In Australia, elderly people in privately-run care homes account for three quarters of COVID-10 deaths (via), in Canada it is 80% (via). In Massachusetts, the death rate from the virus in nursing homes is 90 times that of the statewide one (via). Nursing homes in Walnut Creek and Concord (California) account for 70% of COVID-19 deaths. In Conta Costra, 71 of 102 COVID-19 deaths involve care facilities (via). New York's COVID-19 death toll in nursing homes is one of the highest in the U.S. although only those are counted who die on nursing home property statistically ignoring those who are transported to hospitals and die there (via).
As of July 2020, 30.000 more care home residents died during the COVID-10 outbreak in England and Wales than during the same period in 2019 (via). In Sweden we talk about 70% (via), in Italy, France, Ireland, Spain, and Belgium 42% to 57% of deaths from the virus took place in nursing homes ... a "silent massacre" as they say in Italy (via).
"Belgian society has decided that the lives of these confined elderly counted much less than those of the so-called ‘actives’." Geoffrey Players
It was an ominous warning on March 27 that the deadly virus may have the ability to spread rapidly and invisibly among the most vulnerable. But it was a warning not heeded here: That very day, Massachusetts leaders unveiled a hastily arranged plan to shuffle hundreds of symptom-free — and untested — residents from one nursing home to others to clear room for older COVID-19 patients discharged from hospitals.
There was still time to hit the pause button. No one did.
And so it began. Over the next three cold and gloomy days, medical workers moved 137 elderly women and men, many with dementia, out of their familiar rooms at Beaumont Rehabilitation and Skilled Nursing Center in Worcester, loaded them into ambulances, and scattered them among 18 facilities. They were people like 92-year-old Frannie Trotto, who never recovered from the sudden and disorienting uprooting. Neither she nor the others were tested for COVID-19 because state guidelines at the time called for swabbing only those with a fever or cough. And some may have brought the virus to their new homes. (via)
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photograph by Harold Feinstein via
The ways people cope with grief are sometimes labelled as "feminine" - when the grieving pattern is intuitive, expressed in an affective way - or "masculine" - when it is instrumental, i.e., experienced physically and expressed in a cognitive way. And then there are blended patterns.
The reason why men tend to grieve in a "masculine" way is socialisation; the patterns are "influenced by gender but not determined by it". This grieving style is usually seen as negative within counselling and grieving literature which could reflect "a general Western bias in counseling that tends to value affective expressiveness as inherently more therapeutic than cognitive or behavioral responses", sometimes stating that grief work can only be accomplished when one starts expressing one's feelings. This is a potential barrier when counselling with other cultural groups (via).
This affective bias finds its boldest expression in literature about men and grief. It is unsurprising, given the bias toward affective expressiveness that many clinicians have seen aspects of the male role placing men at a disadvantage in grieving when compared to women. Women are seen as more ready to accept help; and express emotion, both of which are viewed as essential to the process of grieving. Since men are perceived as less likely to show emotion or accept help, they are seen as having more difficulty in responding to loss. Recently at a lecture, one counselor suggested that when grieving men use the word “fine” in answer to how they are doing, it should be viewed as an acronym for “feelings inside, never expressed Kenneth Doka
The following excerpts are taken from a paper written by Versalle and McDowall.
Studies of gender and grief have looked at differences in grief reactions between
widows and widowers, or differences between fathers and mothers of deceased
children. In studies of elderly bereaved spouses, some researchers found that
bereavement was harder on women than on men (Carey, 1979; Lopata, 1973;
Parkes, 1970). Widows complained of greater negative health symptoms than
widowers and were more prone to psychological illness (Gilbar & Dagan, 1995;
Parkes & Brown, 1972). Other researchers, however, found that widowers fared
worse than widows in risk of mortality (Bowling & Windsor, 1995; Stroebe, 1994)
and other measures (Cummings & Henry, 1961; Sanders, 1989; Stillion, 1985).
In research involving bereaved parents, one study showed that women scored
higher than men on all but one of the bereavement scales of the Grief Experience
Inventory (Sidmore, 2000). Another study found that mothers cried much more
than fathers, were more likely to cope by writing and reading about loss and grief,
reached out to help others more frequently, and overall used a wider variety of
coping mechanisms than fathers (Schwab, 1990). Yet another study showed that
mothers scored higher on measures of coping difficulty, active grief, depression,
preoccupation, sadness, difficulty in functioning, and finding resolution than
fathers, whereas fathers scored higher on measures of specific anger. This study
also found that fathers received higher scores than mothers on a measure of most
severe grief two years post loss, indicating that mothers’ grief over the death of
a child decreases over time while fathers’ increases. The authors concluded that
men may deny grief over the death of a child, in part because of gender stereotypes
calling for men to be strong and unemotional, and thus are prevented from
adaptively coping with their loss (Stinson & Lasker, 1992).
Researchers have labeled these gender differences in grief “masculine” and
“feminine” (Corr, Nabe, & Corr, 2000; Nolen-Hoeksema & Larson, 1999; Stinson
& Lasker, 1992). The consensus of most research has been that so-called feminine
grief, characterized by open displays of intense affect, support seeking, and
sharing of emotions with others, is necessary for any griever regardless of sex
(Staudacher, 1991). According to this point of view, people, usually men, who fail
to express their grief in this affective manner are considered to be responding in
an inappropriate, unhealthy way (Corr et al., 2000; Martin & Doka, 1996).
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- image (Michel Piccoli and Romy Schneider), "The Things of Life", directed by Claude Sautet, via
- Versalle, A. & McDowall, E. E. (2004-2005). OMEGA, 50(1), 53-67.
"It seems reasonable to expect that the cross-cultural study of grief would have
been a good subject for the emerging field of cross-cultural psychology because
it is a shared experience among peoples. It also seems reasonable to expect that it
would be a subject in the very old field of psychology of religion, because a part
of the rituals and beliefs of the major religious traditions concern transcending
death (see Chidester, 1990). Neither expectation turns out to be realized."
"Grief is
understood to be universal, but grief has “variations” in different cultures just as,
it seems, in a musical score there can be variations on a melody. “Death and grief,
though they are universal, . . . occur within a social milieu, and deeply embedded
within each person’s reality” (Irish, Lundquist, & Nelsen, p. 187), that is, the universal
is only experienced within culturally defined reality."
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Klass, D. (1999). Developing a Cross-Cultural Model of Grief: The State of the Field. OMEGA, 39(3), 153-178.
