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?

clearyway can you e plain how someone like a chimney sweep can avoid going in people's houses. Because my diabetic 60yo husband would be very interested in a solution to that one.

@YeahWhatevver

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

It’s not just about holidays. Lots of people work in jobs where they cannot socially distance (carers, for example) or have to use public transport to commute as they can’t walk 20 miles.

The first time might just about be financially doable. The second, third time would break them.

yeahwhatver read the fucking thread. It's not about bloody holidays.

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

I’m no fan of this government, but protect the country? From a virus which has spread to every part of the world?

The government was castigated for not imposing quarantine on everyone returning from Italy at half term, yet now it looks like there is exponential community spread in Spain they are wrong again for ‘springing’ this decision on unwitting holiday makers who had literally no idea that flying abroad on holiday might involve some risk at this juncture?

I’m all for holding the government to account but do let’s focus on actual failings. I’ve just watched Oliver Dowden have to repeat at least half a dozen times to the ‘journalists’ on BBC Breakfast how he understands people are ‘frustrated’ about their holidays. It was like he was managing a whining toddler. Pathetic.

How many times does it have to be repeated to people on here?!

Many people have jobs and businesses which are public facing. Supermarket workers, shop workers, bar & restaurant workers, bus drivers, hairdressers, market traders, care workers, teachers & childcare workers. Most of those in the list above are the keyworkers people were so enthusiastically clapping for. Most are low paid. They are also in the sectors least likely to pay full sick pay.

To take my own life as an example

• I am self employed in a role where it's impossible to avoid coming into contact with the public. If I don't leave the house and go to see the public, I don't get paid.
• DP works in a supermarket
• My lodger (whose presence is a financial necessity!) works in an office and has to go there 5 days per week
• Lodger's DP works in childcare (and it's a fair assumption to think that if she gets corona then so will the lodger).

Even if I only go to work, and see my own household + DP, then there are still a VERY wide variety of ways in which I could be exposed to corona. I don't need to go to Spain, or to the pub, to think that I have a high chance of being contact traced.

I have received precisely £0 in financial help during the pandemic, despite all my booked work being cancelled, right at the start of peak season. I fell through all the cracks of government support for a series of thoroughly arbitrary reasons (3 MILLION people are in the same situation - see the #excludedUK campaign).

I'm fucking skint.

I can be incredibly careful, have no fun whatsoever, see no friends, and still get contact traced. I would then be left with zero income, having already been financially screwed by lockdown. I CANNOT AFFORD TO SELF ISOLATE. Perhaps forcing people like me to continue working is part of the herd immunity strategy?

Oh, and another kick in the teeth? If you don't pay the rent, and get evicted for that reason, then the council will deem you to be "intentionally homeless" and will therefore refuse to help you. I, as a disabled woman, could find myself in a tent on the high street with DDog as a direct result of self isolating when told to.

If the reality was that staying home could very easily lead to you being homeless, what would you do?!

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.

The OP has been quite clear that this isn't a thread about people who've been on holiday. She discusses contact tracing in her OP.

Yes, it is one reason people prefer just to tell their friends if they catch covid rather than tell the state.

PS an added kick in the teeth - if told to self isolate, you're not even allowed out to walk the dog.

I don't have any friends or family who are local and would feel sufficiently confident to walk him (he has issues). 14 days of one hour group walks with the professional dog walker I occasionally use to plug the gaps would come to £188 - so while my income drops to zero, my household expenses would go up substantially because I'm not even allowed to care for my own dog. It's a fucking joke.

Of course this will also impact mothers more, if children also have to isolate various times when they are back at school, as will need to stop work to look after them....

so not just about the adults self isolating either.

Yanbu op. It is shocking that the poorest most exploited people in this country are forced to choose between doing what's right for society and keeping food on the table and a roof over their heads.

For all the rhetoric about people not being punished for doing the right thing this is exactly what happens to people on ssp having to isolate or people with no sick pay at all. As to the previous poster taking about self employed people giving it up what about all the delivery drivers and others in the gig economy who have to go self employed to work so the employer can avoid sick pay and worker protection?

Just like the 350m a week to the NHS thing which was backtracked on a day after the vote these days world beating track and trace etc you only have to promise things and not deliver.

How many times does it have to be repeated to people on here?!

No. Why don’t you understand?

Even if I only go to work, and see my own household + DP, then there are still a VERY wide variety of ways in which I could be exposed to corona.

This isn’t true. In most places there is currently very little risk in the community. Look at the numbers. The problem is keeping it that way when people are failing to observe social distancing, resistant to mask wearing, and actively and deliberately frustrating the track and trace process. This is what increases your risk. Selfish arseholes.

If the reality was that staying home could very easily lead to you being homeless, what would you do?!

I'd be off out to work, and I doubt the people disagreeing with you would do any differently if faced with that exact set of circumstances.

I agree with the OP, and think some people are just on another planet or can work from home easily.

This springs to mind..

www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/07/22/home-working-revolution-will-derail-middle-class-gravy-train/

"Britain’s upper-middle-class professionals cannot believe their luck. They have, once again, emerged as the great winners from a crisis: ensconced in spare rooms, they are coping so well with the Zoom economy that they want to make it the new normal.

Working from home (or WFH in corporatese) is easier than they previously realised, allowing greater flexibility while saving time and money once wasted on commutes and overpriced sandwiches. No wonder that most bankers, lawyers, consultants, accountants, marketers, tech workers and other office staff don’t want to go back to the five-day commute, and many employers plan to save a fortune by obliging them."

Wonder how many of these 'so selfish' posters are of the same ilk, or married to one...

In fact, those who want to keep working from home- what is better than "oh no but I have to isolate I will need to WFH and can't come in to the office."

@GilderoyLockdown

If the reality was that staying home could very easily lead to you being homeless, what would you do?!

I'd be off out to work, and I doubt the people disagreeing with you would do any differently if faced with that exact set of circumstances.

Yes absolutely. It is not feasible to ask an individual to care about a society that doesn't care about them.

Social responsibility has to work both ways, our whole social contract is broken.

If my choice were eviction or working, how could I choose eviction??

@MyPersona

How many times does it have to be repeated to people on here?!

No. Why don’t you understand?

Even if I only go to work, and see my own household + DP, then there are still a VERY wide variety of ways in which I could be exposed to corona.

This isn’t true. In most places there is currently very little risk in the community. Look at the numbers. The problem is keeping it that way when people are failing to observe social distancing, resistant to mask wearing, and actively and deliberately frustrating the track and trace process. This is what increases your risk. Selfish arseholes.

None of those things are in my control though, and my point remains the same regardless of how much COVID is circulating in the community (I think most of us are expecting a second peak at this point in time)

Several PP have suggested that if someone cannot afford to self isolate then they shouldn't take part in 'risky' activities like going to the pub or going on holiday.

My point is that I cannot afford to self isolate, but I can avoid doing any fun or risky activities, and I can still be told to self isolate because even by just staying at home, seeing DP and working, I can come into contact with a wide variety of people, any one of whom could be carrying COVID.

I just checked my transaction records, and for my last trading day, I processed 47 transactions. Most of those transactions served 2-4 people. That's already 100-200 people who I have come into contact with in one day at work. It only takes one of those to report me as a contact for me to be told to self isolate.

Months ago, before lockdown happened and furlough announced people were worryingly about this very situation, there was talk about SSP and how it is so low here compared to other countries. I remember a journo asking about it at one of the daily briefings. I think there was also a post on here at the time about people feeling they would have to go work with symptoms or if they had been in contact with someone who did because they can’t afford not to work.

Then lockdown happened and furlough announced which has worked well for many in the short term. Only now we are looking ahead to the longer term and realising again that SSP is too low. The government should have addressed this back then when they were being questioned about it by journalists.

If it is the right thing to do for the sake of society to self isolate then surely it is right for society to support those who lose their income by doing so. Especially when it is their work that puts them at risk.

It wouid be a more than a kick in the teeth for us if we used a business which was contained someone who should have been isolating and whomwas actually incubating

We are to deshield soon, and wouid actively avoid places which had poor hygiene (including ignoring isolation)

Because shielding has only been paused on the basis of low rates and good hygiene. The health risk (including substantial chance of death) has not gone away.

So we deserve to know which places are at background risk, and which are higher. Then we can make our own risk/benefit decisions.

The message I take from the eloquent post above is to refuse to use small businesses in person indefinitely, because it is possible that no-one is checking whether important elements of national infection control rules are being adhered to

Once again the self employed are let down. It was the same with furlough, it took time before any payments were given to the self employed to compensate and many like the OP did not qualify.

You had to be self employed for 3 years whereas the furloughed had to have worked for an employer for several months

Again with later payments this happened too.

And now, with this it seems SSP although not much is given to the employed there is nothing again in place for the self employed.

The message I take from the eloquent post above is to refuse to use small businesses in person indefinitely, because it is possible that no-one is checking whether important elements of national infection control rules are being adhered to

Do you think large businesses would have any way of checking whether their staff on the premises had been contacted asking them to isolate? The only way they'd know is if the contact had been through work.

www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jul/22/test-and-trace-system-in-england-failing-to-contact-thousands

and they wonder why track and trace is not working as well in poorer areas, too.

@nether

It wouid be a more than a kick in the teeth for us if we used a business which was contained someone who should have been isolating and whomwas actually incubating

We are to deshield soon, and wouid actively avoid places which had poor hygiene (including ignoring isolation)

Because shielding has only been paused on the basis of low rates and good hygiene. The health risk (including substantial chance of death) has not gone away.

So we deserve to know which places are at background risk, and which are higher. Then we can make our own risk/benefit decisions.

The message I take from the eloquent post above is to refuse to use small businesses in person indefinitely, because it is possible that no-one is checking whether important elements of national infection control rules are being adhered to

You think really think big businesses are less risky? That they are more concerned with hygiene than getting staff in and working so they start to make a profit again? That those working for minimum wage in a big company can afford to self isolate when they likely know if they don’t come in they are putting their job at risk?

@nether

It wouid be a more than a kick in the teeth for us if we used a business which was contained someone who should have been isolating and whomwas actually incubating

We are to deshield soon, and wouid actively avoid places which had poor hygiene (including ignoring isolation)

Because shielding has only been paused on the basis of low rates and good hygiene. The health risk (including substantial chance of death) has not gone away.

So we deserve to know which places are at background risk, and which are higher. Then we can make our own risk/benefit decisions.

The message I take from the eloquent post above is to refuse to use small businesses in person indefinitely, because it is possible that no-one is checking whether important elements of national infection control rules are being adhered to

This isn't something that is about small business, or big business.

It's about businesses that do not pay their staff full sick pay for periods of self isolation. Many big businesses only pay out SSP, which is impossible for their staff to survive on, and so inevitably staff will come into work even if they should be self isolating.

You won't know if the company pays full sick pay or SSP only - this isn't typically information they publish.

Likewise, some self employed people may have the funds available to be able to self isolate when told to.

Covid won't be going away any time soon, and I'm afraid the info you're hoping to base your decisions on simply isn't in the public domain.