Reader TTS

“Will you still need me, will you still feed me, When I’m sixty-four?” Back in the Sixties, to ask this question showed remarkable foresight. Born in 1942, Sir Paul McCartney is now 78 —

much older than the age at which he and his band imagined themselves one day pleading their case. The Beatles were just too old to be “Boomers” — the highly pejorative term now used to

describe those born in the postwar era. But in their poignant 1967 song, they captured the pathos of old age — above all, the fear of becoming a burden. For those who have passed their

sixty-fourth birthday or are approaching, that Beatles song certainly resonates now. The Covid pandemic has, in an unforeseeable yet dramatic way, heightened that intergenerational tension.

Millennials in particular seem susceptible to the idea that Boomers, having already enjoyed all kinds of advantages, are now expecting them to put their lives on hold indefinitely. Even

those who don’t buy into the hardline lockdown sceptics’ narrative still vent their frustration, impatience and resentment on social media. Twitter hashtags such as #BoomerRemover give voice

to a barely-disguised Schadenfreude at the wholesale culling of the elderly by the ravages of Covid. Even the sobering news that life expectancy in the UK has fallen over the past year for

everyone, by a year for women and 1.3 years for men, occasions no more than a shrug from those who reckon that Boomers — not to mention the heroic generation that preceded them — have had “a

good innings”. They take their cue from those guilt-ridden or cold-blooded Boomers who suggest that the older one is, the less valuable one’s life. To avoid making the same mistake of

stereotyping generations, I shall refer to those who think this way as the ageists of all ages. Not everyone feels such hostility — indeed, hardly anyone does about their own parents or

grandparents. Millions have made huge sacrifices to keep them alive; they have done so willingly and without complaint. NHS staff are mostly young; Covid (and other) patients mainly older.

The vaccination programme, intended to be the great liberator for all ages, is devised and delivered mainly by the younger generations; so far, most beneficiaries have been among the

over-70s. This magnificent campaign has been a gift of love and gratitude from youth to age. Unfortunately, resistance to vaccination and scepticism about vaccines also seems commoner among

younger cohorts. But, ask the ageists, who will pay for it all? We will, one way or another. Those who feel licensed to express their bitterness towards their elders claim that they will

inherit nothing but a bankrupt economy and a mountain of debt. The inspirational achievements of our scientists are belittled; the grandeur of our national and international efforts to

protect ourselves from an unprecedented threat are brushed aside by those who are fixated on the notion that they are being robbed of the best years of their lives. Why, the ageists keep

asking, can’t the oldies just shield themselves and let the rest of us move on? After all, they claim, unless you are old or frail, the coronavirus is nothing to be afraid of. (Curiously

enough, such cavalier attitudes vanish whenever the young suddenly feel vulnerable and have need of the NHS.) One does not know where to begin to demolish the case made by the ageists, which

is as selfish as it is specious. Here are just a couple of arguments on shielding and cost. Last October, the Tory MP Neil O’Brien wrote an article for the _Daily Telegraph _(behind a

paywall), in which he crunched the numbers on shielding pensioners and the vulnerable. Nobody has yet refuted his conclusions, which are revealing. There are 14.8 million people living in

households with someone of pension age (now 66, soon to be 67), plus 2.2 million vulnerable people of all ages on the Shielding List, some of whom also have others living with them. A total

of some 16-17 million would therefore need to endure, say, six months of self-isolation while the rest acquired herd immunity. O’Brien postulates that half of younger people and between 5

and 15 per cent of pensioners would get Covid, causing between 90,000 and 175,000 additional deaths. But the real disaster would come with the sheer volume of hospitalisations: between

860,000 and 1.1 million, all within a very short period of time. Since his article appeared, we have just seen how quickly the second wave of coronavirus has spiked even in full lockdown.

O’Brien points out that even now, the NHS has fewer than 5,000 critical care beds. So a wave of hospitalisations on this scale would completely overwhelm the health service, meaning that an

unknown but huge number of people with other conditions as well as Covid would die. No government could stomach such a scenario, particularly not the present one, which already bears

responsibility for more than 100,000 deaths. The second point is about cost. Anyone who has worked for half a century is likely to have paid up to half a million in income tax alone. In 2016

the Office for National Statistics calculated that the average household paid £826,000 in direct and indirect taxes over a lifetime. Households in the top 20 per cent could expect to pay an

average of £1,686,000. These figures represent roughly 20 years of income and they rise relentlessly every year, especially now. The moral point is surely this: our senior citizens have

paid — and continue to pay — their fair share of the cost of the NHS. Most are expected to shoulder the cost of their own care, too. Most are still helping their families in countless unseen

ways, financial and otherwise. Above all, they nurtured, raised and educated us. We owe them a debt of gratitude that cannot be calculated like taxation or expenditure, because the love of

parents for their children is by definition incalculable. So let us hear a little less about the selfishness of Boomers or any other oldies. They — we — are doing our best to get through

this pandemic while burdening the country as little as humanly possible by sticking to the rules. And there are Good Samaritans of all ages. The news that Captain (now Major) Sir Tom Moore,

the centenarian who raised some £33 million for the NHS, is now in Bedford Hospital with coronavirus ought to bring a tear to every eye. Few people of any age have set a finer example to the

rest of us. We wish him a speedy recovery. A MESSAGE FROM THEARTICLE _We are the only publication that’s committed to covering every angle. We have an important contribution to make, one

that’s needed now more than ever, and we need your help to continue publishing throughout the pandemic. So please, make a donation._