To expect people ill with Covid stay home?

Covid has been a huge success for mental gymnastics.

I’ve heard teachers say there was no school for two years. Teachers who were teaching full schools. I’ve heard people saying we were locked down for two years, conflating actual lockdown with periods where people would stay home if contagious. By that definition, we’ve been locked down for decades with chickenpox.

Numerous people, organisations, politicians and media remove long covid from the equation.

Overly stringent criteria for vaccination, whilst binning over £1bn of vaccines. One of the most stringent set of criteria in the western world. Different assessment criteria used to determine access to flu vaccination compared to covid vaccination. Some people still believe (or state they do) that there was no benefit to children of vaccination, that it was only for others. Long covid is ignored for assessing vaccination benefits, and vaccination was still found to benefit children.

Conflating the end of the emergency phase of the pandemic with the end of the pandemic. Deciding it would be one mild/like a cold/winter only etc based on what exactly?! Well after all this was decided and well after children were told to attend school with covid, many seem oblivious to the doubling of children with long covid in the space of a year.

I’ve seen newspaper articles conflate the fraction of in hospital testing with the number of covid cases.

A covid inquiry where abysmal infection control was still defended by the NHS, whilst recommendations go to the public inquiry graveyard.

The high number of nosocomial infections, affecting health outcomes, a proportion leading to death or disability.

A prime minister apologising for ignoring long covid as though that had since changed.

Discussions on the increases in disability and people out of work with absolutely no mention of the hundreds of thousands having to stop work due to long covid.

The increased sickness levels in NHS staff and teachers.

A framing that “bad” covid is in the past, that long covid was something people got in the first couple of years, rather than an increasing risk with each infection.

Shining a light on how a proportion of politicians, media and the population poorly value “vulnerable” people. It only affects the “vulnerable” whilst ignoring those who live or work with vulnerable people, staying silent on all those who have become vulnerable purely because of one of their covid infections, acting as though each wave doesn’t bring on a raft of health issues for a proportion of people affected.

People arbitrarily adapting the definition of “rare” when discussing covid. 1 in 2,000 is rare. Long covid disproportionately affects women. People assume it’s “rare” in children. If only one in 2,000 children (even previously healthy ones) was affected by long covid, even if we just counted those children who didn’t recover after two years, there would only be a fraction of the children there are right now with long covid.

Living with covid, but ignoring so many of the impacts of the way we live with it, acting as though there’s nothing between current strategy and a lockdown.

Then there are those who have their own issues, like belittling people who try not to spread it, which is a level of weirdness I’m not qualified to get my head around.

There are so many things, much more than this brain dump. We could have addressed this pandemic and helped mitigate some impacts of the next one, plan to reduce the costs on health and to the economy. A disease currently costing billions and billions a year, screwing up the health of millions and poorly bloody prepared for the next pandemic.

Jesus. Everyone is so entrenched with their view here. Yes of course going out and spreading uour germs to others who are likley to be more affected is selfish. But ALSO expecting people to take leave from work when they need to get paid to afford to feed their kids is ALSO selfish.
I dont understand how everyone can't see bith sides.
People who are unwell should avoid others as much as they can. Thats it really. If you CAN stay home you should and if you cant try and do your best to not soread, maybe open windows, wear a mask if you can etc. If you are vulnerable you should get your vaccines if you can, wear masks in crowded spaces in the winter (bc even if everyone is doing their best some people will have no synptoms) but accept that some people CANT just stay home and dont assume theyre sociopathic when they dont!!

Hmmm I’m not sure on how I feel on this, I mean I also hate being around someone with an obvious cold, I mean I really HATE it, but at the same time, in this case, they were both obviously feeling quite well, so why would they stay home if they weren’t unwell? That doesn’t sound very fair to expect.

In my experience, people will go out with a really obvious nasty cold and that horrifies me but they still do it, so I don’t see how I could expect a person feeling ok to stay in.

No. Not eugenics. No not only for the privileged and wealthy. I’m promoting sensible life choices. Not a wild concept when you think about it… one in which many people already do. I couldn’t afford a 3rd kid so stopped at 2. Simple

Agreed, understood, and sorry to hear of your families troubles.

Your case is however atypical and an example of a myriad of excuses people rattle off to justify why they should be entitled to others people’s money and couldn’t possibly have provisioned for their own change in circumstances themselves when in most cases, the issue is they just didn’t plan in advance and are entitled expecting others to pickup the bill

The thing with covid is thst the way a person is affected seems much more variable than with a cold.
My mother and father-law both died from covid , and ive seen several people suffering with long covid so in some ways i wouldnt say it was necessarily 'just like a cold'

Like I said, it doesn’t make any difference how you came to be comfortable. The point is that you have no empathy or understanding for those who are uncomfortable.

You seem to be under the impression that you’re the only person who’s ever worked hard.

Surely you’re aware that in some industries, working hard earns one a good wage with perks like 6 weeks holiday to hang out with the kids. Whereas in some industries, working hard just gets you minimum wage and no sick pay.

No clearly not, why would I think I’m the only person to have worked hard? It’s the same old recipe that many millions have applied the world over.

Yes agreed and understood. The solution: change industry!

Leave those industries and jobs to people just out of school, with no families to support, who just need to get some experience of work. Stop expecting them to find a 4 bed house, 3 kids, and numerous holidays to Benidorm.

No young school leaves would do my job. Hard enough to get anyone to do care work.

True. But the elderly man with early memory problems was coughing and gave me a hug....

You've confused should and is. There isn't a magic should tree. Unfortunately, the general population doesn't consider you enough of a moral leader to follow your teachings on this matter, so we are where we are. Either better sick pay or out being infectious. Those are the choices.

In an ideal world, people with respiratory viruses like common colds, flu and covid should stay away from work, especially if they can work from home. Why spread it around? Workplaces are too short sighted with this kind of thing.

However, I think this far on you're wrong to isolate COVID. Its now just one of a myriad of seasonal viruses, all of which can be nasty.

Well exactly, plus the fact that good care is given by people who have experience, knowledge and life experience, which everyone wants for their own family members and vulnerable people in general.

Until you start saying that you are struggling on the wages and can't save for illness or a rainy day and then well, go get a better job because it's all your own fault because of your life choices and the school leavers can do yours, with no experience, no knowledge and no life experience.

Well, they should.

lol you typify the economically illiterate: where is the better sick pay money coming from….? Other people maybe as there’s no magic money tree….? So rather than have some inefficient distribution system… just provision oneself.

And again, why do people need to be financially incentivised to make the right choices?

I think you should stay home if you can. I got COVID after someone yacked their way through a yoga class I was so annoyed.

@ExpectMore Are you the sole earner for your family? Main earner? Or have you achieved this comfortable lifestyle by yourself alone?

If your view is that there's no funds for sick pay, that's fine, but what it means is more people going around ill. Failure to understand this binary is actual illiteracy. You will not foot stamp your way out of that.

I'm not really arsed enough to bother with anyone's moral laments. It doesn't matter why people need to be incentivised, for the purposes of our discussion. It only matters that they do. You can have whatever reason for that you like, not my concern.

You’re not being unreasonable but people are selfish and as you will see on here there’s a lot of entitled people who have no experience of chronic illness or disability so they think it’s their right to infect everyone as they haven’t nearly died from a viral infection!

The people saying it’s a cold particularly annoy me as 1) It’s not and 2) If you have any illness you shouldn’t be willingly spreading it!

It’s irrelevant, but seeing as you ask. Main earner (by about 3x). And I’ve never had nor never will have inheritance (as my parents passed away when I was relatively young).

The fact people need incentivised to do the right thing is shocking and one reason our country is going down the drain. A set of decent morals and ethics is all we need to get back on the right path

@ExpectMore Absolutely relevant. Some of us have had to manage on one wage alone with no additional support whatsoever.
I can imagine your views on single parents...

No idea what your last sentence means.

How easy is it to change industry do you think? To speak plainly, some of us aren’t particularly bright, and finding a well paying job is quite a lot more difficult if you aren’t particularly bright. Not being very bright is just bad luck.

Speaking of luck, I thought it was interesting that you said your being comfortable was achieved ‘to an extent’ by hard work and perseverance. That sounds like an acknowledgment that hard work alone is not always enough. I wonder what the other factors involved were that made up the full extent.

Best of luck with that one. In the meantime, maybe start a fund or something.

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