to think a lot of people are going to look for any excuse not to go back into work when restrictions start to be lifted?

[wakeupitsabeautifulmorning]

Already seeing it on a few threads this morning. I think a lot of people have quite enjoyed being off work and will try their best not to rush back. Or am I being sceptical?

I’ve already lost MIL and PIL to this virus. I do not want to go back to work too soon, my own father lives with us and the fear of losing him also is very very real

Not really, the furlough scheme will end, employees will be called back and those that refuse will be in breach of their employment contracts and sacked I expect.

Agree. The current scheme lasts until the end of June.

There will be plenty of people eager to replace anybody who doesn't want to work.

Not really, the furlough scheme will end, employees will be called back and those that refuse will be in breach of their employment contracts and sacked I expect.

Agree. The current scheme lasts until the end of June.

There will be plenty of people eager to replace anybody who doesn't want to work.

^
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Yep. The penny is starting to drop for some of my fellow team members. (manufacturing company)

I am also surprised at the level of fear.

This is partly about demographic. More poor people are dying from the virus, more BAME people are dying. If you live in certain communities you are likely to know more people who have died or become seriously incapacitated. Some parts of the country have been hit worse than others. Some professions have been hit worse than others. All these things will affect your level of fear.

Not all fear is irrational: I have several friends who have developed heart trouble or similar after covid, people who have been ill for 5 or 6 weeks now and still aren't functioning. New evidence has come out of the US of the virus causing blood clots even in previously healthy patients. These are genuine concerns.

If you are aware of your underlying health conditions you are more likely to worry than if you have the same health conditions but don't know it. Like me and my brother: I've known since my 20s that I had a tendency to high blood pressure and taken due care of myself, he didn't know until he had the stroke just after his 50th birthday. Of course before his stroke he would have thought of himself as safer than me.

As for trusting SAGE, I would want to know what there is about the composition of SAGE that makes them more trustworthy than the medical experts of other countries, especially now that it has emerged that Dominic Cummings had the power to invite non-medical participants to meetings.

@Barmaid101 yours is the point I was trying to make, those who are being asked to go back now say from companies who didn’t need to close or furlough staff who are now re opening, my DH being one of them. He works in agricultural engineers building farm sheds and they had to close due to concrete places closing and suppliers etc, these are now reopening and so he is going back to work and I’ve never felt more relieved that he has a job to go back to. He works alone so is socially distancing and the rest is really just a skeleton staff to keep things ticking over

It's definitely true but I think they are the minority.

I'm back to work tomorrow after 9 days of (isolation) and I can't wait to back.

The furlough scheme lasts until the end of June. I suspect most of those people will not have jobs to go back to. So of course they will want furlough to last as long as possible as it means some income.

The others left, most will go back to work unless they are medically vulnerable and the job puts them at real risk. I suspect most GPs will simply sign these employees off sick.

Employers will know who are the skivers who don't want to go back because people like this are always the same at work. But maybe my industry, but my experience is that skiving is pretty rare and those who skive are quickly got rid off. And I have worked in a few different places. I do wonder what industries people work for where there are multiple people doing very little a some claim on MN, because it is not my experience of work.

Also the TV news were reporting today that a high number of patients hospitalised with this are left with long term kidney damage. That is very serious. I would be terrified of that.

Yes, the long term damage for those who have it badly seems pretty awful. In fact one reason London Nightingale may not have been used to much as most in intensive care needed kidney and heart doctors - the kind of concentration of experts you get at the other London main hospitals so not much point shipping them out to a place "just" with ventilators.

However we all have to take risks. In its day TB was a big killer (the white man's plague it was called). It nearly saw off my grandfather (youngest of 10 children ) who at 12 had to spend a whole year in bed (he read and read and read and never went back to school after but self educated) and he fought it off although was slightly weak for life - that probably saved his life as he was not fit enough to fight in WWI so manned a gas works at night and worked in his day job all day (exhausting in itself but at least he didn't die in the trenches in France).

When I was a child we knew some people with polio but all in the 60s had the vaccine as far as I remember and were so very pleased now we could be protected against it and measles - I had that vaccine too in the 1960s in the UK. People use to move to Switzerland and some hospitals in the UK were even out doors with beds for children outdoors as fresh air helped the lung issues of those with TB. Then we got antibiotics during WWII (which saved my uncle's brother's wife's life although she could never have children - I think she was one of the first to get antibiotics and lived into her 90s).

There are going to be some difficult legal issues over who keeps their job, who gets made redundant and who is chosen but HR are pretty good at making a clear case for those kinds of choices.

I can't wait to get back in some ways. I own a tiny fabric shop and had been trading 11 weeks at lockdown. So it's been really, really hard, and I don't know how long it'll be until I actually start to make enough money to pay rent, wages etc. Yes, we've had a small business grant, and yes my two ladies have been furloughed, and yes that's a huge help. But it will be months, if not years, before I know whether I can really keep trading. My shop is so tiny that I can't be 1m from a customer, let alone 2. I really, really miss it and all my lovely customers. I go in most days to check on post, pick up stock for the website, and generally keep it tidy, and then I sob when I get home. Don't get me wrong, I love my husband and I love my daughters, but I just can't wait to get my business back.

SewingMum46 bless you sweetheart 😘💐

@xenia And we all decide what risks are worth taking. I don't drink alcohol and drive, some people do take that risk.
I had family die during the 1918 flu epidemic. During the polio epidemic some of my family self isolated as much as they possibly could. They understood how important it was to try and not catch this disease.

I'll own up. I'm not particularly scared of going back but if I'm offered the opportunity to stay away longer I'll take it. It's lovely, taking a full salary, to do "what I can", not having to get up for the commute, having a potter in the garden at lunchtime and being finished in time to exercise and cook a proper family dinner.

I won't fabricate excuses but I may point out that the recommendation is still to wfh if possible (if necessary and if it is).

Among the vulnerable I work with I think there will be a mixture of those who will want to return regardless, those who will do everything they can to avoid work, because that what they did before and those who are genuinely scared.

I've been working g in a supermarket all through this and to be stuck at home would do my head in. If I had a job where I work from home I think now I would be wanting to go back

Too cynical. This could be a daily mail headline, in fact it probably will.

www.qwghlm.co.uk/toys/dailymail/ - hours of fun. Generate your own DM headline.

And if you're REALLY bored, there's even a story generator at charlieharvey.org.uk/daily_mail/

Not that I'm saying the DM is utterly predictable and formulaic, or anything. There are others. These are just two I know of.