Older Americans are More Worried About Coronavirus—Unless They’re Republican

Seventy-year-old Sal Gentile, writing in response to a question from The Washington Post, suggested that he wasn’t particularly worried about the coronavirus outbreak.

“Yep, I have a pacemaker and recent fusion,” he wrote; “however my love for quality of life is more important to me than being rattled by a TV station.”

Gentile is one of the Americans most at risk from the virus. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has warned those 60 and older and those with medical conditions to be particularly wary of its spread, given the higher mortality rates associated with those factors. Gentile would seem to fit into both categories, but, like many other residents of the Florida retirement community The Villages who were profiled by The Post this week, he doesn’t seem particularly worried.

The Villages has become something of a benchmark for older America, surging in size as the number of older Americans has steadily increased. A visit to the community earlier this week found that residents were continuing their social activities as they normally would, most as unrattled as Gentile. For some readers it spurred nothing short of bafflement: young people are forgoing social activities to halt the spread of a disease that isn’t particularly dangerous for them but those most at risk are living life as normal?

Part of the issue may be that The Villages isn’t necessarily as representative of America’s older population as it may seem.