ask if the rise in Covid is being fuelled by the working poor?

[Wantubackforgood]

It seems to me that there must be millions of low paid workers who are not in receipt of benefits (to trigger the £500 one off payment) and are working in jobs where only SSP is paid during self isolation/sickness.

They simply cannot afford to take the cut in income so carry on going to work .

I saw an ONS graph the other day that showed a clear correlation between deprivation and CV19 infection.

Some of this must be down to cramped living conditions, but some of it also must be the fact that when you live on the margins, you're far less likely to get sick pay or compasion and understanding from your boss if you have to take a week or two off work.

@Kazzyhoward

It's not just working poor, it's also the 3 million excluded self employed who've been left out of the support schemes so have to scratch whatever work they can get, when they can get it, just to pay the bills.

This. This is what happened to my neighbours and why I won’t report them or criticise them. I feel awful for them the government should have included all SE in the scheme

There’s a fight on Fleur du Force’s Instagram page at the moment because she jetted off to Dubai on Boxing Day (potentially against the letter or spirit of the rules).

OMG just looked this up - hilarious!!!

'Like, I thought we were in Tier 2 but we were actually in Tier 3 and I thought it was at midnight boxing day but it was actually 24 hours before that so I thought that when we travelled at 10pm we would be OK to go. I just got confuuuuused.

Fleur, love, not to be that wanker but we are in a global pandemic. It doesn't matter if you travel in Tier 2 or Tier 3, what difference does it make, you don't need to go to fucking Dubai!

Rochelle Humes went at Christmas too and then was all sad faced on This Morning listening to a caller whose family member had died of Covid.

The main reason for the rise in spread is that most people with the new cv strain have no symptoms.

So yes, it will spread in workplaces (and more affluent areas do have a much higher percentage of people WFH)
but not because people are deliberately going to work ill, they have no idea they are carrying it.

I'd love to see zero hour contracts abolished, and recruitment agencies held to account so that the working class have some rights in their workplace. I doubt it'll happen.

@contrmary

If by "working" the OP actually means "stupid" then yes she has a point. Stupid people are to blame for the spread of the virus, the idiots who don't socially distance, don't wear masks and visit other people when they shouldn't.

The guidance is pretty straightforward - stay at home and avoid other people. Sensible people (which actually includes some poor people) understand that the rules are not there to be pushed as far as possible.

Yet the ONS data shows clearly that the main drivers of community infection in Oct-Dec were schools which were full of pupils and people working.

The govt insisted that social distancing wasn't necessary in schools, forbade staff and pupils from wearing masks in the classroom and insisted that all pupils should be at school 'because they were safe'.

Pupils are teaching staff are explicitly told not to stay at home and avoid other people - they were instructed to do the opposite.

All this finger wagging at others is a massive distraction from the fact that the govt's own policies, including not providing enough or any financial support to low paid workers even when they need to isolate or are ill, have fuelled the spread of the virus.

Of course you’re right. We know the virus is spreading faster and measures are less effective in low income areas. I think it’s because:

• people can’t WFH or they have shitty employers who won’t let them;
• they can’t afford to self isolate;
• their employers aren’t observing proper social distancing measures so the virus is spreading in work places.

I’ve heard so many stories of employers pressuring their employees to claim school places they aren’t entitled to. And what can you do if the alternative is losing the job you desperately need?

Meanwhile we’re all looking the other way getting upset about people driving to exercise. Absolute nonsense.

@popNlock

There will also be some high paid 'important people' golfing and socialising. I seen a bit of that lately.

They won't be golfing at the moment, courses are all closed. Full of walkers now like everywhere else.

Stupid people. The guidance is pretty clear- stay at home and avoid other people

Let's remember for that every family priveledged enough to stay at home, there are hundreds of working class facilitating that. Packing, delivering your online shopping, emptying your bins, maintaining your utilities, protecting your streets, manning the shops, caring for the sick, manufacturing your goods.

@SmileyClare

Stupid people. The guidance is pretty clear- stay at home and avoid other people

Let's remember for that every family priveledged enough to stay at home, there are hundreds of working class facilitating that. Packing, delivering your online shopping, emptying your bins, maintaining your utilities, protecting your streets, manning the shops, caring for the sick, manufacturing your goods.

Too right.

Best hope that the minimum wage care home staff, hospital cleaners, supermarket workers and delivery drivers don't take heed of the message to stay home or people might find its not easy after all without the legions of people working invisibly to enable them to be so superior to stay at home.

*Twats because they want to see their Mum?

Wow .....*

Not Twats for wanting to, Twats for doing it

@whiteroseredrose

Rates have soared in Bowdon, a wealthy suburb of Manchester near me. From what I read their children were still partying and mixing schools. Presumably the parents were still meeting up too because they're wealthy and important so the rules don't apply.

Also a lot of business and BBC bods with connections to London in that area these days. I wondered if the spread is more of the new varient?

(I live near there too)

The virus was brought into the country by people returning from skiing holidays and reseeded in summer from Spanish holidays. So brought here by those with money. It has partially been spread by people travelling from areas of high infection to their second homes.

It's also been spread because people cant always afford to self isolate if they want a roof over their head, by students returning to universities and by children in schools - all a consequence of government policies. Add eat out to spread the virus and it's almost like the government wanted the virus to spread right through the country.

@Buddytheelf85

Add to the list the fact that people with low incomes will almost certainly be living in smaller, more crowded, inadequate and/or even unsanitary accommodation.

Meaning that isolating from the rest of your family will be rendered all but impossible for most, in comparison to a household with plenty of space, spare bedrooms, bathrooms etc. Then there are adults who cannot afford to live anywhere other than a house share, with strangers, who'll be in a similar position. Or anyone in temporary/emergency accommodation such as whole families in a single hotel room or hostel where people literally can't keep their distance.

It's hardly surprising that any sort of contagion will spread more easily in those environments. The housing crisis was already a longstanding scandal but like so many other inequities COVID has made it even worse by highlighting the associated health risks. Not that this government cares.

People that can’t afford to take time off to isolate when they are healthy is undoubtedly part of the problem, but the lack of financial support will affect those on middle and higher incomes just as much
That is not incorrect.
Choice between isolating and not paying rent: people choose not to isolate. I can understand it.
Choice between isolating and loosing 1000s of £ even if you can still pay rent... not sure I'll altruistically choose to isolate TBH, especially if I am asked to isolate because of contact but not testing positive myself.

We still have many unregulated HMOs ( houses of multiple occupancy ) around our area - these are run by unscrupulous LL, pack people in on a rolling basis - no tenancy agreements they pay cash in hand week by week, sometimes day by day, usually one bathroom for many people, we had 18 in the house next to us once.
They speak very poor English if at all, probably do very low paid work somewhere, have to access that work....probably could not do what the gov is asking them to do even if they could watch or follow the Public HEALTH INFO ADS AND I imagine where they work isn't adverse to cutting corners.

I think the current volume of cases is the product of ending lockdown on December 2, the three weeks between then and the next almost lockdown on December 22 - there was masses of Christmas shopping, socialising. That is why we are where we are now.

• Due to the lack of space inside its often these people who congregate late at night on the park benches also to drink and socialize.

** I do not think these people are driving the spread but certainly part of the wider picture of transmission that cannot be halted entirely.

My work is making us all (150+) staff go into the office when we can work from home.

I cannot afford not to work, so I go in as do the rest of us.

My job takes me to many homes- thankfully I work outside at a distance and don't have direct contact with my clients- I email them an invoice.
My point is that I work across all socio- economic groups all day every day, since March I've seen about 80% of my customers break the rules. From the mega rich to the poorest of person. There are plenty obeying the rules and paying the price (some customers look to have aged 20 years this year) Others throwing massive parties in their converted barns for 10 families for Christmas.... I've seen it all.

@LickEmbysmiling

We still have many unregulated HMOs ( houses of multiple occupancy ) around our area - these are run by unscrupulous LL, pack people in on a rolling basis - no tenancy agreements they pay cash in hand week by week, sometimes day by day, usually one bathroom for many people, we had 18 in the house next to us once. They speak very poor English if at all, probably do very low paid work somewhere, have to access that work....probably could not do what the gov is asking them to do even if they could watch or follow the Public HEALTH INFO ADS AND I imagine where they work isn't adverse to cutting corners.

Don't they also share beds when others are at work, so one in, one out

@mygenericusername

People who are sneaking for a cup of tea round their mums because they can’t bear not to see them is fuelling the fire.

A COVID ward matron I know is regularly sneaking into her mothers house. They’re then wondering around tescos like they’ve done nothing wrong.

It pisses me off. They’re just twats. Incidentally I only know 6 people that have had Covid. A couple who saw all of their kids over Christmas are currently not terribly unwell, a nurse who keeps her horse in my yard, her husband and the aforementioned twats.

I must be a twat then!! Maybe I'll just let my mental health suffer even more than it already is

As a small part of the story, yes.
The larger part is that viruses spread, and unless we change the entire economic structure on which our globalised world depends - and I am not saying that would be a bad thing at all - and shut all borders, there is not much to be done. That is not in any way a let-off for successive, mainly Conservative, governments, which over decades have abandoned public health as too hard to tackle and left us overweight, obese, unfit and with an erroneous belief that the NHS can and should "solve" our consequent ill-health.

I work for a supermarket and yes there have been several outbreaks but what are we supposed to do? Struggle on sick pay? Get disciplinary action taken against us for being off?
I'm incredibly lucky not to have caught it but doesn't stop the fear every time I go to work. I'm doing my best not to catch this virus and would do my best not to pass it round but my children have to eat and need a roof over their heads.
Blame the bosses who make our lives hell if we take time off (there are people on a final warning where I work due to them having to isolate. I don't think they're supposed to be allowed to do that but people don't say anything because they need the money).
It's a horrible situation. I don't know anyone who's actually breaking the rules but I do know people who have died from it and my next door neighbour (who's a carer) *is in ICU now.
I suppose it's easier to blame the poor though.

@Jetatyeovilaerodrome

There’s a fight on Fleur du Force’s Instagram page at the moment because she jetted off to Dubai on Boxing Day (potentially against the letter or spirit of the rules).

OMG just looked this up - hilarious!!!

'Like, I thought we were in Tier 2 but we were actually in Tier 3 and I thought it was at midnight boxing day but it was actually 24 hours before that so I thought that when we travelled at 10pm we would be OK to go. I just got confuuuuused.

Fleur, love, not to be that wanker but we are in a global pandemic. It doesn't matter if you travel in Tier 2 or Tier 3, what difference does it make, you don't need to go to fucking Dubai!

Rochelle Humes went at Christmas too and then was all sad faced on This Morning listening to a caller whose family member had died of Covid.

I've followed her on social media for about 10 years and I am so angry. She has a degree from LSE and no doubt has the NHS app that told everyone what tier they were in. She is not thick, she just thinks her Instagram followers are. She seems to have spent a large chunk of her break frantically deleting comments from people who had seen her in Dubai because she was pretending to be at home - boo hoo, so sad.