Trending
Could abuse of the elderly, brought about in part by the pandemic, be a problem escaping detection in Pennsylvania?
For the bulk of two years, the illness and death tolls and the various COVID-19 variants, as well as the efforts to contain and defeat the virus, rightly have consumed most of the attention.
However, virus-related impacts not actually involving sickness or death have not been given the national attention deserved -- understandably, due to the illness' most-visible horrific, unrelenting tolls and suffering.
One of the harder-to-notice problems -- everything else considered -- has been victimization of the elderly on aspects of life not tied directly to COVID-19.
A Dec. 29 Wall Street Journal article -- "Elder abuse is spreading, stoked by the pandemic" -- provided information that deserves notice.
The Journal article revolves around data such as that revealed in a FBI report on internet crime between 2019 and 2020. That report, containing the latest data available, indicates that elder-fraud victims increased 55 percent during that time.
Meanwhile, a Yale University study released in January 2021 found more than one in five older individuals living in homes or apartments, as opposed to facilities, reported abuse in April and May 2020, when all states had stay-at-home orders in effect.
Part of the Journal's report was about a temporary caregiver in Denver, on probation for a felony robbery conviction, having been hired at a long-term-care facility, where she stole credit cards and an engagement ring, appraised at $13,800, from an 86-year-old woman dying of COVID.
Another part of the article dealt with a Miami, Fla., woman's property, with a listed appraised value of $212,000, being stolen by three individuals who forged the name of the owner -- an octogenarian -- on a deed and sold the property to a New York company.
The focus of the article shifted to Memphis, Tennessee, where a man's son had used a crowbar to injure him. The two had resided together, and other family members said the pandemic had kept them from visiting the victim and determining that something wrong was going on.
These incidents elsewhere, even if far away, must be a basis for watchfulness here and should provide incentive for lawmakers to examine whether adequate penalties and human services are in place to deal with the potential or very real problem, if that be the case.