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Thursday, 28 March 2024

Pandemic spreads fear, death to elderly

Duration: 02:09s 0 shares 2 views

Pandemic spreads fear, death to elderly
Pandemic spreads fear, death to elderly

The coronavirus pandemic has spawned countless small dramas of isolation and anxiety among the elderly across the globe.

Linda So reports.

Grace Dowell has stopped going to the grocery store and has canceled all her doctor's appointments.

Her husband Donald wipes down the mail with disinfectant.

The 63-year-old grandmother no longer allows anyone into their Maryland home.

Dowell decided last week that strict isolation was the only way to save herself, her husband and her mother from COVID-19, the potentially deadly virus that preys on the elderly.

SOUNDBITE: GRACE DOWELL, 63, SAYING: "My mom has COPD, she's on oxygen.

My husband, who's 74, has COPD.

I have rheumatoid arthritis, which I'm on biologics for, which compromises my system." Dowell has taken over caring for her 93-year-old mother Margaret.

Last week, she told her mother's nurse to stop coming to the house because she worried an outsider could bring the virus into their home.

SOUNDBITE: GRACE DOWELL, 63, SAYING: "If she were to get the virus, I know she wouldn't make it." Dowell, now wears a baby-monitor and answers her mother's calls for help through the night.

SOUNDBITE: MARGARET HILDEBRANT, 93, SAYING: "I just hope it'll go away and everyone will get well." SOUNDBITE: GRACE DOWELL, 63, SAYING: "I know my family doesn't want my mom going out like that." The elderly are especially vulnerable in the global coronavirus pandemic.

Most victims who have died across the world have been elderly.

Health officials are increasingly calling for extreme measures to safeguard them.

But many older people do not have the choice of locking themselves inside.

Lucy Mayimela, a 68-year-old grandmother in South Africa, lives in a small shack with six relatives.

Her community shares a single wash basin and toilet for dozens of people.

Mayimela laughed bitterly at the suggestion that she should isolate herself at home.

The vegetable stand she has run for 36 years is the only support for her family.

SOUNDBITE: LUCY MAYIMELA, 68 YEAR OLD GRANDMOTHER, SAYING: "Those that have houses are in self isolation and I'm here, for me it means I will die from hunger or corona.

I don't know but only God knows."

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