Yes, Covid-19 Is More Serious for the Elderly. So What?
It’s pointless to argue over the relative value of young lives versus old.
Fight for their lives, too.
Photographer: Paul Hanna/Bloomberg
Advocates of “herd immunity” strategies often claim that Covid-19 is relatively safe for the young and that most of the victims are old. This observation is correct, but the question is what to make of it. Often the implication — stated or not — is that the response to the pandemic need not be so vigorous because the loss of life, as measured in years, is less than it appears.
It is an uncomfortable but necessary discussion, they say. So be it — but once the conversation turns to which deaths matter the most, other questions about Covid-19 start to arise, almost all of which push in the direction of a very vigorous response. When either foreign enemies or pathogens attack U.S. lives on a noticeable scale, the pushback needs to be very hard indeed.