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COVID-19 has framed older Canadians as frail and vulnerable during the pandemic – for good reason. The pandemic has hit older adults particularly hard, accounting for the majority of those suffering from serious illness and death. Fear of COVID-19 contagion continues to impact seniors far more than most other Canadians, forcing them into stricter lockdown measures for their own health and safety.
What’s forgotten in the focus on keeping seniors safe is that older adults aren’t solely vulnerable and reliant but contribute greatly to our economy and to our society. Canada’s older adults should not be seen only as victims of COVID-19, but also as a resource to help society recover from it.
Canada counts its dead much too slowly
Jane Philpott: How many additional people died as an indirect result of the pandemic? It will be months before we know the answer, and that s a problem.
December 15, 2020 A man wheels oxygen and supplies to a safe injection site in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside (Darryl Dyck/CP)
Dr. Jane Philpott held several portfolios as a federal cabinet minister, including Health. She is now dean of the Faculty of Health Sciences and director of the School of Medicine at Queen’s University.
“Hindsight is 20/20,” or so the saying goes. Maybe the catchphrase was a foreshadowing. Maybe it was a clue that 2020 would be the year we will perpetually analyze in retrospect, evaluating the achievements and errors of what has been an exceptionally deadly year.