Even though we are still only in the early stages of dealing with this pandemic in America, it’s already clear how the elderly will be treated — and mistreated — as it continues. Doctors will choose the lives of the young over the old when our hospitals are overrun with patients and our health care system becomes overwhelmed. We’ve already seen the hard choice of who to let live and who to let die in Italy. When the Life Care Center of Kirkland , a nursing home in the Seattle area, became the epicenter of the virus last month, the rest of the United States kept bustling. By late February, the coronavirus had run rampant throughout the elderly population at the Life Care Center, but President Trump still called the virus a “hoax.” On February 26he reassured the American people that there would “be close to zero” new cases, even as the number of cases rose. I learned of the deaths and the residents of Life Care of Kirkland as the date of my mother’s death anniversary approached, and I cried. I imagined elderly people, some as vulnerable as children, disoriented from the death and illness around them. I thought of those with dementia, bewildered, unable to comprehend their surroundings, and remembered my aunt’s abuse; I remembered my mother’s mental illness. I wondered what my mother thought and felt as she laid alone, dying. Now, because of social distancing, even family members cannot visit their parents and grandparents and they are the most alone.