'Soon a seperation in society will come, the risk takers, the risk adverse and the fearful well.
Excluding vunerable shielding groups.
The risk takers will return to work, return their children to school and when social/hospitality venues open will begin to use them. They will take the risk of covid to better their living experience.'
I will NOT take the risk of something that could easily kill me or (more likely and perhaps worse) leave me a respiratory invalid for the rest of my life in order to 'better my living experience'. Getting covid would do the opposite!
And what people ignore is that there AREN'T just the two groups: the vulnerable shielded, and the fearful (or fearless) well. There are a LOT of us who are at increased risk, but not enough to be in the shielding category. There are others who are at low risk for themselves but have caring or helping responsibilities for people who are in the shielding category.
I am NOT saying that no one should go back to work, etc. (and the so-called key workers have been doing so from the start, often in the very jobs that are potentially the riskiest). I fully realize that economic ruin could kill people just as much as the disease - why else is life expectancy so much lower in developing than developed countries?!
And I realize that I am lucky to be in a job where I'm able to WFH.
All I'm asking is that 'risk takers' should take into account that there are plenty of people - and not only the ULTRA-vulnerable - who cannot afford to take the same risks as some others, and not sneer at us as having no reason to be fearful.
I do not want an attitude where everyone who seeks to continue on furlough for a while, or to be reassigned to a job category where they can WFH or at least practice social distancing, is treated as a 'scrounger'.
I do not want an attitude where people who continue for a while to refuse party invitations or to get very physically close to friends or relatives are treated as selfish and cowardly, and subjected to emotional blackmail.
As someone who has always had mild disabilities, sufficiently serious to prevent me from doing many things as easily as some others, but not sufficiently serious to be entitled to much assistance, I have suffered badly at times from people taking the attitude, explicitly or implicitly, that 'either you are totally disabled and then you can't complain if you're excluded, or you're not disabled and then you have no right to any help or accommodation'. I REALLY don't want to see the same sort of attitude applied to Covid vulnerability!
I know that the same attitude takes place in the opposite direction - 'why don't people just go on universal credit?'; and elsewhere excessive readiness to condemn people who are obeying all the rules but not doing so in exactly the way that conforms to their expectations (e.g. shopping more than once a week). But that doesn't justify condemning non-risk-takers. It shouldn't be happening in either direction. Either way, it's too much like 'Let them eat cake' -regardless of their financial vulnerability, physical vulnerability, or both!