Dr. Theresa Tam (YouTube).

By Mel Rothenburger

ARMCHAIR MAYOR

ROTHENBURGER: Thirteen things seniors know about COVID-19 that you don’t

Dec 18, 2021 | 6:49 AM

THERE ARE THIRTEEN THINGS wrong with me. I don’t mean the personality flaws others might see. I’m talking about diagnosed chronic medical conditions. I know there are 13 because one of them is insomnia (from which I’ve suffered for years despite sleep clinics and all the rest of it) and instead of counting sheep at 3:30 in the morning I did some different arithmetic.

It didn’t work any better than sheep and by 6 a.m. I was still awake, at which time I had to get out of the sack and begin the day. I’m not at my best in the mornings and lack of sleep is one reason why.

But perhaps I digress. I’m not a hypochondriac because I have enough going on already without looking for more. None of the 13 is terminal. Several of them are little more than irritations. A couple have virtually no symptoms at all, and I seldom even think about them. There are one or two mysteries among them, confirmed but not explained by modern medicine. Still one or two others stand a good chance of catching up with me if I live long enough.

They’re like freeloading Griswold cousins who refuse to leave. I’m stuck with them. And since I’m not getting any younger, I await with anticipation what new ones will come along.

The List of 13 doesn’t include the usual joys of aging such as thinning hair, sagging skin, aching joints, and forgetting where I put my car keys. When I consider the various illnesses and surgeries this body has gone through in 77 years, as well as the current maladies, I sometimes marvel at how it’s come this far.

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Last year I read Bill Bryson’s book The Body, a thick, thorough, highly entertaining look at the wonderful complexities of the human physique, from tiny cells to organs and brains and bones.

“About one-fifth of all deaths are sudden, as with a heart attack or car crash, and another fifth come quickly, following a short illness,” Bryson wrote. “But the great majority, about 60 per cent, are the result of a protracted decline. We live long lives; we also die long deaths.”

Cheery words indeed. According to Dr. Google, about 85 per cent of older adults have at least one chronic condition and 60 per cent have at least two. In Canada, in 2021, it’s estimated that 6.3 million Canadians over the age of 65 are living with chronic conditions.

I suspect there’s a lot of under-reporting going on. Seniors are tough. They just put up with stuff sometimes without trying to track down the cause, or don’t think of certain things as chronic that really are, or just accept them as part of life.

A couple of years ago, the Public Health Agency of Canada released a report looking at aging and chronic diseases in seniors.

“The prevalence of most chronic diseases and conditions increases with age,” it said. “Among those aged 85+, the five diseases with the highest prevalence were hypertension (83.4%), osteoarthritis (54.0%), ischemic heart disease (IHD) [42.0%], osteoporosis (36.9%) and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) [27.3%].”

Which brings me to COVID-19. A lot of older folks are dying from it who wouldn’t die if they didn’t have other medical conditions already. Some cynics say, “Well, they would have died anyway — we can’t blame it on COVID.”

Actually, we can. Dr. Theresa Tam, Canada’s chief medical health officer, frequently warns about the vulnerability of seniors to COVID-19.

“Seniors face an inherent higher risk of severe COVID-19 outcomes due to declines in immunity related to advanced age and higher prevalence of underlying chronic diseases and conditions,” she has said.

There it is: underlying chronic conditions and a loss of immunity. Seniors know about this because they live it. They have no reluctance about masking up, social distancing, and getting the jab. (At the first opportunity, last week, I went in for my booster. Feeling lousy the next day was well worth it.)

Dying from something you wouldn’t have otherwise died from unless you caught something else at the same time is called “comorbidity.”

So, you better believe we pay attention to the “viral blizzard” of Omicron. We’re more at risk than ever. Please don’t come close to me when you aren’t wearing a mask. Please don’t crowd up right next to me in the super-market lineup like the woman who did yesterday.

I hear a common refrain from friends in my age group: “If I get COVID, I’m gonna die.” It’s not a complaint; it’s just realistic. They know their immunity will fail and their lungs will fill with pus and their hearts will give up.

When Dr. Bonnie Henry says we have to jump a little higher, as she did yesterday, we say “how high?”

COVID is quite happy invading people of all ages, but seniors are the canary in the coal mine.

Me, I have 13 reasons not to fool with it.

Mel Rothenburger is a former mayor of Kamloops and a retired newspaper editor. He is a regular contributor to CFJC Today, publishes the ArmchairMayor.ca opinion website, and is a director on the Thompson-Nicola Regional District board. He can be reached at mrothenburger@armchairmayor.ca.

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Editor’s Note: This opinion piece reflects the views of its author, and does not necessarily represent the views of CFJC Today or Pattison Media.