I work in a supermarket, in Birmingham in an area with high bame and with a similar demographic at work
Birmingham has been a hotspot and our local trust is top of the mortality by trust table.
We have had people at work test positive with it. One +55 white male in ICU, ventilated - now at home with a recouperation period of at least 6months to a year. Several other collegues have been off with it - even people on my shift. We carried on, those of us who were ok. No-one self isolated because of their collegues sickness.
We were not given the luxury of being able to stay home. We have been sworn at, spat at and verbally harrassed, especially in the beginning when the shelves were being emptied by people. We had a security guard punched. We were worried for our safety
We have worked like it was Christmas, but with no end in sight.
We have been out getting to work on public transport every day.
We haven't complained. We have appreciated our fellow low paid workers keeping this country ticking over - like the posties, bin men, trades, utility workers, engineers, train drivers, bus drivers, etc.
We understood that we were making sure that the NHS was not overwhelmed by making sute that we were careful and abided by the rules - in our case GOING to work to protect all of YOU who stayed home.
Now it's your turn to protect the NHS by making sure the economy doesn't tank. Over to YOU, guys.