Should we all lockdown again, infection rate is rising or should we shield the elderly and vunerable and support them financially while everyone else goes back to normality to save our economy.

[947EliseChalotte]

Covid is not going to disappear, we will be waiting years for a vaccine. How on earth are we / the economy suppose to carry on like this ?
Yabu I'm being unreasonable
Yanbu I'm being reasonable

The problem with protecting that group of society is that around London most of those people still have their adult children living with them.

Who are the vulnerable in this scenario? BAME people? NHS staff? Bus drivers?

What about the families of vulnerable people, do they shield too?

I think we need to accept that the deaths of quite a few people may well be brought forward.

Some by a few months, some by a few years.

Its very sad, but we aren't going to 'win' this 'battle' without it just being being a pyrrhic victory.

We just need to be sensible and get on with life. Everyone has a different level of concern and it is NOT for Government to impose itself in the way it has

This.

Perhaps ask yourselves why people are flouting the restrictions?

If everybody (especially young people) thought they were a great idea, there would be blanket compliance.

Its not reasonable for the government to use young and healthy people as proxy immune systems for the elderly and obese.

I wouldn't have the vaccine anyway, neither would my DH or DCs.

In general, I am very pro-vaccine, but for Covid, the risk of a rushed-to-market vaccine is far greater to my family than than the disease itself.

Him, just guessing @NikeDeLaSwoosh but I'm guessing that you are not counting yourself amongst the number that need to be sacrificed for "the greater good"?

My feeling is that we will lose quite a lot of people even if we try quite hard not to. No idea why some people feel no need to make an effort at all. There seems to be some bizarre notion that life will go back to normal- in to school, in to work, cinema, bars, clubs, theatres - if we just let go and let the virus spread.

ivfdreaming

Why do we need to support them financially? Most of them are drawing their pensions and that wasn't effected during lockdown

I think you'll find that many of them aren't. Shielding has nothing to do with age and everything to do with having a medical condition that makes you extremely clinically vulnerable.
I had to close my business in mid March that I've spent the last few years building up. I'm clinically extremely vulnerable, it's not a business I could do from home or without coming into contact with hundreds of people. The only support I got was 4 food parcels.

@ivfdreaming

Why do we need to support them financially? Most of them are drawing their pensions and that wasn't effected during lockdown

Most but not all. DS is 5 and shielding. Ok he doesn't need supporting financially but in theory I need to find him an education if he can't go to school and if he's shielding then DH and I going to work on public transport/ public facing jobs becomes an issue, not least because he's too young to be left alone. The fact they made the point of saying shielders could go neck to work suggests that it isn't just retired pensioners

Its not reasonable for the government to use young and healthy people as proxy immune systems for the elderly and obese. Except that isn't the shielding group. Yes a large chunk are elderly, Adobe are obese bit it's willful ignorance to assume the only ones who are shielding are those that have "lived their lives already" or "bright it upon themselves". Not your words I know, bit definitely the expressed sentiments around who you think is shielding

Should we all lockdown again, infection rate is rising or should we shield the elderly and vunerable and support them financially while everyone else goes back to normality to save our economy
Why don't we let the elderly and vulnerable out and let them have some normality and lock everyone else down? They can all go out to restaurants/cafes/ shopping and on holiday in peace, stimulating the economy.

Why do we need to support them financially? Most of them are drawing their pensions and that wasn't effected during lockdown
Vulnerable people fall into every age category. Plenty of people classed as extremely vulnerable work (and want to continue to work).

What about the BAME popuation? If they catch Covid-19 then they are, apparently, more at risk of severe symptoms or dying. Should they be locked down too? What about pregnant women?

@Sugarplumfairy65

ivfdreaming

Why do we need to support them financially? Most of them are drawing their pensions and that wasn't effected during lockdown

I think you'll find that many of them aren't. Shielding has nothing to do with age and everything to do with having a medical condition that makes you extremely clinically vulnerable.
I had to close my business in mid March that I've spent the last few years building up. I'm clinically extremely vulnerable, it's not a business I could do from home or without coming into contact with hundreds of people. The only support I got was 4 food parcels.

Fully agree. Far too many think that "vulnerable" people are just sat around doing nothing productive and not contributing to the economy.

There are millions of "vulnerable" who are workers and carers, many in senior/important positions, such as our neighbour who's a senior hospital consultant and is "extremely clinically vulnerable" due to a health condition, but was still working full time at the highest level until the lockdown - his list of patients is growing massively as he can't treat them at the moment and his department is under staffed with others off due to covid too!

We run a small business. We've been shielding due to my OH's cancer. It's been a real struggle to keep supporting existing clients due to us being behind closed doors and we can't take on new clients until it's "safe" for us to start having meetings etc. If we can't get back to normal, our business will have to fold, meaning no work for our workers, no tax paid to HMRC, and us claiming more benefits.

What about carers who are vulnerable? Who is going to care for the children/elderly if millions of carers can't work?? Who is going to pay their benefits instead?

If all the "young and healthy" want to lock up the vulnerable so they can live normally, how do they feel about taxes etc doubling to pay the mammoth benefits bill of the millions of vulnerable who can no longer work?? How do they feel about not being able to get medical treatment because the doctors/nurses were vulnerable and can no longer work? How do they feel about not being able to work because their schools/nurseries can't take their kids because so many staff are locked away due to being vulnerable?

@Badbadbunny

If all the "young and healthy" want to lock up the vulnerable so they can live normally, how do they feel about taxes etc doubling to pay the mammoth benefits bill of the millions of vulnerable who can no longer work?? How do they feel about not being able to get medical treatment because the doctors/nurses were vulnerable and can no longer work? How do they feel about not being able to work because their schools/nurseries can't take their kids because so many staff are locked away due to being vulnerable?

Yeah ... I don't know whether you will like the answer to that....

Guess why shielding has ended for most people and it's back to work for them? A) it's safe now B) it's cheaper

Bad question. There is a third option which is about sorting test and trace and supporting people who have the virus to isolate

This is the approach recommended by the WHO

It is the approach most likely to help the economy as well as limiting deaths and on going health problems

Why do you want to promote a divisive solution ?

Have test and trace properly, shut pubs.

Aside from the huge numbers of extremely vulnerable under 60s (something like 12-18% of the population have diabetes, for example), the pension age has been raised. Many people in their 60s are certainly not drawing their pensions.

@ivfdreaming

Why do we need to support them financially? Most of them are drawing their pensions and that wasn't effected during lockdown

1. Millions of "vulnerable" are workers, so if they can't work, they need their wages paid.

1. About 20-25% has been wiped off some investments so that will reduce the income/pensions of many older people.

The country cannot afford another lock down. Regional or local to area only from now on.

@ivfdreaming

Why do we need to support them financially? Most of them are drawing their pensions and that wasn't effected during lockdown

People thinking like this are the problem, I know 6 people who were on the shielding list. Only 1 of them is over 50, none are over 65.

All 6 are in active employment, all 6 pay tax, all 6 would have an impact on other people if they were taken out of the workplace (think teachers and medical staff as well as office workers). 5 of them have children aged between 3 and 14 who need to go to school

VULNERABLE DOES NOT NECESSARILY EQUAL OLD OR INCAPABLE FFS 🤬

I really wish people could grasp that really quite simple concept......

I know 6 people who were on the shielding list. Only 1 of them is over 50, none are over 65

This is a highly unusual sample.

There are only 2.2 million on the shielding list, so the fact that you personally know 6 of them is pretty unusual in itself.

The overwhelming majority of people shielding are over 65 with additional health issues. There may be edge cases, but they are precisely that - a tiny minority and as we all are aware (or should be) we cannot make policy based on edge cases.

I know two 'shielders'.

One is 62, the other is 22.

Both were full time working until Lockdown.

It's not that unusual.

It's also likely that we all know at least one person in this group, given that its one in 1 in 30 of the population, and 'being elderly' wasn't a criteria.

Where are you getting your figures from @NikeDeLaSwoosh? How do you know the ages of shielders? In any event it's important to remember the shielding list doesn't include many of the most extremely vulnerable. That is, those most likely to get seriously ill or die. Neither cardiac patients nor diabetics were on it despite being two conditions with the highest death rates.

Why do we need to support them financially? Most of them are drawing their pensions and that wasn't effected during lockdown so everyone going through cancer treatment is of pension age?
Anyone who is immunesuppressed is of pension age?
Anyone with COPD/other serious breathing difficulties is of pension age?

Go and have a look at the list of criteria for shielding and then see how many of those condition are age-related only. I think you’ll find it’s not many.

I can personally think of four people who have been shielding, myself included, and we’re all under 60.

I think the problem is that people don’t only consider the “vulnerable” to be elderly, but they see them as so disabled that they’re likely not making a contribution to society anyway, which couldn’t be further from the truth.

And I’ve said it before on here, shielding has become the new institutionalised.

People see the shielded as expendable. Either they should make the choice to go out and about and take their chances with the virus, or they should stay locked up so the rest don’t have to make any sacrifices.

People need to stop blaming the government and start taking personal responsibility.

The government went into lockdown because after they closed the pubs and asked people not to go out they did anyway, to the beaches, into towns, anywhere they could gather in large groups.

As soon as there was any easing of lockdown the people gathered on mass. On the beaches, in pubs, in each other’s houses (which is said to be the biggest reason for spread).

The government made mask wearing in shops mandatory and people bitched and moaned and complained about that because why should they have to wear a mask when they haven’t had to before, despite the fact that had they warn masks in the first place then maybe it wouldn’t have to have been made mandatory. Now all and sundry are claiming they should be exempt. Go try and wear an oxygen mask or spend a day on a ventilator then maybe decide if a cloth mask is really that bad...

Track and trace isn’t working because so many people refuse to comply with it. Even on here people have said they won’t. So how is that meant to work then?

The government can in most instances only work with what they’ve got, and then people need to start taking responsibility for themselves.

The pubs opening doesn’t mean you have to go to one.

It being sunny doesn’t mean you have to swarm down to the beach with another half a million people.

We are going to have to learn to live with COVId because the truth is that COVID isn’t going anywhere and even with a vaccine people will still catch COVId,and people will still die of and be seriously affected by COVID, even if the numbers are less. But you only have to look at the flu to see how that one goes.

So everyone needs to start taking responsibility for themselves and stop wanting to live in a nanny state where the government has to tell them what to do.

Much of it is about common sense.

I love your defiant proclamation about how a vaccine is years away. Are you an expert?

That is, those most likely to get seriously ill or die. Neither cardiac patients nor diabetics were on it despite being two conditions with the highest death rates

Possibly thise with diabetes should have been included. That wouid take the total number up to about 6.5 million (1/10th of the population)

The most serious cardiac conditions are already included.

Shielding isn't much fun, and if we had someone with a borderline condition, I wouid be working hard to keep them in 'vulnerable rather than 'exceptionally vulnerable'

I have come to know quite a lot of shielded people. Only two of them are over 60 and only one of thise has retired.

There are no age categories on the shield list