Sir, – Alan O’Brien (Letters, April 15th) is not the only one who finds the word “cocooning” as applied to older people annoying. I don’t know who came up with that word that describes a strategy which is rightly keeping older people at home rather than clogging up intensive-care units. It’s a word which is infantilising, inaccurate and just plain annoying.
We are staying at home to avoid getting Covid-19 and to avoid causing problems to our fellow citizens in all disciplines who are striving so hard to look after us all. We understand what has to be done and why. We will live with “cocooning” this time but can we find a better word next time? “Strategic isolation” would be fine, along with better planning by online services to give priority to people who can’t go shopping. We have great neighbours but if we had better access to online shopping we would not have to burden them as much. – Yours, etc,
CLIVE CARROLL,
Dublin 2.