Shielding chat continues - thread 2

[AuntieSocia1]

Shiny new thread for anyone shielding.

You can vent/moan/cry/chat/lurk whatever you need.

I looked on the British Society of Gastroentrology for advice : if I move from shielded to clinically vulnerable, it does not recommend working in a patient facing role boom there goes my career.

I know it is advisory but I have never felt so trapped

Well that’s a shit way of trailing an announcement

Anyone would think that extreme clinical vulnerability also meant slightly dense and not worth proper notifications

It is a really shit way @ivampire

By coincidence they’re just talking about shielding on The One Show, hmm 🤔

Ah yes @LucyTrainsDragons it’s all ok because we get loaaaads of support!

It’s a softener so it’s not such a bolt from the blue tomorrow I reckon. I clicked on the reporters profile on twitter - she’s got a vested interest in this too. She’s shielding with a double lung transplant.

Missed the One Show (ok I turned over as usual!) What did they say?

They said virus rates low , expect Boris to say we can do more , did I mention we get loads of support?

Amazing (in a not very good way) if it's gone from "Can't come out until it's level one and there is a vaccine" to "Nah...bored with you all now. Bugger off out and back to work with you. Tough luck if you get it"

But then, we were really only kept in to save the NHS, not us.

Exactly , that’s sums it up. Was lovely to see the little boy no longer needing to shielding and feeding the ducks though.

Are we still at level 4? If so, why would the shielded people be told that, from July, they can simply go out and do what they like. More than 230 deaths were announced again today, I just feel really uneasy about it all. As the parent of two shielded DCs, I know how important it is for their mental health to get back to normal but not at the expense of their health.

The mental health support irritated me , has anyone been offered any?
I just don’t understand what the government is thinking @Goldistheanswer I think now that the nhs has capacity the government don’t see is a need to ask people to shield. Shielding was never about saving individual lives.

I recall the mental health support info on the back of the welsh letter referred you to age cymru. Sure they'd be very helpful for me in my early thirties... 🙄

Sadly I agree ToothFairy. Anyone currently shielded isn’t the priority to our government, it was just only ever political. What do I tell my , when since March I’ve stressed how important it is to observe shielding guidance, but then suddenly it all disappears? They will still have the significant health problems, the potential to be very ill and yet from July they’ll have to cope with crowds in shops, parks etc and the ever increasing likelihood that the infection rate will start increasing as a result of lockdown easing.

That would be amusing if it wasn’t so serious Beyond. I hope your shielding has been ok. You probably only have to wait 30 plus years for MH support! 😙

@Pebble21uk odd, the guidance has been pretty consistent that you can cancel your food box by reregistering on gov.uk and answering yes to question about are you able to access essential supplies at the moment...and if you do that, any preexisting access to supermarket priority slots wouldn’t change.

@Goldistheanswer looks like this info is stating from the end of July currently but who knows. Why there couldn’t have been an announcement today god only knows!

I agree Lucy if there is an update, they owe it to people in the shielded group (who often feel vulnerable) to provide it as soon as possible. Not drip fed by a Twitter user.

I've been trying to access non covid related mental health support and it's a chuffing nightmare - trying to navigate the system and cope with really dismissive workers
actively makes everything worse.

I was getting a weekly check-you're-not-dead phone call from our local wellbeing service for the duration of lockdown; the person doing the calls texted three weeks back to say they were taking a few weeks off and didn't know when they'd be back.
The shielding service at one point asked if I have somebody to talk to every day; when I said no they just moved onto asking if I need a food parcel...

I was trying to work out how they can pick a date in the future and say ‘yep, off you go, it’s safe now’ when they don’t know what the rate of infections will be then. But then I read @FuzzyPuffling’s post and realised that this really isn’t about our safety. We are very much expendable.
Looks like a few bigger journalists have picked it up on twitter so they’ll definitely have to confirm or deny tomorrow.

Apologies for linking to the Sun but they're running it

www.thesun.co.uk/news/11878786/two-million-vulnerable-brits-no-shield-coronavirus-july/

Telegraph and High Pym from BBC too

Why do they always do this though?

Let the rumours or updates trickle through and then they follow up! There was plenty of opportunity to talk about this tonight.

Don’t they realise how important this is to us!

They made such a HUGE thing about the shielded at the beginning of lockdown.

No doubt that the press are told what questions to ask, not one mentioned shielding tonight and now suddenly Hugh Pymm Tweets about it. Is this in preparation for tomorrow?

Call me cynical.

Might be different as I'm in Wales, but I turned down my food box from the beginning but it hasn't stopped me having vulnerable supermarket delivery slots.

Our council has been good for MH support too. This week a well-being package is being sent out to all shielders, with MH advice, ideas for exercise and craft activities from the local museum. They are also reopening the county libraries soon, and shielders get priority for deliveries by the mobile library.

Is, aren't you in Newport the same as me? I haven't seen anything about a well being package? (though I haven't looked to be fair, but news usually pops up on my fb)