Senior citizens are disrespected in these Covid-19 times

GOVERNMENTS the world over have a common rationale for the lockdowns they have ordered to combat the spread of the Covid-19 pandemic in their jurisdictions. It is to protect senior citizens from being infected with the virus because their immune systems, weakened by age, make them particularly vulnerable to the worst effects of the infection, including death. Perhaps German Chancellor Angela Merkel expressed the rationale best because it is in her country where the immense contribution of living senior citizens to the progress of their country is starkly obvious. To today's senior citizens must be credited the rebuilding of Germany from the ashes that Hitlerism reduced much of the country. The efforts of the German government to protect senior citizens from the pandemic are, therefore, a way for the government and country to say thank you.

Television coverage of the dire situation in India has plentifully illustrated the deeply emotional basis for this concern over senior citizens in the midst of the pandemic. It is about the very bond that holds the human family together, the mutual, unconditional love of the members for each other. It was heartbreaking to watch adult Indians crying in desperation because there was no hospital that could admit their sick parents or grandparents. So was the sight of all the sons of a woman vainly trying to keep their mother alive by shaking and calling her while she faded away because the hospital was out of oxygen.