ABSTRACT

The COVID-19 pandemic has forced countries to issue public measures to address threats to the safety of citizens and the healthcare system. The role of chronological age in the ways in which different countries coped with the pandemic is particularly intriguing. Based on pool of purposely selected twenty-one countries, this article compares a variety of urgent public health policies that have been enforced during the first wave of the pandemic. It analyzes the ways in which countries introduced instructions related to older people and/or chronological age in relation to: Lockdown, exit and triage policies. It also examined whether the issue of long-term care settings (LTCS) received special attention in the primary guidelines developed in response to the lockdown and exit strategies. The analysis demonstrates inconsistencies within and across countries in the enactment and implementation of age-based measures. Moreover, it suggests that both acts of omission and commission based on age can be interpreted as ageist, arbitrary, not based on evidence, too inclusive, and offensive toward older people and neglectful of specific risk groups.

摘要

COVID-19 大流行迫使各国发布公共措施，以应对公民和医疗保健系统安全面临的威胁。实际年龄在不同国家应对这一流行病的方式中所扮演的角色尤其令人感兴趣。本文基于特意选择的 21 个国家，比较了第一波大流行期间执行的各种紧急公共卫生政策。它分析了各国引入与老年人和/或实际年龄相关的指示的方式：封锁、退出和分流政策。它还检查了长期护理机构（LTCS）的问题是否在针对封锁和退出策略而制定的主要指南中得到了特别关注。分析表明，国家内部和国家之间在制定和实施基于年龄的措施方面存在不一致的情况。此外，它表明，基于年龄的不作为和行为都可以被解释为年龄歧视、任意、不基于证据、过于包容、冒犯老年人并忽视特定的风险群体。