covid-19

May was an unmerry month of angst and abject failure. All around, we have been locked down beginning in March. We have been incredulous, watching older adults die alone in a nursing home, and then dying in many nursing homes. Then half of the 30 million small businesses shut down temporarily. Then hospitals limited admissions in anticipation of an onslaught – and limiting their revenue-generating business – and some shut down completely. And on and on. In May came the trickling of re-openings and beginning of renewed life, though very different from that previous life.  We wait and watch to see what will be different, especially for older adults and their access to technology, moving forward. Here are six blog posts from a May unlike any previous:

Technology usage has climbed sharply during Covid-19. Pew Research notes 53% of responders in April consider the Internet as ‘Essential’– although, no surprise, the oldest did not. And Nielsen observed that the pandemic was a catalyst for the rise of tech use for working at home and shopping, among other uses. In addition, telehealth usage has skyrocketed, with virtual doctor visits expected by Forrester Research to top 1 billion by years end. The spike has been attributed to a) the declaration of a state of emergency in March; b) introduction of Medicare/Medicaid coverage matching in-person visits; and c) encouragement from hospitals and medical practitioners.

Try staring at the NY Times list and its murky map.  The NY Times decided that tracking down and mapping the list of nursing home deaths nationwide required more than 30 contributing writers for the story. The ‘Nursing Homes in Crisis’ collection is about Covid-19 in 2020. Actually in each recent year, the New York Times has looked at nursing homes and found them to be a problem in 2017, wanting for a great deal in 2018, just a bit in 2019, then an onslaught of investigation most recently.  Amid the outcry, the negative comments about bad management, bad physical design of the buildings, bad for-profit ownership, bad Covid-19 testing, etc., etc. -- very little deep thought about why people live there and what change is likely.