Don't Lump Seniors Together on Coronavirus. Older Adults Aren't All the Same.

Karen L. Fingerman, director of the Texas Aging & Longevity Center at The University of Texas at Austin, and Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center psychologist Kelly Trevino write in a USA Today opinion piece that lumping older adults into a single category and making decisions for them amid the coronavirus pandemic overlooks important nuances across age. Although 80 percent of deaths from COVID-19 in the United States have occurred in adults age 65 and older, the authors note that the case fatality rate widely varies across age groups in late life. Fingerman and Trevino cite findings from the Journal of the American Medical Association that the estimated death rate for 60-to-69-year-olds with COVID-19 in Italy was 3 percent to 4 percent, and 20 percent among those older than 80. "Efforts to divvy up the young and productive from the old and frail create a false dichotomy and are a disservice to older and younger adults alike," the authors warn. "This approach fails to recognize the diversity across older adults." Fingerman and Trevino continue that biological age, severe illness, and chronic conditions elevate the risk of developing serious coronavirus complications, as opposed to chronological age by itself. "We do need to focus on older adults who have multiple chronic diseases, are frail, or have known immune deficiencies, and safely protect those individuals from potential infection," they conclude. "By understanding that age, or at least chronological age, is just a number and one of many factors to consider with COVID-19, we will be better prepared to fight this disease."