Read on Twitter
As on-campus teaching begins to resume (a topic for another thread), many UK universities are increasingly asking staff and employees to complete a risk assessment using a tool called 'COVID-Age'. The popularity of this tool is worrying. #ageism
The assessment calculates a risk score based on a number of biomedical variables - a standard approach with its own problems. But interestingly, the assessment chooses to present the final risk score in the form of a 'COVID-Age' rather than a neutral quantification or score.
First, will these types of risk assessments make it easier for universities to be released from being held accountable for COVID-19 infections and deaths caused by on-campus teaching - by shifting the responsibility of managing risk to individuals? https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2020-06-25/op-ed-covid-colleges-fall-waivers
Second, why the choice to present the risk scores in the form of a 'COVID-Age'? This portrayal of risk is in danger of deepening the #ageism exposed by this pandemic by misleadingly framing older age as the primary determinant of vulnerability. See: https://academic.oup.com/psychsocgerontology/advance-article/doi/10.1093/geronb/gbaa051/5820621
The COVID-Age tool has been developed by the Association of Local Authority Medical Advisors (ALAMA). But there are other risk stratification frameworks available, should we insist on them. For example, the BMA has developed a more neutrally framed tool: https://www.bma.org.uk/media/2768/bma-covid-19-risk-assessment-tool-july2020.pdf
I believe that time will demonstrate how the resumption of on-campus teaching is a tragic decision driven by the unfortunate tension between the continued financial viability of universities vs. the wellbeing of the university community. But let's not add #ageism to the tragedy.
