AIBU to think it's unrealistic to expect people to self isolate with no income?

[AvocadosBeforeMortgages]

I honestly can't see how the government thinks people who any of the following can possibly afford to self isolate?

• on zero hours contracts and won't get sick pay
• employed by companies that only pay SSP (£95.85pw - I don't know anyone who can survive on that)
• self employed (NB even before COVID, stats showed around half of self employed people earned LESS than minimum wage, and many haven't benefited from any of the COVID related financial support)

You could get phoned up by contact tracing and told to self isolate for a fortnight = no income. This could happen repeatedly. The same happens if you're symptomatic and get a positive test.

No income = can't pay the rent or put food on the table - many of those in the groups listed above were already struggling financially before COVID - often even more so after COVID.

The government is putting people in an impossible situation. AIBU to think that many will have no choice but to continue working even if they should be self isolating - and that the government should be making payments to anyone of working age who is told to self isolate so that they don't have to choose between their 'civic duty' and keeping a roof over their family's head?

It's the same story all the way through - go to work, don't go to work, eat out to help out but lose weight, go on holiday but beware going on holiday - they're confusing the whole country!

I find all this ‘confusion’ so disingenuous. There is a global pandemic. It has been artificially suppressed by the measures taken to keep people apart. It’s obvious that since the virus hasn’t been eradicated there will be further opportunities for it to spread in the population when restrictions are lifted. If you can’t risk having to quarantine, don’t fly abroad. If you can’t risk being tracked and traced and told to self isolate don’t go to high risk places like pubs and observe social distancing when out. If you want to eat out to help out but you’re a bit of a fatty have a fucking salad. It really isn’t difficult to understand at all.

@MyPersona

It's the same story all the way through - go to work, don't go to work, eat out to help out but lose weight, go on holiday but beware going on holiday - they're confusing the whole country!

I find all this ‘confusion’ so disingenuous. There is a global pandemic. It has been artificially suppressed by the measures taken to keep people apart. It’s obvious that since the virus hasn’t been eradicated there will be further opportunities for it to spread in the population when restrictions are lifted. If you can’t risk having to quarantine, don’t fly abroad. If you can’t risk being tracked and traced and told to self isolate don’t go to high risk places like pubs and observe social distancing when out. If you want to eat out to help out but you’re a bit of a fatty have a fucking salad. It really isn’t difficult to understand at all.

Alright clever clogs!

I think it's pretty universally understood that whilst our esteemed government has been SHIT in a variety of ways, one of the ways they've been SHITTEST is by being utterly inconsistent in their messaging.

Last week Johnson said he was hoping distancing could be gone by November, then a few days later that it'd be here til spring. The big chump.

Trouble is all this “it’s a team effort” only works one way. I predict there will be no team effort to club together and help pay my rent / mortgage when my salary falls short after isolating.

Last week Johnson said he was hoping distancing could be gone by November, then a few days later that it'd be here til spring

Sounds suspiciously like his story is changing in line with the expected roll out of the Oxford vaccine.

Lemons1571 quite. People keep saying how we all have to pull together and it's a team effort but that only seems to go in one direction.

Not RTFT but you can get SSP if you're contacted and told to self-isolate via T&T.

See here >>>

www.gov.uk/statutory-sick-pay

Interested in whether those now returning from Spain for example (i.e. guidance changed whilst they were already on holiday) can claim loss of income etc on their holiday insurance?

But how much use is SSP to anyone compared to a wage?

I

Team effort! What a joke. The people patronisingly saying that are generally the ones who haven’t got a clue what it’s like for so many. ‘It will all be over soon if we just say inside and don’t go to the pub blah blah’

So true what’s being said about this being a k shaped recovery. The rich and those who can work from home doing fine, everyone else going down the toilet

Yep. If people can't work and don't have savings, either the shortfall gets made up from somewhere or they do not quarantine.

People also seem to forget that all those activities that are dismissed as unnecessary - pub, Primark, travel - are industries that support millions of jobs.

@MaxNormal

People also seem to forget that all those activities that are dismissed as unnecessary - pub, Primark, travel - are industries that support millions of jobs.

Which is why we can't carry on pretending it is health or economy and face up to the truth that it is health and economy. We can't get the economy back on its feet until everyone can feel safe enough to really get back out there. And older people or those at higher risk can't just be bullied to mix closely.

My husband and I are both self employed and currently having to isolate for an op so income affected but have to do it?

The point people are making is that many people just can't afford to not work for two weeks.

I went past our local food bank at about 5.30pm today. At least a hundred people queuing, sign said that they were up to number 265. People were socially distancing and wearing masks on the whole, although many were wearing work clothes (overalls, hard boots etc) so had likely been at work travelling on public transport.

If people are needing to use food banks when they're working, how on earth could they consider not working for two weeks?

@christinarossetti19 quite, the scale of poverty in working families was awful before this happened

People can always limit contact with others, no one needs to eat out, go to the pub, spend time indoors with members outside their household/bubble etc. Less mixing means less chance of being contacted.

Not everyone has that choice.

I work in a supermarket. I work 5 days a week, 8hr shifts every day. I interact with hundreds if not thousands of customers every day.

All it takes is one customer to test positive and say they came to my store and if they came through my checkout I could be asked to self isolate ... I cant afford to lose half my monthly wage but I also want afford to not go to work. If I was told to self isolate, my company would pay the first time, then subsequent isolation would have to come out of any remaining holiday allowance and then SSP.

I earn not much more than minimum wage, I have worked all through the lockdown (so no savings from not commuting/lunches etc like many WFH workers) I haven't qualified for any help or discounts and still have all of my bills and rent to pay.

Last week Johnson said he was hoping distancing could be gone by November, then a few days later that it'd be here til spring. The big chump.

He doesn’t know. Nobody knows. Didn’t you hear at the start when Whitty told us all quite clearly that people would die of the virus, of other illnesses not treated because of the virus, of the economic consequences of the virus? And that it would go on for a long time? This is it. It’s a horrific event which is having a devastating effect on all of us. Some people are now at higher risk of catching it for sure, on public transport etc. which is why it’s incumbent on all of us not to act like arseholes to keep the risk as low as possible.

It’s unreasonable to say oh Boris said it was ok to fly to Spain, or go to the pub and then whinge about having to isolate when it’s obvious that doing those things will increase your risk and you’ve always had to isolate if exposed. He is a chump, but are we really a nation incapable of independent thought? Can so many people genuinely not understand that this is a matter of balancing risk?

Exactly christinarossetti, and plenty of these people are going to be in public facing jobs where steering clear of the general public simply isn't an option. Once furlough ends, unless the virus significantly abates, we're going to be on a collision course here. Some people will need to be funded to isolate, or they won't do it. Simple as that.

@MyPersona

It's the same story all the way through - go to work, don't go to work, eat out to help out but lose weight, go on holiday but beware going on holiday - they're confusing the whole country!

I find all this ‘confusion’ so disingenuous. There is a global pandemic. It has been artificially suppressed by the measures taken to keep people apart. It’s obvious that since the virus hasn’t been eradicated there will be further opportunities for it to spread in the population when restrictions are lifted. If you can’t risk having to quarantine, don’t fly abroad. If you can’t risk being tracked and traced and told to self isolate don’t go to high risk places like pubs and observe social distancing when out. If you want to eat out to help out but you’re a bit of a fatty have a fucking salad. It really isn’t difficult to understand at all.

Well said. People need to act according to their circumstances. If quarantine/isolation is a problem, then people should reduce their risks, as you say, by not going abroad, not going to pubs etc. People need to start taking responsibility for themselves.

Stay 2 metres away from people, don’t go to pubs,cafes etc where you have to give track amd trace details, don’t go into other peoples houses - that way you won’t be caught up in track and trace. Its fairly simple really!

DH at present goes into other people's houses daily, for the little bit of work he's managed to muster up. So no its not that simple.

I am perfectly capable of independent thoughts, and one of them is that our nation would be in a better collective place if we'd had decent leadership.

Leading the country is Johnson's job. He failed.

I think people all evaluate risk differently. In a liberal democracy we accept that when it comes to e.g. drinking where most (not all) of the risk is borne by the individual doing it.

The trouble is Johnson explicitly told people to use their common sense. He did that cynically so as not to bear responsibility.

The problem is two fold:

a) common sense doesn't exist, every sees it differently
b) the people taking more risks often harm others more than themselves, as the young and healthy take more risks, and the fallout is not felt by them.

Stop letting Johnson off, this government failed in its first duty - to protect the country.

if your finances are so short and fragile that 14 days lost income is the difference between staying afloat or not then you probably shouldn't be going on holiday.

Everyone knows the risk of travelling in a pandemic, it's always been on the cards that it would change quickly

A holiday isn't a matter of fact entitlement for everyone

And if Johnson doesn't know, he should say that, not say he thinks it'll all be normal by Christmas.

Stop normalising the fact we have a PM who lies. Actively lies. That is bad for all of us.

We have been badly let down during this, he couldn't even be bothered to turn up to the first five cobra meetings.

I'd imagine the majority told to isolate by track and trace aren't to be honest. They might for a few days, feel fine, get bored and go back out again. But most will be thinking that they need the money and can't afford to isolate.

For anyone who gets UC, a chunk of lost income will be offset by an increase in UC in their next assessment period.

Making a UC claim promptly at the start of quarantine/self-isolation would also help replace some of the lost income, although you wouldn't get a payment for 5 weeks, but it would help a little.

But I also think it's an indictment of what a low-wage economy we've become that losing 2 weeks' money is critical for so many people.