What should seniors do now?

July 30, 2020

At first, it was easy to figure out what to do. Everyone who possibly could went into lockdown and stayed there. We were all in this together. And in Ontario so far we’ve been lucky: our numbers went down and the hospitals were not overwhelmed. But you can’t keep the economy on lockdown and put people’s lives on hold for long, so we’re opening the economy back up and loosening the guidelines. Now the rules are different in every jurisdiction. But the coronavirus is still out there, and for seniors, it’s still deadly. Can we go for a haircut, shop in a grocery store, visit with family and friends? How do we decide what we can safely do?

Most of us are not scientists, and the burden of assessing our own health risk is daunting. Normally our doctor would be walking us through some well-established decision tree, but this is new territory and we’re pretty much on our own. But now some guidelines have begun to appear, so here are a couple of suggestions for deciding what’s right for you.

The risk of dying of the coronavirus is much higher for seniors than for younger people, but it’s not the same for all seniors. It varies with age and health status. So you might want to start by checking out a COVID-19 prognostic tool. It displays the fatality rate for people in your age group with a similar health history. That might help you decide how much risk to take.

Some activities are riskier than others; for example, you’re more likely to catch the virus indoors than outdoors. So now Public Health Canada has produced a guideline for going out safely during COVID-19. It assesses a variety of activities as low risk, medium risk or high risk. Take your pick.

Of course, the level of risk we’re taking when we go out also depends on how well people and businesses are following public health measures. Are staff and customers wearing masks? Are they observing physical distancing? Are they cleaning and sanitizing the premises every day? Do they set aside early morning hours for seniors? Many people, especially the young, are tired of the restrictions, don’t feel they’re in danger, and just want to get on with their lives. Many businesses are desperate to make up for lost time and revenue. There’s a growing feeling that if seniors and other vulnerable people just kept themselves in lockdown until a vaccine appears, then everyone else could pretty much go back to normal. The concept of targeted lockdowns has even been proposed by some MIT economists as public policy, an easy way to keep mortality rates low while minimizing the impact on the economy. I hope our government resists the temptation to follow this path, keeps on testing and contact tracing, and continues to require and enforce physical distancing, masking, and other protections in public places. We seniors want to stay safe and healthy and try to be prudent about our activities, but don’t ask us to isolate ourselves indefinitely from public life.