To think that if you have an infectious disease, you should stay home?

[Notcontent]

So apparently the need to isolate if you have COVID will end in March. To me that seems to be sending an odd message… I am all for COVID restrictions being lifted - but surely if someone knows they have a virus, they should just stay at home??

I always thought it was pretty selfish for people with the flu or a stomach virus etc to just go out and spread their virus on public transport, to colleagues at work, etc.

I thought that a positive to come out of COVID might be that people will be more mindful about not spreading illness but it seems the message being given is that it’s fine to expose others!

They're talking about removing legal restrictions though, not advice to minimise contact with others when infectious. You may rightly feel it's antisocial to go out if you have a horrible cold or a child with chickenpox but should it attract criminal penalties?

While I understand your point, it's just not that simple, is it? Contagious sicknesses can last a week! If I called in sick to work every day for a week, I'd probably be in trouble. I am not currently in the UK, but when I was, it took me about a week to manage to get a doctor's appointment, so it's not as simple as just getting a doctor's note either. My husband works too, he can't just take a week off too to take the kids to school, take them to clubs, do the food shopping and the things I usually do while he's at work. So I have no choice but to go out, sick or not. In an ideal world we'd all stay in and rest but then our families could still be passing on our sickness to the outside world as they come and go - should they stay inside too? We just can't live like this, so cautiously, we would have to give ourselves a covid-style lockdown every time we got literally any cold or flu or bug. It's impossible.

Depends on what infectious disease you have. I'm a manager in a supermarket and if we have anything to do with sickness and diarrhoea then we can't come in because we are working with food. If it's a cold we are expected to work although I have sent people home in the past because I've seen my department wiped out from one person having a viral infection and everyone else catching it. The biggest problem we have is customers don't stay home and bring their germs in store and staff catch them. If people are not going to work I wish they'd stay home and not go out for anything but seeing as we'd have people shopping on their way home from the pcr test I doubt it's ever going to happen.

Whilst things like schools and work places will penalise those who have a certain amount of absence people will continue to have to go out when infectious.

Even during covid people were willing/ encouraged to turn a blind eye and continue ‘as normal’ when they were legally obliged to isolate at home.

Whilst things like schools and work places will penalise those who have a certain amount of absence people will continue to have to go out when infectious.

Exactly, it's all very well calling people selfish for going out when having something infectious, but when not doing so brings financial penalties as well as putting jobs at risk because employers don't want to recognise that humans get sick now and again and are obsessed with people not being allowed to take the piss, then it's still going to happen.
I'll take being called selfish any day over losing my income and the implications of that, being fined for my child being ill too many times, or being sacked for being ill too many times.

I think it would be good if we could adopt the wearing of masks if you have a cold. But somehow I don’t think it’s going to catch on.

I think schools are bad for this. My absence record was pretty much perfect, pre covid. But that was because I'd go in, even if it meant I just got through the day, then came home and went straight to bed. The hassle of setting work, then having your classes fuck about and lose time, and the extra burden it placed on colleagues wasn't worth it. It felt easier just to get through it and just get to the weekend. But you did end up being mildly ill for ages.

In some ways, being told to stay off because you're ill, takes away some of that guilt, rather than thinking: am I really ill enough to stay off? If I get to lunch time and survive year 9, then it's 6th form and yr 7 and I reckon I can do that.

It’s not an infectious disease, it’s an infectious virus and you do not need to self isolate with many of those, be it the cold or flu as examples.

Working culture and sickness policies will need to change then. I have no problem with that, but I also have to pay my mortgage so I will adhere to my organisation’s sickness policy in the meantime.

My partner used to work at a supermarket warehouse. You can't keep calling in work because you're slightly ill. You'd lose your job because they keep tabs on attendance religiously.

Just before I left my last employer I was in the process of proposing a 'Well Office' policy. We had all successfully worked from home. My proposal was simply that if a person woke up feeling under the weather then they would work from home that day.

In practical terms it would mean that people would need to take their laptops home. Meeting arrangers would be aware that not everyone would necessarily be in the room.

The proposal was aimed at reducing the numbers of people who came in at the start of a bug so that it wouldn't then spread. The proposal was about changing managerial attitudes to presenteeism.

I know a lot of jobs can't be done from home but at least if the WFH stayed home when potentially contagious it would reduce the speed at which bugs circulated.

if science says it's time, then it's time.

Lol that's not what's happening though.

Johnson says it's time because it's politically expedient for him.

Perhaps people could consider wearing masks when they have a cold in public which is seen in many Asian countries. Life goes on, we can't stop for every cold, our immune systems need it in any case.

I think hopefully it’ll be that people stay away from vulnerable people if they think they may have it as they would with a cold or stomach upset. I get the concern but also hope that people would use their common sense and still protect their vulnerable loved ones!

It isn’t a bloody cold Plan B was announced on a day with 120 deaths and 7,413 in hospital

End of Plan B was announced on a day with 359 deaths and 18,979 in hospital

Why are we easing restrictions when deaths and hospitalisations are higher?

We all get so many viruses every year that affect us mildly, we have to make subjective judgement calls about when we are well enough to work.

I might catch (for example) RSV, or any rhinovirus, coronavirus, adenovirus etc, and get not much more than a runny nose. Someone else might get no symptoms at all. A third person might get a nasty chest infection. A tiny baby can end up on a ventilator or die with RSV, yet this is a widely circulating virus that most children will get in their first two years of life.

You can't stay at home everytime you have a cold.

I had colds all throughout the winter months. I work from home, but if I worked in an office I'd soon be on a disciplinary if I called in sick everytime.

We have to learn to live with Covid. Vulnerable people should of course isolate and take extra precautions.

We can't destroying the economy forever.

Covid victims aren't just people that died from the virus, but also people who lost their existence, people that couldn't get life-saving surgery, abused and murdered children that fell through the net and the list goes on and on.

Enterthewolves

Do you realise thousands of babies are hospitalised with RSV every year? We dont lock down society to prevent the spread of this because it's too great a sacrifice for a tiny impact.

Have you got statistics for the 359 deaths? How many are cases where the individual had other conditions and it's not clear that Covid actually caused their death? How many were very elderly people? Elderly people die of minor viruses every single year.

Learning to live with something doesn’t mean ending all precautions - mask wearing, testing, limited isolation prevent undue pressure in the NHS and saves lives. The more pressure from Covid on the system the fewer cancer patients and people with other illnesses get treated. Living with something means taking steps, eg ventilation/masks in crowded areas/vaccination so life can be as normal as possible - removing all restrictions now won’t do that.

When the science says it’s time, I agree. We should look to unwind public health measures.

Science doesn’t say that though.

The government haven’t set out the scientific rationale. I’ve watched the press conference yesterday and it was quite telling that Chris Whitty and Patrick Valance were not there. The lady that wasn’t there gave hedged answers and stormed off very quickly at the end.

Dodgy as fuck.

I don’t think it should be compared to a cold. Covid is still killing a sizeable portion of people.

@teaandchocolate1

You can't stay at home everytime you have a cold.

I had colds all throughout the winter months. I work from home, but if I worked in an office I'd soon be on a disciplinary if I called in sick everytime.

We have to learn to live with Covid. Vulnerable people should of course isolate and take extra precautions.

We can't destroying the economy forever.

Covid victims aren't just people that died from the virus, but also people who lost their existence, people that couldn't get life-saving surgery, abused and murdered children that fell through the net and the list goes on and on.

What has the economy done for us though?

It’s been a shit show for years. Why are we such slaves to something that isn’t working for most people.

Loads of essential occupations cant be done from home.

Imagine all the teachers, childcare workers delivery drivers, nurses, doctors& other health professionals, people working in food preparation and logistics, border control, police, cleaners & refuse protection, sewage workers, firefighters, transport workers, all going off work every time they get a cold

The country would be in chaos, there would be food shortages, public health crises far worse than now, complete anarchy.

Staying home if you have a mild cold really isn't feasible for most people. I work with the public doing appointments. Around 12/15 a day. If I don't go to work firstly I don't get paid as I'm self employed. Then ALL my clients that day and any extra days need to be rearranged. Could be between 15-60 appointments cancelled depending on how many days i need off. Then lots of them complain that they themselves had to book a day off for the appointment and they need to book another day off for the rearranged one. So they are ranting about that. And to make them even angrier I'm so booked up that they can't get another appointment for about 2 or 3 months. And if I catch a couple of colds in quick succession I'd soon find myself without a job as people get very angry when they have appointments cancelled on a regular basis! I wear a mask anyway at work and unless I'm actually ill working with a runny nose really isn't an issue!

Obviously depends on the virus. People don’t tend to leave the house if they have the flu or a stomach bug because it makes them feel so dire. There’s no way anyone should hide away when they have the common cold though, children would miss out on so much education and the country would grind to a halt during winter.