This essay is the first in a five-part series.
What I intend to write and hope you will read, are several installments examining the impact of COVID-19 on the culture of the United States. Since all cultures are shaped by its people, installments will focus on specific American populations within our culture.
Through five installments, I intend to explore impacts on the elderly, children, politicians (of various levels), law enforcement, and the American public as a whole.
Finally, I hope to explore what we have learned from this path and how we can be better prepared for the next pandemic.
Please know that while I am an observer of American culture, I am not qualified to discuss complicated medical approaches to the COVID-19 pandemic. Rather, I am more focused on the suppression of individual rights as a result of the pandemic .
Having said that, let’s put aside part of a debate that has been settled American law for nearly 200 years. Governors do have the right to take extraordinary steps in order to protect citizens during a health emergency.
Those steps do include setting quarantines and restricting businesses. These powers are found in the Tenth Amendment which gives states all power that is not specifically given to the federal government. These powers were reinforced by the landmark 1824 Supreme Court decision of Gideon v Ogden in which Chief Justice Marshall posited that states enjoyed police powers that provided for quarantine and isolation.
Subsequent Supreme Court decisions have strengthened the Gideon decision. Like so many other standards that apply to the Bill of Rights, the legal question becomes one of reasonableness.
Thus, in view of the emergency at hand, are the restrictions imposed by individual governors “reasonable”? Will they work to inhibit the spread of the disease? I will explore this in more detail later in this essay.
I am of the opinion that COVID-19 does not care about the political persuasions of those that it sickens or kills. Therefore, I shall attempt to stay away from partisan politics.
In short, we’ve all heard about hand-washing, social distancing, and worst of all, “the new normal.” We are also well aware of where this virus originated and how it spread so rapidly around the world.
The Elderly
Without a doubt, the population that has been most adversely impacted by the arrival of COVID-19 is the elderly.
Statistically, everyone over the age of 65 has a greater chance of dying than those below that age. In California, for example, 15% of the population is 65 or older, while 80% of the COVID-19 deaths reside in that population.
However, those who are at most risk are elder residents of care homes or rehabilitation facilities, especially if they are 85 or older.
There appear to be several reasons for this dynamic. Medically, it is well-established that seniors have weak immune systems and are less able to fend off a virus or other disease.
This has been well-known for years, as the yearly influenza also takes a disproportionate toll on the elderly.
If we have not learned one thing about the spread of this virus, we have learned that the density of living conditions are critical to its spread.
That is what is inherent in the typical senior care facility. Persons are in close contact with each other. They often live several to a room, eat cafeteria style, and congregate for programs in close quarters.
All of these dynamics are a virus’s greatest hope to spread. Once the virus in introduced by a visitor, staff member, or perhaps a new resident, it spreads like wildfire among this population.
Poor governmental health decisions have also helped to explode the nursing home crisis. Some states, for reasons that are unclear, chose to return COVID-19 positive seniors from hospitals back to rest homes or rehabilitation centers.
Many of these facilities were ill-prepared for an onslaught of highly contagious elders. This was done, while newly-constructed hospitals and naval hospital ships--staffed by qualified military personnel--stood nearly empty during the worst of the crisis.
In New York State a full five percent of the seniors living in nursing homes have died from COVID-19. States like Florida that moved to protect the most vulnerable experienced a much lower death rate (0.06%).
How could some states make such a poor decision of returning infected people to the most vulnerable population?
While there will no doubt be many civil lawsuits that explore this question, one theory revolves around our young American culture.
People in nursing homes are often considered a throw-away segment of our culture, as sad as that is. Perhaps the havoc that this virus has wreaked on nursing homes will eventually work to shine a new light on the care in these facilities. This may result in improvements for nursing home care for all communicable diseases.
Locking down a population is extremely hard on that group. It is even more difficult for the residents of nursing homes.
People in nursing homes require interaction with friends, relatives, and others for their mental well-being. They need advocacy to overcome unfettered and often poor decisions about their care.
In short, even in good nursing homes, they need all the help they can get.
Locking them down and excluding that assistance puts them at extreme risk. Locking them down and then purposely introducing COVID-19 positive individuals into their midst is, frankly, tyrannical.
Part Two will cover the effects of COVID-19 on children.
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See Two Centuries of Law Guide Legal Approach to Modern Pandemics at www.americanbar.org Per CDC Statistics – as of May 20 person 65 or older make up 55,521 of the 68,998 deaths reported in the U.S. See https://data.cdc.gov/NCHS See May 13 Issues and Insights “Cuomo’s Covid-19 Panic Killed Thousands In Nursing Homes at https://issuesinsights.com/2020/05/13/ |
