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The Impact of COVID-19 on Aging
Michael Hodin, Managing Partner of HLG and CEO of Global Coalition on Aging (GCOA), has been closely monitoring developments with the novel coronavirus and analyzing the ongoing pandemic’s impact on aging and longevity. Below we highlight the latest blog posts he has authored on this issue:
Innovation and the Lessons of Covid-19
January 4, 2021
Now that Covid-19 vaccines are here and offer the real prospect we may soon turn the corner in addressing the devastating health, economic, and social impacts of the virus, it’s not too soon to identify critical lessons. How do we better prepare to defeat new public health threats, as well as rising challenges already on our doorstep — the growing-older age-related health-crisis explosion from Alzheimer’s to osteoporosis, antimicrobial resistance to vision loss that will, in the next two decades, be debilitating to an otherwise healthy aging, burdens on economic growth…
Can’t Wait
December 31, 2020
As always this time of year, we write a New Year’s Blog. But 2020 has been different. And so will be our thoughts for the new year.
During corona we saw exposed the greatest vulnerabilities of growing old — highest risks to the virus, super bugs, the adverse impact of loneliness and the unintended consequences of deferred or missed care to the NCDs of aging. Such vulnerabilities were especially ironic as 2020 was also the year the UN and WHO endorsed and launched The Decade of Healthy Ageing, now officially to start January 1, 2021. So as we prepare to celebrate…
Covid-19 Demands Healthy Aging
October 26, 2020
It appears that we — all of us globally — will be living with some form of the Covid-19 pandemic for the next couple of years. And it’s increasingly likely that Covid-19 will drive profound structural shifts in our societies and economies; much like the Black Plague of Europe that wiped out half of the population and transformed how we think about labor, or the more recent 1919 Spanish Flu that led to border closings and all-around isolation. These implications include not just a pandemic’s direct health…
College, COVID-19, and Careers of the Future
September 2, 2020
As college students return to school virtually or in-person, they face an educational and professional outlook that is enormously uncertain. Many colleges will remain virtual for at least the next semester. COVID-19 has upended the job market, and many experts forecast a long road to recovery. Major employers have frozen hiring, and others have cancelled their internship…
Older Adults Can Jumpstart the Covid-19 Economic Recovery
July 7, 2020
Even in light of an all-consuming pandemic, there are some mega-trends that continue their powerful and profound impact on global society. One such trend is global aging, which has led to a reimagining and a reframing of the relationship between age and health, economic, and social policies. Now, one of the more valued ideas on global aging — to keep people active, engaged, and working well past 20th century retirement and “old age” norms — offers a critical opportunity to jumpstart economic recovery during the Covid-19 pandemic…
Age-Friendly Employers and Your Financial Wellness
June 26, 2020
Aegon’s 2020 Retirement Readiness report on work, finances, and longevity, The New Social Contract: Age-Friendly Employers, enters an economic and employment landscape radically different from just a year ago — and suggests that new approaches to retirement have only become more important. Indeed, the “new social contract” first proposed by Aegon in 2018 stands the test of Covid-19, with even more urgency now from workers and employers to develop shared solutions for lifelong health and wealth…
Technology for All: World Summit on the Information Society Opening
June 22, 2020
Older people, globally, are consumers, too. The megatrend of global aging — 2 billion of us over 60 by mid-century, more old than young, getting to the 40% level in super-aging places like Japan — presents as one of the least well-understood market opportunities for businesses, large and small, everywhere. The first-ever global Silver Economy Forum, hosted by Global Coalition on Aging and the Finnish Government as they assumed the EU Presidency last July in Helsinki, Finland, was about the $17 trillion Silver Economy available to companies the world over. And now in 2020, as that megatrend is joined by the global COVID-19 pandemic…
Transamerica, COVID-19 and That Finance Transformation
June 2, 2020
As we try to understand and address COVID-19’s enormous economic disruptions, a timely report from Transamerica Center for Retirement Studies, Retirement Security Amid COVID-19: The Outlook of Three Generations, provides much-needed insights on the impacts to Americans’ finances and long-term plans. It examines how this crisis has already shifted the overall landscape for financial wellness, as well as the solutions people need to weather COVID-19 and prepare for the future…
COVID-19 and Those Other Health Needs
May 13, 2020
As the world continues its COVID-19 economic shutdown, we are beginning to understand the truly profound connection between health and economics. Indeed, as the debate about when and how to reopen the economy evolves, “public health vs. economic health” is emerging as a false choice…
Learning from COVID-19: Our Remote Care Revolution
May 6, 2020
Many healthcare advancements and transformations can be tied to the responses eminating from historical pandemics. Though we don’t yet know how deep and profound the impact of COVID-19 will be, we are beginning to see the rapid rise of telehealth, also known as remote care or virtual care enabled by digital tools. This healthcare transformation to new care models could help solve the current crisis and last far beyond it…
The COVID-19 Vaccine and That Compliance Problem
April 21, 2020
When the COVID-19 vaccine is discovered, it’ll be no good if we don’t get vaccinated. And if it is the elderly most at risk from COVID-19, it is in the area of adult vaccines where the usage of those already available — for illnesses like pneumococcal pneumonia, flu, or shingles — is surprisingly low where we have the most work to do. So, as scientists work to develop the COVID-19 vaccine, it’s not too soon for a parallel effort to develop the needed, broad-based immunization campaign, especially including older adults who are most vulnerable and precisely the demographic who currently aren’t benefitting from the adult vaccines at their disposal…
Preparing for COVID-19
April 9, 2020
We have been preparing for COVID-19, but just didn’t know it. While not explicitly designed for this pandemic, key healthcare advances like remote care, home care, and pharmaceutical innovation now position our health ecosystem to scale solutions that would not have otherwise been possible. These advances also hold promise far beyond the current crisis, as we look to the future of health and its role in economic and fiscal stability in a world defined by more old than young…
COVID-19 Prepares us for Healthy Aging
March 23, 2020
The COVID-19 pandemic brings healthcare front and center for all of society. This is an unwanted and unexpected — but nevertheless — needed wake-up call for what’s coming, a world that will have 2 billion of us over 60 by mid-century and more old than young globally, with upwards of 40% older adults in some societies. While the middle of a crisis may not seem like the best time for lessons, it is the moment when we’re all paying attention and a time to recognize what we must do to create the kind of healthcare system we need for the future…
Longevity in the Balance: Lessons from Wuhan
March 10, 2020
The novel coronavirus has now spread from Wuhan, China across the planet and is affecting our pocketbooks as well as our health. While there is still so much we don’t know, the increased risk to older, especially immune-compromised people could soon be repeated on a global, more regular scale due to a different but parallel health crisis; we are referring here to the problem of the rise of infections resistant to today’s antibiotics, exacerbated by the shrinking pipeline of new, innovative drugs capable of fighting them…