To think the Covid 19 crisis has revealed a scourge of ableism and ageism in our society?

[Madhairday]

I see it on every thread about lockdown. The elderly (over 60s) and vulnerable (of whatever age) are again and again dehumanised and cast as less worthy of help than the young and the fit, who should be prioritised because they have longer and healthier life left before them. Phrases like one I saw just now about how these people will die soon anyway so why are children suffering?

I am really tired of being othered. I am really tired of being made the reason for the suffering endured by many in lockdown. Really tired of being told I should be grateful others are suffering for me. Just really tired.

Before all this I'd never have dreamed these attitudes would come to light, but in the past months I've been repeatedly punched in the gut with some of the words thrown out against the aged and the disabled and chronically ill. It seems that we truly live in a world where not all lives are equal, where in fact many are worth less than others.

Lots of people are suffering due to lockdown and the effects will continue to cause suffering. The shielded know this and are affected by it as much as everyone else. I have lost my income as well as not being able to touch another human being for nearly 3 months. Many of my shielded friends mental health is shot, too, yet on threads about mental health the shielded are yet again othered and in fact blamed for the mental health issues of those not shielding.

Many are suffering in lockdown. We know this. We know the NHS has cut off much treatment (largely because the spread of covid in hospitals is so uncontainable that they cannot risk bringing already vulnerable people onto wards as covid would exacerbate conditions and kill in greater numbers, as well as the risk for frontline staff, yet many people here seem to think the NHS has narrowed down 'because only covid deaths are important to them' )

I am deeply concerned at the level of ableism and ageism I see on here every single day at the moment. If we said someone else's life mattered less because they were black or gay we would rightly be torn to pieces, but so many are saying lives are less due to age and vulnerability, and this is going unchallenged, again and again and again.

I see it. I see it every day. I feel it deep down, a sense of worthlessness because I have long term chronic illnesses. I am likely to live many more years, however, but that doesn't fit in with the narrative so many have built around the shielded and those dying of Covid, that they must be near death anyway.

Do lives really rank one over the other due to age and illness? Is this where we are now?

I agree lockdown is hurting people. I am not one of the lockdown should last forever people. I'm just getting on with shielding quietly and carefully. But I do fear for a second wave if it's relaxed too quickly.

I would like to ask for some compassion today in the way people speak. I'd like to ask that people don't denegrate others as less worthy or state that covid is just a bad cold. Have a care for those who feel othered and dehumanised by the rhetoric that flies at us day after day.

Sick pay? So many don't get that in their zero hours jobs. It's wait for UC, 5 weeks. Now very soon, very, very soon given it's a Tory government, those lovely little clauses that say you don't have to look for work right now will be lifted, so there that person would be, at least 5 weeks with NO money at all, not able to obey the rules for UC so sanctioned. But I'm sure their first thought will be 'I must think of the shielding! I must not be selfish and want a roof over my head!' Yeah, right, that's so going to work .

At the end of last year my son in law was a healthy dad to 3 young children. He's now shielding as he was diagnosed with crohn's just before lockdown. He could die if one of his children brings it back from school. I'd love to know how you all know you don't have underlying conditions, you could have high blood pressure, type 2 diabetes or some congenital organ defect which may not have symptoms.

Now pretend you do and see how you feel about it now.

There's nothing abelist about wanting to feed yourself and not get evicted.

Sorry for my hyperbole a few pages back. Was having a really bad day.
Clearly, no-one here, despite whatever ablesim they hold, wants to euthanise the elderly.

I don't have to pretend. I have hypertension. I've had such bad hayfever this year I had to ring the surgery and get fenafexodine prescribed. It can give you a fever and cough, hence the name. I need to go to work. My kid needs to go back to school, she has dyslexia and is not coping well with the at home learning.

It's more than £0, which is the amount of sick pay many people are entitled to, particularly if they're not actually sick

Ok. I shall count my blessings then.

It's not going to work, goose, until there's something like a basic universal income, more employee rights, banning zero hours contracts, tightening up laws regarding private lets and letting agents, which is just NOT going to happen with a Tory government and no-deal Brexit looming. That's not selfish, that's self-preservation for a lot of people, more and more every day because every single day more and more redundancies are announced. BP is going to make another 2,000 redundant next week. 2,000, in the UK alone. Car manufacturers have hoisted another 1000+ just this and last week. Hospitality industries, more thousands.

It is selfish to work when sick, but the selfishness originates before the individual's 'choice' to work, with the fact that they are not employed in a culture and workplace that truly values their labour and lives.

We need cultural and employment changes that 1. give people in all forms of employment adequate paid sick leave and 2. change the narrative about 'soldiering on'.

There's no point having solidarity with the disabled, the ill and the elderly, and then not having it with the poor and working classes. We're all in it together, and although I would clearly prefer people did not work while ill, it's simply not possible for that to happen for many, many people.

The problem is though if everyone is just going to look out for themselves how's this going to work?

Right now there must be half a dozen threads filled with parents demanding to know when schools will re open - if teachers don't feel safe going back, why should they? We've got posters here saying they'll not be following rules to keep society safe so if they can make decisions based on what's best for them then everyone else can too, presumably?

So drs and nurses can refuse to go to work, supermarket workers, there's no social contract anymore it's every man and woman for themselves?

it's every man and woman for themselves?

It does seem to have broken down, yes.

Raging argument on a teaching FB group I'm on about those teachers who chose to march and not self-isolate/get tested after. Lots of 'vulnerable staff just have to learn to live with it/doesn't matter as much as the cause'. Sad. (I'm somewhere schools have gone back).

It's why I think disability and age rights are, in many ways, forgotten rights. The OP is right when she says these populations are dehumanised, and their needs considered secondary - tertiary - to others.

I'm a rule follower - I'm very rarely comfortable with breaking the rules - I'm even less inclined to break public health recommendations. Many people do not feel the same internal pressure to conform to public health advice.

Yeah the bubble that burst only had 6 students in I believe . Yet on another thread someone was outraged that her child couldn't go back as her school had bubbles of 8 and felt 15 was appropriate. That would have been so much worse.
Unfortunately due to our Government there is no give in the system. The NHS was overstretched before now. A fortune has been spent on furlough and seiss. None of this is the fault of the elderly or shielding.
This will need to be repaid so hopefully my immunosuppressed dh will stay safe to contribute to this. We are fortunate that he is able to wfh and his job appears to be safe. I however was newly self employed and slowly growing business and I have taken a hit.
I can emphasise with those financially struggling. My dsis who live alone struggled for years on JSA.

It's why I think disability and age rights are, in many ways, forgotten rights. The OP is right when she says these populations are dehumanised, and their needs considered secondary - tertiary - to others.

Absolutely.

It's why I think disability and age rights are, in many ways, forgotten rights. The OP is right when she says these populations are dehumanised, and their needs considered secondary - tertiary - to others.

They were only forgotten until it started hitting everyone in society with this. Now all of the sudden it's you're 'selfish' for struggling to pay your rent and top up your meter. Before that, it didn't merit a mention, hence why UC, UC for poor pensioners who have a partner who is under pension age (which the government raised with nary a quiver) instead of Pension Credit and its accordant loss of benefit for the pensioner him/herself (free prescriptions, dental and eye care), UC with its removal of the severe disability element, LHA rent caps and rules regarding under 35s privately renting, PIP, proliferation of zero hours contracts (should have done better at school and got a 'real' job), privitisation of social care, destruction of mental health services. Now all of the sudden there's a hue and cry with the added epithets of 'They're selfish!' to those who won't even get £95/week a sick pay, no, it's wait for your UC, of about £72 if you're lucky.

So here you go, working poor, in addition to being totally demonised by 10 years of Tory government, you're also selfish, abelist and ageist for not self isolating for 2 weeks or more if someone coughs around you or you get a cough. Let's extend this 'shielding' and send them all scary letters, how cheap can you get?! Haahaa.

You can't make this shit up! It's like a Tory Olympic wank with a volcanic climax, pit them all against each other, win win! And on top of that, we get to fuck over those silly poor young peoples' education fuck them getting ideas above their stations.

You couldn't make this shit up. It's like all their Christmases came at once!

Throw in recession and no deal Brexit and it's no one's fault. It was Covid! All those 'selfish' people!

Wake up! You're targeting the wrong people. It's like going to the huge protests and not raising a single one about Windrush and all the rest.

Get real.

I don't think I'm particularly targeting anyone.

I'm a low paid worker in insecure work myself.

I work in retail - hardly a well paid job

As far as I’m aware children outside London don’t get free bus travel. Why should London children be a special case?

if teachers don't feel safe going back, why should they?

People should not get to refuse to do their job because they don't feel safe.

This virus poses very little risk to most people. It's approximately as dangerous as the 'flu.

And that's not saying it's "just 'flu" because the 'flu kills thousands or tens of thousands of people each year.

The arguments being made about safety at the moment mean we can NEVER have our lives back and never should have had them in the first place because there has always been infectious disease and there have always been people who needed to be more careful of it because it was more risky for them.

If no key workers had gone back to work until they "felt safe", lockdown wouldn't have been possible.

Teachers are not a special case. They are not at any raised risk as a profession and those who are not shielding need to either go back to teaching or resign.

Schools do no exist as places to employ teachers, they exist to educate children. They have not done so for 3 months.

The risks associated with that for children and society are enormous and it can't continue until teachers "feel safe".

Maybe we need to see how safe they feel if their jobs are on the line, which is the reality for most people who refuse to return to work.

You are not wrong OP, and many of the responses on here prove it. 💐

Nihiloxica

But why can't people choose not to go to work if they don't feel safe if you've got people choosing to not follow government rules about quarantining?

Basically, why can some people choose to put others at risk but you won't allow others to avoid that risk?

People can choose not to work.

But that is a choice not to get paid.

Nobody has ever, in the history of paid employment, EVER been "safe" from infectious disease if their work brought them into contact with people.

People who want to feel safe from all germs shouldn't be working in any job that requires being in a room with other people. And teaching is one if those jobs.

Everyone at work is entitled to protection under health and safety at work legislation.

Why do you think some people should have to work outside of that?

From the example of the bubble in the school collapsing because parents chose to ignore the rules on self isolation and quarantine, and from the two examples on this thread of posters saying that they won't abide by it one of the protections afforded to workers is weakened, by how much depends on how many of the public will adopt that stance.

Surely then, employees shouldn't have to rely on others following the rules to keep them safe at work? The employers should provide workers with the ability to keep themselves safe and not rely on the public being truthful, which apparently may well not be the case.

If we aren't going to punish their who refuse to follow public health rules then I really don't see why should be allowed to compel the workforce to risk their health by not allowing them to withdraw from s workplace that they assess to be unsafe.

Isn't that one of the principles of the Health and Safety at Work Act - that health and safety at work is everyone's responsibility and that you can't be forced to work if you believe it's unsafe. I'm pretty sure that it is a clause in the legislation - you don't have to prove it.

@Nihiloxica

The difference between COVID-19 and flu is that there is a flu jab, whereas there is no vaccine for COVID as yet. COVID is also much more infectious because people can spread it whilst asymptomatic.

That's the reason why we've had to change our lives so much, as otherwise the NHS would have been overwhelmed. You only need to see what's happening in Brazil right now.

I'm not saying that schools shouldn't open, as I've said. My DDs need to be back in school, as it's been very hard on them not to be able to go. But they won't be able to stay open if they don't stick to strict guidelines right now, as the virus hasn't gone away.

@Mittens030869 check out the new evidence from WHO that asymptomatic spread is very rare. I think this is a bit of a game changer.

Okay, interesting. But somehow it is spreading widely. It could be because some people have it mildly and just keep going about their business without self isolating when there are no rules about it? Much like people do when they have colds.

People don't normally have flu mildly, they are forced to stay at home because they're not well enough when they're at the infectious stage.

I'd love to know how the WHO can work this out with any certainty. Similarly, we're told that children don't spread the virus much, again how do we know that? (Although admittedly my DH didn't catch it from my DD2 (8) when she had symptoms.)

[quote Mascotte]@Mittens030869 check out the new evidence from WHO that asymptomatic spread is very rare. I think this is a bit of a game changer.[/quote]
How did the man in South Korea spread it to over 100 people in a nightclub, prompting further lockdown restrictions?

Presumably he was asymptomatic?