Covid Policy Killed My Grandmother | Hacker News Reader

Covid Policy Killed My Grandmother

jayriverlong.github.io

40 pointsriverlong25 comments

Counterpoint 1: Sweden delayed locking down nursing homes and then implemented it really poorly. A huge percentage of COVID deaths were due to a nurse getting sick, coming to work anyway and basically killing half of the residents. Without lockdowns your 95 old grandmother would probably have been dead by now.

Counterpoint 2: did you take care of her and talked to her everyday, or maybe taken her home? Otherwise at 95 she could end up like this with and without lockdowns.

I find it funny that you bring numbers into this (at her age she had only 3.4 years to live but only 11% chance if dying of COVID). You cannot mix emotional and cold like that in the same post...

>>Sweden delayed locking down nursing homes and then implemented it really poorly.

Canada locked down nursing homes completely yet 98.5% of COVID deaths were in nursing homes.

After a year, a hundred and fifty thousand nursing home patients were still confined in their room in the province of Ontario:

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/long-term-care-covid-...

What has been done to so many people, in the name of safety, during this pandemic, is obscene, and an affront to the principles of liberal democracy. This episode in our history demonstrates the utter inhumanity and banal brutality of anti-libertarian ideology.

>>did you take care of her and talked to her everyday, or maybe taken her home? Otherwise at 95 she could end up like this with and without lockdowns.

When you advocate for a forceful intervention, it's your responsibility to anticipate how the target of your intervention may fall short in adjusting to it.

Your argument is reminiscent of neocons blaming the post-invasion chaos in Iraq on the people of Iraq not forming a civil society and functional democracy quickly enough.

>>I find it funny that you bring numbers into this (at her age she had only 3.4 years to live but only 11% chance if dying of COVID). You cannot mix emotional and cold like that in the same post...

You can absolutely mix emotions in with numbers. In fact, you should. Emotional reactions should be informed by facts.

Also in Ontario: https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/long-term-care-pandemic-cov...

>> Several of the assessments noted unsafe conditions that could help spread COVID-19, including instances where patients who had tested positive for the virus "were allowed to wander" and staff members left with inadequate personal protective equipment.

Personally, I believe the virus would have spread regardless of the isolation techniques used (and can be demonstrated to have in other places with stricter policies).

Regardless, why the residents themselves weren't in charge of the policy on lockdowns is stupid in my opinion.

> Canada locked down nursing homes completely yet 98.5% of COVID deaths were in nursing homes.

Isn't this explained by Canada's outstanding response to COVID that allowed it to have a much lower death rate than analogous countries such as the US?

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-60380317

If your death rate is much lower because you succeed in protecting the bulk of the population, your death rate will be disproportionally comprised of the most vulnerable and at-risk groups.

Canada's outstanding response vis-a-vis the US is most likely just having a lower proportion of its population constituted by high-risk demographics like black people, and people with diabetes and obesity.

My grandparents had just moved into a nice elder care home right before COVID lockdowns started. They were put into the same conditions as described by the OP (although at least they had each other). I remember receiving a photo of them looking at my mom and her siblings through glass doors, that was the maximum of contact they were allowed from visits.

They and my family decided to take them out and put them back in their own house instead of leaving them in lockdown. Reading this, I'm glad that decision was made.

A compelling, emotionally charged personal story, backed up with cold actuarial statistics. A rare gem.

Post was emotionally charged but left me thinking, “If you cared so much about her why did you stick her in a nursing home?”

Because taking care of someone full time means you have to quit your job. Often this means that you can't pay rent.

Yet, in many countries nursing homes are not even a thing and somehow people survive.

People also survive without access to warm water. I think the discussion if external or family care is preferable is answered for both parties in favor of external care.

If one family member stays at home, such care would be possible, but this reality becomes much rarer today. Otherwise you indeed would almost certainly have to quit your job since care is an almost full time occupation you cannot do on the side in many cases.

In those countries, the wife/mother of the family doesn’t work outside the home and handles childcare and elder care inside the home.

Not taking a stand on what’s the best structure, but that’s the “somehow” you’re referring to.

Depends on where the facility was I guess, as they burned through many states/provinces (underfunded?) places pretty badly when covid started. Hard to manage when the usually-part-time staff is either the transmission vector or flees the scene. Perhaps Covid revealed that far too many of these places are merely storage containers for those unable to live on their own?

Correlation is not causation. As sad as it is, saying that a 95 year old doesn't suffer from age related decline is a tall assumption. What is the purpose of nursing homes for advanced aged people? That is the question that one has to answer, i guess. Is it to keep them alive and physically healthy? I'm sure there are disagreements on this. But if it is not this, what is the purpose? To give t hem as much joy as possible without regard to longevity? A Nursing home likely cannot customize the priorities per patient. If a person wants a different priority than what is supplied i suppose they are on their own to supply that.

This is what happens when health policy is based on media optics and public opinion, along with a myopic view on “health”. Can’t really blame health authorities too much, they would have met a lot more criticism if they had a more loose Covid policy.

Some other countries had looser COVID policies. Did their health authorities meet a lot of criticism?

Based on few examples, even countries with very loose policies did receive a lot of criticism from their population. There are just kind of people who find a way to complain.

Why not try to use technology to bridge the gap? I know video chat might be beyond some people, but a phone call from a couple family members every week seems simple enough.

Why not just take her out of the nursing home?

The house may not be elder-safe in terms of fall hazards and so on, the family may not have the ability to afford a home nurse or to have someone unemployed acting as a carer, carer burnout is a real danger and can break families, the grandparent may have specialised medical needs that require skilled care that is not available in a household setting, one or more family members may be involved in high covid risk jobs that make it inappropriate to host a vulnerable person... I'm sure there are many more good reasons, these are just a few off the top of my head.

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