Ageing and COVID-19

Making Sense of a Disrupted World

Maria Łuszczyńska, Marvin Formosa, Maria ?uszczy?ska, Marvin Formosa, Maria ?uszczy?ska

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2021
• ISBN:
  9781000531084
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Social Science Research & Methodology
• Index: Social Sciences

The Open Access version of this book, available at www.taylorfrancis.com, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 license.

This volume presents a range of research approaches to the exploration of ageing during a pandemic situation. One of the first collections of its kind, it offers an array of studies employing research methodologies that lend themselves to replication in similar contexts by those seeking to understand the effects of epidemics on older people. Thematically organised, it shows how to reconcile qualitative and quantitative approaches, thus rendering them complementary, bringing together studies from around the world to offer an international perspective on ageing as it relates to an unprecedented epidemiological phenomenon. As such, it will appeal to researchers in the field of gerontology, as well as sociologists of medicine and clinicians seeking to understand the disruptive effects of the recent coronavirus outbreak on later life.

Part 1 COVID-19 as the unknown

1 The phenomenon of the COVID-19 pandemic against the background of its era

Bohdan W. Wasilewski

DOI: 10.4324/b22774-3

The main idea behind this chapter combines the concepts of ageing and COVID-19. This chapter covers a wide range of issues concerning older persons confronted with the COVID-19 pandemic, covering a wide range of different scientific disciplines, including philosophy, sociology, psychology, medicine, and cultural studies. It also presents an equally broad coverage of the COVID-19 phenomenon, which, despite the flood of publications on the subject, is still a sparsely covered area in the international literature.

Introduction

At the beginning, I would like to add a disclaimer as the author, that I consciously raise a number of sensitive topics that deviate from the usual views. The chapter is of a working nature, its main purpose is to provide material and stimulate constructive discussion, including in the area of omitted topics or conclusions. The author is of the opinion that the current situation forces for a more effective and open discussion, a constructive dispute, in which opposing views often intersect, in order to consolidate the actions necessary for our survival as a species and survival of the planet. Therefore, I do not treat any of the presented views as the only truth, I ask the readers only to assume that my intentions are positive when I proclaim these views.

The goal which the editors of this book, dealing with older adult age-related issues, set for the author as a physician and a psychotherapist was to elaborate an introductory chapter covering analysis of the phenomenon of the COVID-19 pandemic, with particular emphasis on the reference to the mentality of the epoch, its way of understanding the surrounding phenomena and motivation for taking further action.

Percentage of people over 60 years of age in the general population of Poland is growing rapidly. According to the forecast of the Polish Central Statistical Office it will amount to: in 2013–14.7%; 2020—18.9%; 2035—24.5%; 2035—32.7%, which will be accompanied by a decrease in the size of the general population and a significant decline in the number of young people who traditionally provided care for older family members in the country. If this is supplemented with a high emigration rate of young people and an unfavorable change in their attitudes regarding the obligation to care for older family members, a full picture of the disadvantageous situation is obtained.

Why has COVID-19 appeared?

The changes described above, due to the acceleration of the process of civilization changes, are taking place at a very fast pace, which is not followed by the necessary adaptation of the organizational structures of the medical care system, the social welfare system, and the creation of the necessary infrastructure for effective care for the older adults, which will result in a significant percentage of people older people being handicapped in their ability to maintain the quality of health. They will therefore be particularly vulnerable to COVID-19 and other infectious diseases. This view is supported by the analysis of the current course of the COVID-19 pandemic published by the Polish Society of Epidemiologists and Doctors of Infectious Diseases (Flisiak 2021), which includes detailed information on Poles who died due to COVID-19. The reports were prepared on the basis of data from the SARSTer database (as of January 26, 2021) http://www.pteilchz.org.pl/. The data included in this report show that in Poland, 36,780 people died due to COVID-19 in the analysed period, with as much as 94.5% of COVID-19 fatalities in Poland comprising people over 60 years of age, and almost one-fourth of those who died (22.6% to be exact) were over 80.

The COVID-19 pandemic not only hit the older adults right, it also hit the social fabric, institutions, and economic relationships that support them. Acceleration of the progress of civilization with progressive intellectual and physical impairment changes in older people, both related to the progressive aging process, chronic diseases, and the increasing incidence of degenerative brain diseases, causing the growing problem of social exclusion, alienation, and the occurrence of depressive disorders. The large scope of the discussed phenomena makes them one of the main challenges of the post-industrial era in all spheres, including economic, social, moral, and medical.

In the phenomenon of the COVID-19 pandemic, the author distinguishes between a group of medical and biological issues and a group of economic and social issues. Both groups take part in the global civilizational crisis related to the breakthrough of the industrial and post-industrial era and the accumulation of negative consequences of extensive development during the industrial era. The author presents the view that the COVID-19 pandemic is one of the consequences of the industrial era and only a catalyst for the intense phase of the global crisis.

In his previous publications on mental barriers impeding the comprehensive capturing of the COVID-19 pandemic phenomenon (Wasilewski 2020a, 2020b, 2021a), the author pointed out the difficulties in capturing the full picture of this phenomenon, which requires a synthetic view taking into account the point of view of various specialties. The problem is the current fragmentation of science into very many hermetic detail-oriented sciences and development of specializations and subspecialisations operating within their own language and their own conceptual and terminological systems, often inconsistent with other specializations. At the same time, despite the technological efficiency of detailed sciences in the selected areas, the perception of the world, which is maintained, is often distant from the present day. Still the dominant understanding of the human being within the in Western civilization is one of a privileged being, different from others, endowed with an immortal soul and distinguished by the ability to think, destined to rule the world. Whereas, progress in biological sciences proves that a man is the same multicellular colony as other living organisms on our planet and is an integral part of the biocenosis, the living surface layer of our planet. Despite many elements of autonomy in moving and acting, man is not able to live independently when cut off from other elements of the living organism, i.e., the biocenosis integrated into an ecosystem with the surrounding biotope.

The COVID-19 pandemic was not an unpredictable incident that unexpectedly disrupted the functioning of a well-operating machine of civilization. The COVID-19 from 2020, compared to its predecessor SARS from 2003, is in total less deadly, although identical in origin and very similar in structure, and it gives an infected person a greater chance of survival. The secret lies in the 2–4-day latency in the manifestation of disease symptoms, when we infect others without having disease symptoms, and the frequency of asymptomatic or poorly symptomatic courses of the disease during which the carriers infect hundreds of people (Steenblock et al. 2020). Another distinguishing feature of COVID is the significant increase in the number of chronically ill patients with diseases resulting from the course of COVID infection in the respiratory, digestive, and nervous systems. At the outbreak of the pandemic the industrial-era civilization, which dates back to the second half of the 18th century, had already lost its functionality and stability as a result of extensive use of natural resources, including human health. It boasted that it had significantly prolonged human life, but it did so at the expense of its quality (Wasilewski 2018, 2020c). Humans, as an intrinsically integral element of the living layer of our planet (biocenosis, biotope), has been torn from it, and the parent biotope has been severely mutilated. In order to breathe, the human being needs to be supplemented with green lungs, besides, they are closely integrated with the biocenosis in many other areas necessary for survival and is a transfer element of the uninterrupted flow of matter and information exchange, which is the basis of the functioning of the ecosystem.

Human activities in the last 150 years of the industrial era led to a critical disturbance in the functioning of the ecosystem, to the extent that forced its deep reset in the form of the sixth phase of mass extinction of species, including the initiation of extinction of humans as a species. Due to the close functional connection of all elements of the biocenosis, its mutilation affects all its elements, including humans. This is most evident in the human population of the Western civilization, the most advanced of the industrial age. The humans of this civilization have largely lost the ability to exist independently, their biological and psychological functioning requires constant support. The degree of human mutilation determines the degree of decrease in human immunity to infections by viruses with which they have lived for millions of years of development. The factual picture of the biocenosis of which man is an element and the biocenosis of every human body significantly differs from the commonly accepted anthropocentric worldview (Wasilewskie 2020a, 2020b, 2020c). The anthropocentric understanding of the world, as discussed earlier, does not allow us to notice a rapid reduction of areas with a rich biosphere that allows for a full-fledged human existence and a rapid depletion of its composition, which is caused by human activity. For the same reason, we see the coronavirus only as a factor alien to our environment, as an enemy that appears unexpectedly and is an instrument of unethical warfare, which we must destroy in order to restore our original way of functioning. The imaginative, monumental image of a man – the Master of Nature, does not allow for the awareness that we are only a mega cell colony, similarly to the other creatures with a cellular structure that surround us and inhabit the biocenosis in which we are part. The anthropocentric view of the world denies the ability to think, feel emotions, fight for survival, even to the closest evolutionarily animals – mammals, massively bred and killed as part of the industrial process of producing food that is our food. For analogical reason the group of subcellular organisms, which are predominant in the animate nature in terms of quantity, and include viruses, viroids, phages, prions, and a number of other integral micronutrients of our biocenosis and our organism, are not included as parts of the living world. The human body contains fewer of its own cells than bacterial cells, the number of which is more than ten times greater than the number of subcellular organisms in our bodies. These micro-organisms reach the interior of our body without major obstacles. The average human body transcytoses 3.1 × 10¹⁰ phages per day through the membranes of our body cells, and it is believed that this continuous stream of endogenous phages spread through the blood and organs is involved in providing us with antibacterial and antiviral protection (Górski 2020; Nguyen et al. 2017). Each human organism has a specific constellation of phages residing in it, currently we have little information on the factors determining the composition and interaction of phages in the human organism. We know that phages can penetrate lung epithelial cells, protecting against viral infections, and the competitive activity of phages against angiotensin-converting enzyme II (ACEII), which is a target for SARS-CoV and SARS-CoV-2 coronaviruses (Górski 2020; Wasilewski 2010).

COVID-19 and the human immune system

At this point, I would like to explain the reasons for a wider discussion of the issues related to the relationship between the COVID-19 pandemic and the functional state of the microbiome – the flora of microbes living in our body. It is related to the view that the microbiome disorder is the basic factor opening the gate that prevents infection. So, if a systemic damage to our immunity is the cause of the current SARS-CoV-2 pandemic, then fighting it will only stifle the pandemic until the next offensive pathogen appears. The functional state of our body’s microbiome is closely related to the state of the microbiome of the surrounding biocenosis, the balance of which has also been disturbed. There is a very significant backlog of research into the microbiome, which has made us powerless when confronted with epidemic threats of the magnitude conditioning our survival as a species (Wasilewski 2021a). Within the biotope the human body constitutes a transit element of an uninterrupted stream of exchange of both building elements, that constitute the elements of biocenosis, and information-related material in many ways of transmission. Civilization of the industrial era led to discontinuation or unfavorable modification of this transfer and disturbed our immunity. The framework of the present publication does not allow for a more extensive discussion of this topic. Other publications by the author (Wasilewski 2014, 2018, 2020c) can be referred to for this topic.

The situation at present is worsened by the failure to adequately conduct research to develop new antibiotics and the therapeutic use of phages (Górski 2020; Nguyen et al. 2017). Due to the significant investment risk related to the development of a new antibiotic at a cost of one billion dollars, where resistance to it can develop after several years of use, only a few companies continue to implement them, and to a limited extent. This resulted in a situation in which Carbapenems, the last implemented group of antibiotics – detected as a defense substance of one of the soil bacteria – were implemented for treatment 36 years ago. Antibiotics from this group are treated as a last resort drug and should be protected against unjustified use, in accordance with WHO regulations. Meanwhile, their main method of use is massive preventive application in industrial farms for the production of slaughter meat, which, as it has been known for many years, leads to the creation of new antibiotic-resistant bacterial strains. In countries aware of the threat of this problem, the preventive use of last-resort antibiotics was banned in industrial farms for the production of slaughter meat, which, unfortunately, is prevalent in a number of Western countries, including Poland. Antibiotic resistance, according to estimates of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, may cause 700,000 deaths worldwide (quoted after the Polish Supreme Audit Office’s report of 2017/2018) (Polish Supreme Audit Office’s report of 2017/2018). In 2011–2014, the use of antibiotics in agriculture increased by 23%, and Poland ranks second in Europe in terms of the use of the most potent antibiotics in animal husbandry in the treatment of human diseases. The results of ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Series Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Table of Contents
• List of contributors
• Introduction: the challenges facing ageing during COVID-19
• Part 1 COVID-19 as the unknown
• Part 2 Social attitudes and strategies
• Part 3 Social life
• Part 4 Social care and support
• Conclusion: ageing, COVID-19 and ‘new normality’
• Index