The elderly folks whom I know that live in “independent living” retirement homes have now been locked down for six months. They can’t socialize, which was their motivation for moving into the dorm-style environment. The dining rooms are closed and meals are brought to their apartments. The shared athletic and activity facilities have been closed. Many are widows who are essentially locked into solitary confinement.
For folks who had only 4 years of life expectancy remaining, in order to protect them from a 5-20 percent chance of dying from coronaplague, they have now had a 100 percent chance of losing out on most of the things that they valued for 12 percent of their life expectancy.
(A friend’s mom has actually lost nearly 100 percent of the things that she enjoys for 100 percent of what turned out to be her remaining life. This widow was locked down in March, giving up her four weekly exercise classes and her multiple hours per day of socializing and excursions. She was feeling worse and worse. Eventually she got to see a doctor and was diagnosed with stage 4 pancreatic cancer. She is almost certain to die befor the lockdown is lifted.)
On the other hand, the elderly folks that are living in regular houses or apartment buildings are free to visit family members, free to socialize with each other, free to go out to stores (whichever ones the governors and state license rajs will permit to open!), free to go to the beach, etc.
Independent living facilities are fairly expensive. Hundreds of thousands of dollars to buy in (co-op or condo) and then thousands of dollars per month for services, most of which are now shut down. Why spend this money and put oneself at risk of a multi-month or multi-year lockdown, whatever the state governor feels like ordering? Why not instead stay in an ordinary house or apartment building and hire a helper for a few hours per day if needed?
“Why not instead stay in an ordinary house or apartment building ”
Or reside in an over-55 community. Many affordable (no “buy-in”) retirement communities in Florida ans elsewhere offer many, many activities at a reasonable all-inclusive price, and access to excellent and abundant health care; for example, The Villages in central FL.
That is what happens when you fall for the lie that money is greater wealth than lovingly raising lots of children. Now they pay for their decision. Can’t buy their way out of a box. If they had twice as many kids good odds one of the kids would take them in.
I would say that people who can possibly escape the prison should try to do so, but it won’t be possible for most people who are trapped. If they can hang on until after the election, they’ll be OK.
My preference always would be to avoid locking oneself into a facility where freedom is determined by our Governors, but lots of people made that decision before they knew just how powerful the government really is in a panic where nobody knows anything and forces them to live this way. If you’re asking us for a projection about the worth of these businesses, I think it all depends on what the authorities say in the next few months, doesn’t it?
As our Governor said: “It stinks. It stinks. A lot of this stinks,” Baker said of the closures. “But it’s part of what comes with COVID.”
https://patch.com/massachusetts/medford/s/h8h9n/about-20-percent-of-ma-restaurants-have-closed-due-to-pandemic
Honeymooners:
Hey, I clicked on next link from that video, and after being here for 30 years, I finally learned that Matlock == Andy Griffith!
I guess i wasn’t too curious!
@Viking:
You can’t go back, but that doesn’t mean you should throw away what you had.