How to Protect Your Parents or Elderly People from Coronavirus? | Niva Bupa

How to Protect Your Parents or Elderly People from Coronavirus?

The elderly are especially vulnerable to the coronavirus pandemic, as data and studies have revealed. In Italy, the average age of those dying due to Covid-19 is 80, whereas in China people aged 70 and above accounted for just 12% of all infections but more than half of all deaths. In the United States, people 65 and older have thus far accounted for 31% of coronavirus cases, 53% of intensive care admissions in hospitals and 80% of deaths. Meanwhile, the elderly in India, who constitute 10% of the country’s population, accounted for over 50% of the country's Covid-19 deaths till June 2020.

Governments and health officials across the world are taking additional measures to safeguard the elderly from Covid-19. But the onus is on us to take extra precautionary measures if we have elderly people in our family. 

Here’s a list of things we can do to protect elderly people & your parents:

1) Do not visit your elderly parents or grandparents if you have come in contact with coronavirus xe variant infected individuals. Restrict your visits even otherwise as a lot of the coronavirus infected people are asymptomatic and you might be among them.

2) If you stay with elderly parents or grandparents, don’t venture outside unless critical. Even if you do, take care to sanitise yourself once you are back before coming in contact with them. Preferably, take a bath.

3) Build up the immunity of elderly family members with nutritional food. Give them vitamin and mineral supplements daily.

4) Most families in India are all about sharing. However, it is best not share towels, soap or any other daily sanitary requirements with elderly parents or grandparents.

5) Take care of the mental wellbeing of elderly people in your home. Make them feel cared about.

6) Monitor their health on a regular basis. Some symptoms are likely to appear because of their age. However, get them tested nevertheless to be sure they aren’t coronavirus infected.

Tips to buy health insurance to protect against coronavirus infection:

a) Check the policy document to see what all it covers. Many hospitals are charging the cost of PPEs of doctors and other medical staff to the patient’s bill which most health insurance plans in India don’t cover.

b) Choose the term of your health insurance for coronavirus keeping in mind that there doesn’t seem to be any vaccine on the horizon. As such most epidemiological models suggest that Covid-19 will persist for a long time.

c) One of the most important benefits of buying health insurance is cashless treatment. Ensure that there is a network hospital of your insurance provider near the location of elderly people who you are buying the cover for.

d) A coronavirus health insurance claim can be settled in a hassle free manner only if you have preserved all the hospitalisation documents and treatment related bills. Be careful and keep them safe amid all the confusion that can arise when a close family member is hospitalised.

Conclusion

One of the biggest myths about Covid-19 is that only old people are at risk. While it is true that the elderly face a bigger health threat from the infection, young people are also getting infected all around the world. As such, it would be prudent to buy a corona kavach plan (the general term used by insurers in India for a Covid-19 insurance plan) that covers all members of the family. One important point to keep in mind is that any corona kavach — individual health insurance plans and family health insurance plans for Covid-19 —  won’t include the cost of testing. If you see notice symptoms of Covid-19 infection, check into a hospital to get yourself tested at the earliest. Also, be aware that if you have purchased a health insurance for Covid-19 in India, it won’t keep you covered if you are tested positive while traveling abroad.

If you are planning to buy health insurance for Covid-19, you might want to consider both the individual and family corona kavach plans from Niva Bupa. Premiums for these plans start at Rs 1,039 and you can choose a tenure ranging from 3.5 months to 9.5 months. The most important benefit of Niva Bupa Corona Kavach plans is that they cover comorbidities associated with Covid-19 infections.