KJZZ: Justice in Aging Director: Coronavirus Exposes Deep-Seated Ageism (July 28, 2020)

In the early days of the coronavirus pandemic, we repeatedly heard that the virus primarily affects older adults — that older adults are more likely to die from it. But framing the coronavirus as something that impacts only “old people” exposed something else: rampant ageism. Kevin Prindiville is the executive director at Justice in Aging, a nonprofit legal advocacy group. “If the COVID crisis, right from the beginning, we knew it was disproportionately leading to the death of children, I think we would have been much faster to shut down as a society,” he said. “So that was the first really clear example of ageism. I think a next clear example would be the crisis care standards that many states rolled out across the country.”