An Aging Population

The often-excellent Michael Barone considers the Covid-19 epidemic from the perspective of a long life, these days writing for the Washington Examiner. He notes that the death rates from the earlier imported-from-Asia outbreaks - the Asian flu and Hong Kong flu - were as great or greater than what we’re experiencing with this corona virus, but we didn’t shut down our economy.

Barone is an old-fashioned journalist who tends to have his facts correct and his spin at least somewhat muted, so I admit that he makes a good point when he concludes:

You can argue that Americans in the Midcentury Moment* were too willing to accept pandemic or battlefield deaths, just as they were too willing to accept racial segregation or to stigmatize uncommon lifestyles.

But there’s also a strong argument that they had a more realistic sense of the limits of the human condition and the efficacy of official action than Americans have today. Certainly more than the governors stubbornly enforcing lockdowns till the virus is stamped out, and deaths fall to zero.

* Midcentury Moment is Barone’s label for the quarter-century following World War II, 1945-1970.

All respiratory illnesses - flu or corona virus - afflict the elderly and those with comorbidities more seriously than the young. Barone doesn’t take into account that, in today’s aging population, lots more of us are old crocks with a lifetime’s accumulation of both ills and wealth.

Covid-19 puts seniors at risk of dying before we get to spend our money on long-deferred gratification. No wonder we’re being extra careful this time around.