4 ms·

Without making a moral judgement on it, I think the largest factor is that on some level societies consider the death of the elderly due to disease natural.

missedthecue 5y ago
It surprised me for some reason, but the average age of a covid death in the US is 80, and 81 in the UK.
- simonh 5y ago
  That's mainly because both the US and UK actually had an organised response, mask mandates, banned mass gatherings, ramped up restrictions as hospital admissions rose to try to manage impact on health services, etc. Over here in the UK we also set up an effective vaccination programme very early too, with strong public support and broad political consensus. We did better at it here, sure, but it's not like the US had no policies in place to protect the public. All of these made a massive difference. Compare to Brazil where the average age of Covid death was only a little over 60, which means the vast majority of people who died there were under retirement age, many of them a lot under. That's what not taking the pandemic seriously looks like. I know Brazil has a younger population, but despite that meaning their demographics were strongly in their favour, they still suffered huge death rates.
  - mrtnmcc 5y ago
    90% of Brazil's population is <60yr old.
    - simonh 5y ago
      Exactly my point, having a much younger population didn’t save them because they didn’t employ effective countermeasures. Even with this huge demographic advantage over e.g the USA they still had a higher death rate per population. The idea that coronavirus is only a problem for the very old, and countermeasures aren’t necessary to protect younger people (including middle aged people) is just obviously false when you look at countries like Brazil with 600,000 deaths, most of them of working age.
DrinkDrinkDrink 5y ago
> on some level societies consider the death of the elderly due to disease natural Of course it is natural! You have to die of something. Old age weakens us to the point where the body either wears out directly or our cannot mount an adequate response to an otherwise 'ordinary' infection or injury.

missedthecue 5y ago

It surprised me for some reason, but the average age of a covid death in the US is 80, and 81 in the UK.

simonh 5y ago
That's mainly because both the US and UK actually had an organised response, mask mandates, banned mass gatherings, ramped up restrictions as hospital admissions rose to try to manage impact on health services, etc. Over here in the UK we also set up an effective vaccination programme very early too, with strong public support and broad political consensus. We did better at it here, sure, but it's not like the US had no policies in place to protect the public. All of these made a massive difference. Compare to Brazil where the average age of Covid death was only a little over 60, which means the vast majority of people who died there were under retirement age, many of them a lot under. That's what not taking the pandemic seriously looks like. I know Brazil has a younger population, but despite that meaning their demographics were strongly in their favour, they still suffered huge death rates.
- mrtnmcc 5y ago
  90% of Brazil's population is <60yr old.
  - simonh 5y ago
    Exactly my point, having a much younger population didn’t save them because they didn’t employ effective countermeasures. Even with this huge demographic advantage over e.g the USA they still had a higher death rate per population. The idea that coronavirus is only a problem for the very old, and countermeasures aren’t necessary to protect younger people (including middle aged people) is just obviously false when you look at countries like Brazil with 600,000 deaths, most of them of working age.

DrinkDrinkDrink 5y ago

> on some level societies consider the death of the elderly due to disease natural Of course it is natural! You have to die of something. Old age weakens us to the point where the body either wears out directly or our cannot mount an adequate response to an otherwise 'ordinary' infection or injury.