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For older Americans, the pandemic still poses significant dangers. About three-quarters of Covid deaths have occurred in people over 65, with the greatest losses concentrated among those over 75.
In January, the number of Covid-related deaths fell after a holiday spike but nevertheless numbered about 2,100 among those ages 65 to 74, more than 3,500 among 75- to 84-year-olds and nearly 5,000 among those over 85. Those three groups accounted for about 90 percent of the nation’s Covid deaths last month.
Hospital admissions, which have also been dropping, remain more than five times as high among people over 70 as among those in their 50s. Hospitals can endanger older patients even when the conditions that brought them in are successfully treated; the harmful effects of drugs, inactivity, sleep deprivation, delirium and other stresses can take months to recover from — or can land them back in the hospital.
“There continue to be very high costs of Covid,” said Julia Raifman, a public health policy specialist at the Boston University School of Public Health and a co-author of a recent editorial in The New England Journal of Medicine.
The demographic divide reflects a debate that continues as the pandemic wears on: What responsibility do those at lower risk from the virus have to those at higher risk — not only older people, but those who are immunosuppressed or who have chronic conditions?
Should individuals, institutions, businesses and governments maintain strategies, like masking, that help protect everyone but particularly benefit the more vulnerable?
“Do we distribute them among the whole population?” Dr. Raifman asked of those measures. “Or do we forgo that, and let the chips fall where they may?”
Nancy Berlinger, a bioethicist and research scholar at the Hastings Center, made a similar point: “The foundational questions about ethics are about what we owe others, not just ourselves, not just our circle of family and friends.”
Three years in, the societal answer seems clear: With mask and vaccination mandates mostly ended, testing centers and vaccination clinics closed and the federal public health emergency scheduled to expire in May, older adults are on their own.
“Americans do not agree about the duty to protect others, whether it’s from a virus or gun violence,” Dr. Berlinger said.
Only 40.8 percent of seniors have received a bivalent booster. Some who have not believe they have strong protection against infection, a C.D.C. survey reported last month (though the data indicated otherwise).
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