Tragic Case To Be Sorted Out
This came up in my feed about a disabled man who was diagnosed with COVID 19 and who died, perhaps in part due to medical staff and personnel who may have made the decision “for him” about stopping treatment. His wife and caregiver was fairly adamant about fighting to preserve his life, but doctors may have been doing an analysis about his prognosis and essentially stopping treatment arguing about his quality of life if he was to survive.
This is the hard part about our media standards now. This particular article is pretty inflammatory and if it proves out in a court of law will be justifiably so. But we do need to step back and let the legal process fall out at this point. That said, if she has a recording of doctors saying they were going to stop treatment even though the wife was arguing to pursue treatment, then this will have broad legal ramifications. Even if doctors disagree with the family they have to be VERY careful about making the decisions to end life without consent. The value of life is really not for others to judge. When we’re aware of our situations and if we set up policies in our own lives to not resuscitate or to end life if there is not a chance of recovery from a coma or something, then there is a knowledge and surety that can support such decisions. But if the caregiver is asking to fight, and wanting to pursue aggressive methods to save a life, then those have to be respected outside of a potential emergency situation where doctors have to evaluate who to save when resources are under competition.
At any rate, this is exactly why we have to be careful about being “too scientific” - we have to remember that moral decisions can be informed by science, but when we take the heart out of it, we have to be careful about what’s “OK” or not. I won’t judge the whole situation because I wasn’t there and I am sure there will be additional details coming forth, but based on this article, I would be worried about accountability for decisions made about my life outside of my own explicit instructions or instructions from those who I trust to make the decisions for me. The thought that a stranger (even if they have multiple degrees from the best universities) can judge the quality of life that “I” might want is not something I feel comfortable with, especially if they are overriding my partner’s wishes…
Generational Divide in Coronavirus UK
England has a study highlighting how the younger group in the country (aged 16-24) may be most impacted economically by the shut downs across the UK. As many as 600,000 may move into an unemployment category and many don’t have homes with “privacy” or space for an escape (living with others as roommates, no gardens [yards], etc.). I’m not so sure how much I would say they are suffering “more” than other groups as I am not that up to speed on the UK economy overall, but I would imagine that the shutdowns are impacting all generations in many different ways - this is likely a very “shared” suffering overall.
However, I can relate to the initial feelings that this is “the” moment that will impact many people’s long term plans, even if they are in their youngest years. But I also think we tend to be very now focused and we are quick to forget that these kinds of economic fallouts happen at least once in a generation to varying degrees. The 2008 fallout was awful for me personally and I wasn’t fully recovered from that until a few years ago having a home that lost 60-70% of its value in just 3 months. But before that, the dot com bust really wrecked a lot of people’s retirement accounts and caused a major hiccup, and the oil embargo years of the 70’s or the Great Depression (all in all Wikipedia says the US had 47 recessions in its history https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_recessions_in_the_United_States).
But that doesn’t mean they don’t have a right to complain. However, I think a more thorough study of how others have recovered over time should be undertaken before too much stimulus is dedicated to one generation OR another…
Pediatric Tips for Getting Back to School for Kids
Very helpful article on Yahoo! News discusses how kids and parents might want to navigate some of the stresses and mental challenges associated with children going back to school OR staying at home in further lockdown. They give some pointed advice in here and call out some very real emotional stresses people may not have thought about. Often we think of kids missing out on socialization and routine, and likely this is the lion’s share of cases, but there are also some kids who may have been bullied or teased who might look at returning to school as a return to a high stress environment.
Largely they say that parents and kids should talk more about these feelings, processes and emotions. They should admit that not all answers are known and that all should feel comfortable to bring up concerns or stresses as the kids return to school.
