Filenews 4 February 2022 - by Marilena Panagi
A cry of anguish but also a direct message to the younger ones from the director of the Observatory of the Third Age, Yiannoula Antoniou, being herself an elderly person, who poses a huge dilemma before society: "I am 72 years old, I have an underlying disease and I address the younger ones and ask them: Why do you risk putting me in danger and depriving me of the rest I have to live even with the underlying disease I am facing? I cannot hear that those who die are old and with a thousand other health problems. This is a disdain for life."
The price of the pandemic for elderly people this winter is heavy. In the month of January alone, which turned out to be the deadliest since the start of the pandemic with 96 deaths, 74 people over the age of 70 died with the final cause of death. 55% of hospitalized coronavirus patients are people 70 years and older, while 75% are people 60 years and older.
At the same time, last week alone, 1098 people over the age of 65 were infected with the virus. Most are infected with the virus while in their homes. Many of them do not even know it until the moment they present severe symptoms and will be transferred to the hospital, where the diagnosis is made before their admission for hospitalization. Some are infected while they are in the nursing homes in which they live. The vast majority of them are unvaccinated. Of the 74 people who died last month and were over 70, 48 were people with no vaccination history. Two people had received two doses of the vaccine and nine had received the third booster dose.
"Our concern", stressed in her statements to "F", Mrs. Antoniou, "should not be only the elderly who live in Nursing Homes. The majority of the thousands of elderly people in Cyprus live in their homes and we see that they catch the virus and are sick, and they need a hospital and many die. Addressing people who have not been vaccinated, she said: "Every person has the inalienable right to decide for himself. But no one has the right to endanger other people. Those who have chosen not to be vaccinated, for whatever reason, bear in mind that their elderly parents and grandparents are at risk when they are unvaccinated."
The head of the Advisory Scientific Committee, Konstantinos Tsioutis, was particularly strong in his statements. "It is inhumane to think that it is justified to die because they are old," he said, adding: "Some people think that only the elderly should be vaccinated. It is understandable for someone to make a risk-benefit assessment for a vaccine before deciding to be vaccinated, that is, to assess, even in a simplistic way, how much risk they have of becoming seriously ill with COVID-19 and how much they want to reduce that risk by making the vaccine or not. There are cases, however, where people of this perception also influence their surroundings because of their individual decision. This group includes many adults, who have vulnerable people in their families, as well as health professionals, who work daily in places with people of high vulnerability. In addition, there are a number of people with this perception, who also prevent the vulnerable in their environment from being vaccinated. In this case, the risk posed by vulnerable people in their environment is twofold: They are left unprotected both themselves and the vulnerable in their surroundings," he said. "What we should all remember is that we cannot underestimate the risk of death for a person, no matter how old they are," he concluded.
Analysis of the data of the epidemiological surveillance unit of the Ministry of Health shows that, in the previous three weeks, 913 people 70-74 years old had been infected with the virus, another 583 were 75-79 years old, 379 were 80-84 years old and 370 were elderly over 85 years old.
Last week alone they were infected with the virus, a total of 1098 people over the age of 65, of whom only 324 lived in nursing homes. The rest were infected in their homes. 276 were 70-74 years old, 198 were 75-79 years old, 115 were 80-84 and 152 were 85 years old and older.
The older the age of the coronavirus patients, the longer the recovery time, the spokesman of the CySEC, Charalambos Harilaou, told "F". "We observe that in recent times in hospitals with the increase in the number of elderly people admitted, the hospitalization time has also increased and unfortunately some of our elderly people are bedridden with other health problems, with catalyzing in their bodies precisely because they are bedridden people who cannot easily recover and return to their homes." Most, Mr. Harilaou said, "are infected in their homes and the majority of them are unvaccinated people." 75% of our hospitalized are over 60 years old, while the percentage of people 70 years and older is 55%". These figures, "are also reflected in the large number of deaths we had in January involving the elderly", he said and explained that "most of them were people over 70 years of age".
They sound the alarm of M. Hadjipantelas and Ann. Anthousi
"What we see is the result of our own actions. We must remember that nothing can be put above human life. We are constantly alert, we are monitoring the data and we are certainly concerned and saddened by the fact that we are seeing our elderly people at risk because of the carelessness of the younger ones", Health Minister Michalis Hadjipantelas told "F", stressing that "we must also look at the analysis of our data which clearly show that unvaccinated elderly people are paying a very heavy price at this time in contrast to those who have been vaccinated and they may be infected with the virus, some may become ill and be admitted to hospitals but most of them are returning to their homes."
"Elderly people need the protection of all of us," Deputy Minister of Social Welfare Anastasia Anthousi told "F". "The increase in positive cases in nursing homes clearly worries us about this. For a few weeks now we have been on constant alert but what is of particular concern to us is that we see elderly people living in their homes being infected with the virus and they constitute the majority of the positive cases recorded every week. Many are unvaccinated individuals. They have no protection from the virus. In nursing homes, the percentage of vaccination coverage exceeds 90% and this is shown by the analytical data. In the 324 cases we had in nursing homes involving residents, we had only 18 hospital admissions."
