AIBU to refuse to be held prisoner at work?

[KitKat1985]

www.theargus.co.uk/news/18227689.fresh-suspected-coronavirus-case-nurses-mill-view-hospital-held-quarantine/?fbclid=IwAR3IShE3kLzzULNr8qVGu-31Bxf_n4YbOVlDL1mXfm6CgQAdK1-XtTXRFCo

I'm a nurse in this Trust. The nurses involved have apparently been refused the right to leave the building and have bee there since yesterday because they treated a patient with suspected coronavirus. This in my opinion is complete overkill and they are essentially holding the staff like prisoners. Even if they were unlucky enough to get coronavirus, they won't immediately get ill and be contagious anyway, so why not just let them go home (maybe with facemasks etc on) and quarantine them there?! There's no way anyone is keeping me from going home from work.

I’ve since realised the nutty posts on here are by the paranoid on the preppers thread, where there are suggestions that buying oxygen monitoring machines for home use and upping doctors and nurse working hours to 70 per week are apparently reasonable measures to now take. It’s basically arguing with nutters so I’m going to back out of this thread.

You keep ignoring the majoirty of posters, like myself, who post sensibly, choosing to focus on the few who are less reasonable

We must be reading different threads in that case, because while there are some like yours that seem reasonable and at least seem to have some amount of empathy, the majority that I can see are either, at best, unpleasantly dimissive of OP's concerns (the 'just do your job' lot) or, at worst actively hostile (the 'she should be sacked' entitled sociopath lot).

I may go back and have a count. It isn't impossible that, like everyone else, I give more weight to those that seem more reasonable / agree woth me

@IheartNiles

what a dickhead thing to say. Isn’t it a wonder that anyone keeps working in public services with lovely attitudes like yours on the receiving end.

That's why I got out.

If there was ever, as you so eloquently put it "a dickhead thing to say", it was the OPs original post, stating that nobody was going to stop them leaving, when quite obviously somebody can.

I'm sorry @IheartNiles, I'm afraid you can't leave the thread, we're going to have to keep you here for a little while just to be sure you're not going to spread your non-conformist opinions.

By the end of page 1 more than half of the posts were explaining why they thought OP was being unreasonable, not conemnig, explaining.

The other half was equally split between those agreeing with her and those suggesting she wasn't a nurse, or shouldn't be!

So I'll stand by that post... most posters are being reasonable and are explaining why!

@Notthemessiah please don’t it’s very painful to have to listen to their nonsense

flu is serious virus that usually is self-limiting, but still kills thousands of people each year, despite a vaccination programme. Coronovirus is similar in this respect (except that there's no vaccine)
With all due respect, this misunderstands the seriousness of coronavirus. Coronavirus is at least ten times more fatal than the flu, more contagious, and some people appear to be left with lasting consequences after recovery. NOBODY has any immunity, unlike the flu. That means half of the country could catch it at the same time and be stuck at home while the economy grinds to a halt and food runs out. The NHS will be overwhelmed and more people will die due to lack of medical care. It’s a very serious situation and not like the flu at all. I worry for our future if people aren’t taking it seriously because they think it’s similar to the flu.

For those doubting @KitKat1985, it's clear from previous posts she has been here a few years.

I think it's very understandable not to want to be parted from your DC - whatever the cause, so I see where you are coming from. Anyone who has had (for example) an emergency hospital admission where you can't go home to your DC knows how hard it is, I have been on lots of threads where people have been sympathetic to those in situations like this. I don't know why we expect nurses not to feel like this too! Normal human people, not always self sacrificing paragons of virtue - allowed to moan like the rest of us!

Having said that I think it's fine to express worries/fears and people be sympathetic but I do think also we have to, and should expect nurses to have a better understanding of the reasons why people are being separated from your DC, and I think this is why there is lack of sympathy on this thread. We do also expect HCPs to want to act for the greater good (for want of a better expression) and make the sacrifice without as much moaning as they of all people should appreciate the necessity behind it. Also we don't expect the old "but it's just like the flu" when even people without any medical training know this just isn't the case.

I think this is why this thread has gone this way, as OP comes across as wilful and goady in to their denial of medical reality. If you had stuck to your worries about being parted from your DC, being on the front line etc people would be much kinder.

I also (and I promise I'm not being goady, it's a genuine question!) wonder who will be looking after patients if so many HCPs are quarantined?

Is the number in the UK still only eight? Out of what.... 60 million?

And so what? Not long before there were eight in the UK, there was one. So there was an 800% rise in confirmed cases in a couple of days.

You may scoff at ‘only 8’ but if strict controls aren’t enforced now, you keep multiplying 8 x 800% increase every week and see how quickly the numbers rise to thousands then millions.

All the bleating about what the op will hypothetically do for childcare and how her kids will be affected...when it boils down to it, that’s tough shit. A few, a few hundred, even a few thousand quarantined and put to immense inconvenience for 2 weeks is a lot better than doing nothing and risking the worst case scenario alternative.

With all due respect, this misunderstands the seriousness of coronavirus. Coronavirus is at least ten times more fatal than the flu, more contagious, and some people appear to be left with lasting consequences after recovery. NOBODY has any immunity, unlike the flu. That means half of the country could catch it at the same time and be stuck at home while the economy grinds to a halt and food runs out. The NHS will be overwhelmed and more people will die due to lack of medical care. It’s a very serious situation and not like the flu at all. I worry for our future if people aren’t taking it seriously because they think it’s similar to the flu.

This. Flu is bad. However, millions of people in multiple cities are not put into lockdown because of flu, and our government don't pass laws like the Health Protection (Coronavirus) 2020 quarantine law, because of flu.

I can't repeat this often enough - the death rate of 2% is only an estimate until more is known. The WHO are clear it's an estimate. During the SARS outbreak the WHO also estimated the death rate to be 2% - it turned out to be 9.6%. This current virus has been sequenced to be 97% the same genetically to SARS. The cases resulting in death Vs the cases confirmed recovered in China is 20/80. Many many cases need ICU.

Compare this to the flu death rate of 0.01%. This is not the flu OP. Which is why measures are being taken. Problematic as it may be, these quarantine laws have been passed for good reason and people should realise how serious this is.

@AlternativePerspective You do realise 20% of those infected require oxygen or ventilation? No one has immunity. It’s not just previously frail people dying. Healthy people are. Doctors are.
It’s people who think it’s no big deal and don’t improve their hand washing after catching the bus etc like you who spread it.

Even if it’s just 2%!dying, that’s fucking huge. Imagine out if 100 people you knkw, 2 healthy ones die and 20 need ventilators. Where do you think they’ll go? Now if the forecast is correct and 20 out of those 100 die? And you don’t get immunity and can get it again?

So everyone. Please wash your fucking hands as many times in a day as possible

Exactly, Peridot passion . China 'only' had 45 cases on Jan 16th, and had had six weeks to build up to those 45. Not even a month down the line and it's 40,000. That is what quarantine is trying to prevent.

Flights should also be stopped from the region urgently as well as many other nations have already done.

All the frothers having a go at Op might be better directing their anger to why the government is still allowing flights to land from China...

All the bleating about what the op will hypothetically do for childcare and how her kids will be affected...when it boils down to it, that’s tough shit.

and no doubt tip-tapping away on your keyboard, you'd say that you would happily do this yourself whilst knowing that

A. It never will

and

B. You wouldn't really when it came down to it

All the bleating about what the op will hypothetically do for childcare and how her kids will be affected...when it boils down to it, that’s tough shit. A few, a few hundred, even a few thousand quarantined and put to immense inconvenience for 2 weeks is a lot better than doing nothing and risking the worst case scenario alternative.

I dont think it's entirely fair to just say tough shit. I would abide by a quarantine, even if it meant staying at work, but I have support around me. I dont think its unreasonable to ask what would happen to children and other dependants in a quarantine scenario.

I don't see how we can claim to have an accurate picture of the mortality rate from Corona virus, after all we don't know how many people are really infected we only know the ones that have identified themselves as being infected

there will be lots of people who have been exposed to this virus but have only developed mild or no symptoms

It’s funny isn’t it that members of the general public are being sent home to self isolate yet posters on here think the rules should be different for nurses.

The OP has pointed this out but posters are to busy frothing at the mouth.

As for all those saying the op should be struck off or should leave the profession, don’t be so ridiculous. No wonder nurses are leaving the NHS in droves with these sort of attitudes.

I dont think it's entirely fair to just say tough shit. I would abide by a quarantine, even if it meant staying at work, but I have support around me. I dont think its unreasonable to ask what would happen to children and other dependants in a quarantine scenario.

I can answer part of it from personal experience. Unrelated others, teachers, nursery nurses, neighbours, etc will stand up, some asked, some paid, others not.

I know this is the case as I was one of them, during the SARS outbreak! I know what was put in placed for us, including the chaildcare for those with kids and no support - like the couple who were quarantined, one of whom had SARS, and their kids were taken in by neighbours with another school teacher helping get them to school and back. They spoke to them every day and whilst the kids were frightened, they didn't lose contact.

I spoke to DH every day, a neighbour I didn't even know fed my chickens, even watered my plants (DH was working away at the time).

Enough people are kind enough to put themselves out...

It’s funny isn’t it that members of the general public are being sent home to self isolate yet posters on here think the rules should be different for nurses. I don't know that that is true, or the circumstances of how the decisons were made, so haven't commented on that aspect.

If anyone has links....

@Aureum with respect that's not strictly true. Flu mutates into different and new strains each year, so every year there's a new strain that no one has any immunity to (which is why flu vaccines are an annual thing). The different strains of flu massively effect the mortality rate, so it's very hard to give an average % death rate from flu. For example the 2008-2009 strain was particularly bad and resulted in an estimated 13,000 UK deaths. vk.ovg.ox.ac.uk/vk/influenza-flu In an average year flu kills 250,000 - 500,000 people worldwide each year. And yet no-one pays any attention to that or goes into hysteria about quarantine etc to exposed staff because it happens every year, and there isn't the media exposure of it like you have of coronavirus.

No-one (including me) is saying coronavirus isn't a serious threat to public health. But you need to have precautions that are sensible and allow normal life to carry on to some extent. Otherwise you might as well just halt all travel into the UK, and insist everyone self quarantines at home and doesn't go to work for the next 2 weeks. But you can't do that as it just isn't practical, and nor for me is being away from my children for 2 weeks when I have no-one else who is in a position to look after them.

I'm bowing out at this point. Mainly because I'm tired of re-iterating that I'm talking about staff being allowed to self-quarantine at home rather than at work, (like most other exposed people seem to have been), rather than talking about staff being allowed to go about their usual daily routines and risking infecting people. But most people seem to have missed that point repeatedly.

Don’t blame you op they are ignoring your point about self quarantining in favour of giving you a good kicking.

It seems that those with a low risk of exposure have been allowed to self isolate, while those who are a high risk are being forcibly quarantined. The nurses who have been quarantined are high risk because they treated a suspected victim who had just flown back from Hong Kong. So they’re not making a difference between how they quarantine nurses vs everyone else. They’re making a difference between how they quarantine high risk vs low risk people.