To expect people ill with Covid stay home?

Fed up of ill people generally just not staying home until better. I do blame draconian sickness policies which just makes everyone everywhere poorly.
But I can recall endless times I have become ill because some so and so has coughed over me. Thanks. Time this stopped.

You abdolutley did not grow up in poverty if you did you wouldnt be lacking in such empathy

Us povvos should just sit in our cold damp homes with hungry children so that strangers don’t get sick 🙄 after all the poor are dispensable

They are, which is why they can't afford to be ill and take time off work unless they're physically unable to avoid it, or save for a 'back up' to see them through illnesses that other people think they should stay at home for.

I used the same amount of everything I did 10 years ago but the price of them has at least doubled, my wages have not.

Oh and how do you suggest people navigate disciplinary action from their employer for having too much time off sick? Because that's a big motivator too.

There’s no greed about wanting to heat your home and feed your family

We don't get paid for the 1st 3 days, that means £600 down a week. Luckily I don't get ill often, but it's a hell of a lot to lose.

You’re very defensive.

I’m just suggesting you should recognise the lucky position you’re in.

Or…: people cut their cloth accordingly so their lifestyles match what they can afford?

I’ve worked in 2 of the sectors you mention and managed ok. The issue is lifestyle creep (aka greed)

Then by a process of elimination you've gone for the infecting everyone else option, as there isn't a magic everyone gets paid enough to fund whatever period of SSP you think is appropriate and spends it on that specifically tree either. There seems to be a distinct lack of foliage related solutions for this specific issue. Weird that.

Your second paragraph doesn't bear any relevance to what I wrote.

@ExpectMore 6 weeks paid? What are your little ones doing while you're on MN?

@ExpectMore
So are we in for another 6 weeks of your bullshit? 😱
P.S.
Start your own thread "How to become rich & glib like me".
You've done it and have all the answers! We paupers could ask for tips for our particular situations and then claw our way out just like you did! You could even create "ExpectMore" charitable advice foundation and work towards changing the economic systems all around the world. I beg you - do it! Start today!

Well it’s either a wind-up or a willful refusal to understand the reality of life on a low income. Grim either way really!

The whole “I’ve struggled before and worked hard to get where I am” argument is often just faux ignorance masking disdain for people who are less better off financially.

Expecting someone on minimum wage to somehow make financial provision for being ill and surviving on SSP completely ignores the reality of living wage to wage. Afterall, it's easy to lecture people about personal responsibility when you’re looking back on your own struggles from a more comfortable pos

@PeasOff ExpectMore is totally on the wind up. No one can be that clueless.

Cool, when does that start and people start paying more for services like social care, retail and hospitality so that those workers can fund their own lifestyles with wages that afford that?

Or do we just not have those low paid roles at all?

You haven't answered my question...

If someone is already struggling financially how do you suggest they save enough for sickness provision?

Ok apologies, I should have said £375 rather than £300… it doesn’t change the concept: it’s a small amount on top of a daily fee.

I don't know why I'm always shocked by how closed minded and lacking in empathy MN posters can be, but for some reason I still am 🤷‍♀️

Yes, people with infectious diseases (covid or otherwise) should stay home or otherwise reduce transmission of said disease if they can.

£75 is a lot of money for a lot of people (especially those on NMW)!! If staying home would cost them that much then it's totally fair enough for people to prioritise putting food on the table for their family/paying the bills. (Unless they have smallpox and work with vulnerable children obvs.)

I saw your suggestion about the £300 provision but that wouldn't subsidise a week of SSP for someone on minimum wage and some people can't spare any money. If someone is already struggling financially how do you suggest they save enough for sickness provision?

I'm more than familiar with the 40%+ tax bracket!

I’ll remind you that the state doesn’t have a magic money tree. It just spends other people’s money that it collects in the form of taxes.

So your state option would be better framed as people just fund their own lifestyles themselves (rather than need an inefficient state system to constantly redistribute money from others).

You've done that thing where you mix up what you would prefer people to do with what they actually need to do.

People do not, in fact, need to ensure they can cover sufficient unpaid/SSP leave to allow them to observe your ideas of necessary home isolation when ill, and indeed some of them will be unable to. Which means they'll carry on as they are. Your options are the state paying for people to stay at home more when ill, or them going out. There's no secret third thing.

But it’s a known circumstance that should be accounted for? Never mind a lot less than the 40%+ higher rate tax payers pay to provision a safety net for people to take time off.

Privilege implies unearned advantage. It’s certainly not that.

I have worked hard to get to this point in my life and worked hard this year already to pay for it.

My children have been and will be in childcare 5 days a week due to my work (and having no nearby family support) so it’s my way of creating a way to spend quality time with them.

That’s an earned set of circumstances. Not a privilege granted through some divine intervention.

I agree with this. Someone I know in her fifties caught Covid and has been left with long Covid, she was self employed (a physiotherapist) and has had to close her clinic and stop work entirely. She hasn’t been able to work since, and is still struggling, with an huge impact on her financially and emotionally from no longer having her career.
She was slim, fit, very active and healthy etc beforehand. It’s terrible.
It took me six months to properly recover from Covid, and nobody yet knows the long term impact of it on our health including our brain health. It is not “just a cold”.
I always test if I get symptoms, and I would isolate if sick. I realise some people are forced to go into work, but in any other situation I think it’s totally wrong to mix with other people.
I avoid other people as much as possible when I have a cold, I’m certainly not going to spread Covid around and risk killing someone.

Looked at as a whole for the week, it's just over 75% less than the weekly working wage someone on minimum wage working 40hrs per week would get. So a massive difference.

If someone had a week off and got SSP and then returned to work as normal it would be an overall reduction of about 19% of their whole monthly wage.

YANBU.

The real issue stems around shit employers, how much time you can have off and sick pay or lack of.

Large companies often offer sick pay but have limited incidents of sick leave. 1 day equals 1 incident, yet one 1 week could still count as 1 incident if it is the same bout of illness.

I was sick on a Monday and called in, 1 strike, I dragged myself to work on Tuesday like a martyr (shouldn’t have), I felt so ill I called in sick on the Wednesday and that was another strike. It tipped me over my limit of 5 incidents for the year, effectively I got penalised for trying to go to work. Had I taken the full week it would have counted as 1 incident not 2! Make that make sense.

My husband runs business and he tells his employees to stay home when they are unwell so they don’t make everyone else in the office unwell too. They still get paid and come back when they are better. I think employees should apply common sense and decency, but so few seldom do.

I will now take maximum time off if I’m ill as I’m incentivised to do so, I do think it’s selfish to knowingly put others at risk of infection too. One of my colleagues is a clatty cow and she’s forever coming in coughing and sneezing, she makes everyone in a 10 yard vicinity ill on the regular. I can’t stand it! Why should I be forced to sit next to that?

I appreciate being self employed equals no work, no money so the above doesn’t apply. Fortunately, most self employed people I know work in solitary conditions or outdoors so the chance of spreading infection to others is slim.