Kel Varnsen wrote:
A lot of these people would have died in the near future no matter what.
That's the rationale for the wartime triage that has led to them being refused treatment, guaranteeing in many cases that they do die.
My own grandmother is 96, she's been unable to walk for over five years—has to be lifted in and out of bed by nurses—and she will die from this if she contracts it, and is ready to go. She was ready to go before. It would be no great tragedy were she to die.
That certainly isn't the case for everyone over the age of 80, nor do they deserve to be thrown on the scrap heap because they're vulnerable and nameless. To quote Judith Butler:
An ungrievable life is one that cannot be mourned because it has never lived, that is, it has never counted as a life at all. We can see the division of the globe into grievable and ungrievable lives from the perspective of those who wage war in order to defend the lives of certain communities, and to defend them against the lives of others—even if it means taking those latter lives.
That said, the pandemic is exposing other areas of society where death has been made an acceptable consequence of economic life. It's estimated that the Chinese economic downturn may lead to 50,000 lives not being lost this year due to air pollution.
