Preventing Eldercide in the United States: The Need for a New Social Contract with the Most Vulnerable

Abstract

In the first year of the COVID pandemic, 2020, in the US, the disproportionate deaths of nursing-facility residents, mostly indigent older women, were primarily due to abandonment by the Trump administration and the states, here defined as an Eldercide. The Eldercide that occurred in most of the 15,477 and others, aiming to transform the public-health system that had long failed the residents and their bereaved families. This essay provides an overview of the residents’ situations during the pandemic, their social characteristics, and their psychological needs. Members of government, like the populace, suffer from compound ageism, learned starting young. The bias is accompanied by a range of emotions toward residents – from indifference to avoidance and, since COVID, an erroneous sense of futility about keeping residents alive. Experts have long known what policies would be necessary to transform the industry and the public-health system, but politics, corruption, and the influence of the industry’s lobby may interfere, even in the wake of the catastrophe.