An elderly woman in a family member's aged home told me "Why did they do this? All of this for me? I don't want this, they hurt all society for me? I only want is to see my family before I die"

I go at times to a nursing home to spend time with a close relative and talk to the residents, it is very painful, most have no visitors, COVID made it devastating, they die alone, and don't want this

Remember, we are sharing and thinking, and trying to understand what happened here…we are not blaming each other etc. this is about understanding so we can fix and stop this so life can go on for us and for the children…so I am very grateful I get to share my thoughts here if it may help you in your thinking, knowing I bring not more insight than you.

Before reading further, I will set the table with this: my visits to the nursing homes and speaking with the residents has revealed that they wanted to be part of the decision-making that has so immensely affected their lives. Lockdowns, mask mandates, vaccines, lack of visitation, locked away in their rooms isolated, held in isolation, away from human relationships over the last 2 years; all of this was a trade-off that was not beneficial to them. They especially resent locking down society in their name and have told me “NO, they do not want this”, they say, they want to be safe but not at healthy people’s expense and want their decision-making to be respected. They share with me that they want ‘quality’ in their remaining life, and not want that stripped away and they be left in isolation and in anguish. It is the loneliness that is the real killer, it is crushing, and often, we have lost our parents, our grandparents and could not even get to bury them with the illogical irrational and absurd punishing COVID restrictions. It is really perverse and immoral what we have done and allowed as societies. We suffered our elderly in unimaginable ways. And we have these craven lockdown lunatics not willing to stop, they want to do more of it, of failed policies, and those in society who ‘benefitted’ from the lockdowns, do not want them to stop. It is mind-blowingly perverse.

So I have had the chance to see how an old aged home or nursing home works and the life there and it is very gut wrenching…some places take magical care, some it is terrible and those who work there are often not paid well, too much money making by the owners as it is often not properly regulated; for many residents there, they are put ‘out of sight out of mind’; I know parents do all they can until they can’t anymore and same for us too, we did all we could and to ensure safety you make the best decisions, and at some point you need help, specialized help you can’t give, and you try and hope you find a safe decent place for your elderly, and work hard to maintain their dignity and self-respect as this is key, as we too will get there when we age; the key is our elderly as you know represent the best among us, the very best, and we must do all we can always to give respect and dignity as we help them. They often are of sound mind and want a role in decision-making and we must respect that. It’s their life we are dealing with. Its about dignity. But many are angry that in their name the societies have been destroyed, lives ruined, in their name and they still are not taken care of and still die at greater numbers. We locked down the healthy and well in society which was illogical and devastating and still did not protect the elderly in the nursing homes. We failed to provide early treatment when needed and we failed to stop the staff from bringing infection into the home. And if you ask our elderly, they say ‘NO’…they don’t want that, they say don’t shut down society for them; “do not hurt the rest of society” and they only wish to live out the rest of their lives in peace and to see their loved ones; they say this and it is incredible that they understand the insanity.

And what I am trying to say now is that if you reflect a bit, it seems that it is the more senior persons politically in our societies and those in decision-making positions in our nations who are older and are at higher risk from COVID who reacted. I would say yes, I think in some regard, it is elderly senior leadership people, a lot of senior people in society, 'WELL OFF, ALFFLUENT people, our leaders, our politicians and persons in decision making or who could directly ‘affect decisions’, who are and were afraid of their own mortality, when they saw/heard of COVID, and rightly so, afraid of dying and knew that they are and were at greater risk (mainly due to their age and immune-senescence, naturally reduced immune response due to aging), facing their own mortality with this 'new' virus, and they reacted by lashing out, hyper-reacting, not understanding what is going on, in terror, hitting out in panic, sheer fright, and rightly so (and I may have too if I was in that situation), and they have panicked and hitting out at any and every one AND making and made decisions that benefitted them, to reduce THEIR personal risk; “you must wear masks to protect them, not IF the masks actually work or not”, not making decisions that benefit society BUT benefits them personally and their family and ‘world’/circle’; so for you to take actions to protect this ‘select’ group which when you look at the decisions you can say it makes no sense, most of what they are doing as if they are just making things up for ‘themselves’.

Someone suggested to me that “in a way they want everyone else at lower risk to join them in their risk, and share their risk”, this is one view point I have heard, in that they are lashing out in fear, yes, this is fear, and are angry that they are the ones at risk and typically not others (the well and younger and healthy in society), and so using their personal power so to speak, to try everything they could, to make it possible that the risk and fear is shared by all; if they are panicked, we all have to be panicked; again, an interesting view point.

And yes, some argue making children and young people pay their price; making no-risk or low-risk people share their risk; as an example, starting from out of the gate, early on in the pandemic, these ‘higher-risk’ older political, influential, and public health leaders and persons in positions of power, convincing the nation that everyone is at 'equal risk 'if exposed when we knew that COVID was amenable to risk stratification and we had data early on that an elderly person was 1000 times more risk of death than a child...

It is like asking someone else to sweat for ‘your’ fever. Or using my shoulder to fire your gun. It is rather perverse what they are doing if this is so; using their positions in authority to reduce risk for their PERSONAL selves; and when you think of it most of these people are elderly; yes, afraid of their own death so trying to share risk or exchange risk; well, they think they could and the insanity around us really represents their effort at this and it is making a bad situation even worse; and as troubling as this sharing is, when you think of it, it could be what they have been doing for their reactions make no sense most of the time and their policies do not fit the actual risk in the rest of society; look I understand, I know people are scared and got scared, and are fearful, and we have to have compassion too for everyone, and so I do understand and my heart breaks, but I question, do we do this? I think no, we don’t do this. We don’t sacrifice healthy children and young people, we do not damage a society this way.

The older or elder in society protects the young. I do not think if you asked them and told them what was done in their name, they would say they don’t agree and would ask you to stop it immediately. They would be angry. I know they would not want this and would be horrified if they learnt the damage that has been done to children ‘for them’! Yes, we do all we could always to strongly protect the vulnerable and elderly, but that is a different set of actions. That must be and should have been ‘targeted’. We do not destroy society, our healthy people with polices that ravage them. As I shared, elderly people in nursing homes I visit told me, more than one, that all they crave for was to see their family or to have just ONE visitor, someone, and to live out the rest of their days in peace and quiet, happy. Taken care of as needed. They would want to know why no politician or decision maker did not ask them what they wanted?