Senior citizens more defiant despite
coronavirus vulnerability, poll finds

81% have a death wish.

My. 89 yr old mother still wants to see her grandchildren and great grandchildren. We restrict physical contact but she would miss them too much if there were no visits.

Senior, yes, but also smart enough (and sane enough) to smell a panic induced overreaction. The world has gone insane.

Going to the gym tomorrow to work out, not going to be cowed.

I guess I qualify as elderly, technically, and my friends and I agree. We will certainly use recommended precautions but beyond that there is no panic. Maybe it's because we have had one crisis after another for as long as we can remember. As kids it was immanent nuclear war and the need for families to build bomb shelters. Then the Population Bomb warned us of immanent mass starvation and disease from too many people. In there was interspersed with global cooling and the coming Ice Age. Killer Bees, A new illness they called AIDS was going to wipe out everyone, Reagan was definitely going to start WWIII We've seen alot. Wherever we could we took precautions. That's all we can do now. Panic never helps, and those who continue to spot "what ifs" aren't helping anyone. The MSM who seem gleefull about tanking the economy will do more damage to more people than this virus ever will. BTW. ..God is still watching. Be Not Afraid. This too shall pass.

Well said, #6.

What I hate is the caviler way the media says those that died were older and had critical illnesses like they didn't matter. How much is an exaggerated ploy because of an election year ? Kind of like the stock market being manipulated. Mass hysteria again.

That's because most senior citizens aren't easily buffaloed snowflakes. 80k+ people in the US died from the flu in 2017. Th KungFlu has been here for a month or two and ~40 are gone. Do the math. Media-hype to bring down the President.

Senior citizens are tough people. They're not prone to buckle in the face of the hysteria.

The media & Democrats are out of control. This is unbelievable.I saw less panic during the 911 crisis. When it’s over someone should be required to explain. The 24 hour cable news cycle & dems are attempting to destroy our country

My father is 98. In his life he has seen a cousin die of whooping cough, a great aunt die of TB, grand mother die of measles, as a Marine in the South Pacific he survived the battles of Tarawa and Peleliu (one while attached to the 1st Marines, the other to the 2nd Marines). He raised kids during the polio epidemic [BTW, in Texas and Oklahoma schools were never closed for that - public swimming pools in some places, but not schools] Now his body has failed him, but his mind is still sharp. I called him and told him the nursing care facility he was in wouldn't allow me to come visit him, which I have done almost every day since he checked in there over a year ago. His comments on the mental state of the people making these decisions were not printable. So, #1, it is not so much a death wish as the fact that they have seen so much worse than this (which is nothing, so far, at least in Texas) and seen America carry on. The boom-town school I attended as a child through high school had blown up in 1937 because of a gas leak. About 300 were killed. Oil company employees and Boy Scout troops of the area helped dig for survivors and recover bodies. 10 days later, they were having classes again. Dad lost three cousins in that explosion. The town lost about half of a generation.Two of my mother's grandparents died in the influenza epidemic of 1918. This isn't 1918, 1944 or 1953. These folks have had to deal with death, war and epidemics before (not to mention avian flue and swine flu, which were much more deadly to children and young adults than than this 19th version of corona virus is). So maybe rather than a death wish, us old coots have a better sense of proportion, and can remember that more than 12,000 died, 60.000,000 infected, 300,000 hospitalized in the 2009-2010 swine flu epidemic - and most of those were under age 65. But then the president was a democrat in 2010, so it wasn't a crisis. This is all SOOOO political.

Somehow I knew there was a crisis coming when the media announced a toilet paper shortage for a virus that symptoms include dry cough & chest pains.

I have tried to get my wife’s parents, age 95 to stock up on some food! No success! As the biblical head of my house, I am required to protect it! I don’t fear the virus, but do fear being an idiot and not having food and supplies (including weapons) for the panic that is setting in! Also, don’t know if you have noticed but the financial system is melting down! Might consider alternatives to cash...or not! Free country!

Perhaps because those senior citizens have been through media induced panics before. Yes this is serious, yes people are going to lose their lives and yes our media are a bunch of raging jackals.

I'm 69. I still go to work, I still see my grandchildren, I still go to church. There have been 11 cases in my state, most of them from one family who were out of the country and none of them near me. I take precautions. But I am not going to be a hermit.

The old "been there and done that" version of common sense that seniors possess is far superior to the young and dumb heads full of mush. These people have survived WW2 plus a host of really serious diseases like Ebola and AIDS. Best to pay attention.

I am 75 years old and plan to go about my business. I hate what the media and democrats are doing to this country. But nothing surprises me any more.

As Senior Citizens we have been there and done that. Cancer and Dementia worry me a lot more than another virus.