May 1st US Covid Data

“Madeline Kripke, Doyenne of Dictionaries, Is Dead at 76”

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/30/nyregion/madeline-kripke-dead-coronavirus.html

Another one we have lost.

Most of those giving up their lives to the virus are like everyone else, ordinary working class schlubs But it’s hard to say that most of those in the NYT Dead List are anything but Elites. They are mostly old though, no doubt infirm, and I imagine many could no longer take care of themselves.

Sacrificing the old and weak has become a meme during the pandemic. Nursing homes, assisted living, and other old people congregate facilities have become routine hotspots for the virus to spread, and death seems to lurk around every corner. How frightening and awful for the residents, many of whom probably can’t escape.

The hard-hearted in need of a root-job say “let them die.” They’ve lived too long anyway. Best not to have them troubling us, right? No matter who they once were.

Many on the list are young, that is part of the point. For example https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/15/obituaries/kimarlee-nguyen-dead-coronavirus.html

They thought too quickly or felt too much. Many of the old were part of an age, which like all other ages before, is passing. This is just the period on an old typewriter with a tuple just finished, wheezing out the line the had for the last day.

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2020/05/04/the-man-who-thought-too-fast

The death rate among the old who get the virus is spectacular, nothing like it in living memory is there?

I think the point of the Times article is, among other things, that a lot of the dead, whatever their age, but yes, among the dead oldsters, are some remarkable, and yes, elite people. Notable artists, scientists, engineers, community and government leaders, founders of companies and organizations, religious leaders, and on and on. Generations are passing from our midst.

Life is transitory, but this level of loss so quickly is unparalleled outside of shooting wars. Some people believe sincerely that it’s a good thing. The more loss of the olds and the poors and the generations that have screwed things up so badly, the better. But the Times, among others, is trying to tell us the dead don’t fit the neat categories of who is disposable — or culpable.

Ultimately, the losses are incalculable. And it won’t be our generation that figures out just how bad it is.

Among the old, 15-30% or more of those who get the virus will die often horrible and lonely deaths, and the facilities in which many of them are housed are breeding grounds and spreading centers (just like prisons and jails). The infection is almost uncontrolled within them. Staff is almost as vulnerable as the residents, and little is done to protect them. And so it will go until the epidemic ends.