranges as it was for under 65s there would have been no lock-down, indeed we would not have noticed it in the statistics. It is the death rate in the over 65s that resulted in the need to take children out of school for 3 months, for tens of thousands (of often young people) to lose their jobs, etc., etc. Yet the burden of paying for the actions taken will fall most heavily on the younger sections of society, simply because they will be paying for it for much longer. That is why I think there should be specific action taken for the older members of society to contribute disproportionately now.
It won't happen, but it does not change the fact I think it should.