[quote BobbieDraper]@FuzzyPuffling
What do you want them to do? The shielding group are the group who are most likely to die. There is literally nothing they can do. They dont control the virus, obviously, and there is no vaccine. You have a choice; continue to sheild or ignore advice and risk your life by going out. Its not ageist or disabalist or anything else people are saying it is. There is literally nothing they can do to help you if you start mixing with people, so do you want them to give you the green light to risk your own life?
You can do that anyway, but dont blame the government if you get sick.[/quote]
I’ve read many harsh and callous messages in my time on MN, but this probably wins the medal for one of the nastiest. At an individual level, there is the issue of talking like this to someone who may be alone, afraid and completely devoid of human contact and interaction for months, and may be facing many more months of the same.
On a societal level, how can we ever think it’s ok to metaphorically lock people away while everyone else goes about their business. A Boris box of fray bentos pies and tinned potatoes doesn’t cut it. The government needs to find ways of dealing with this equitably. I can understand in the first flush of the crisis that shielding had to be used as a blunt instrument, but 14 weeks in, we need to find more nuanced ways of dealing with it. At the very least, there needs to be a proper and ongoing acknowledgement that 1.5 million people, and the families that are also under house arrest with them haven’t been forgotten. We need to find ways of making the environment safe for them that will allow them some freedom to be outside without worrying about every person who won’t move out of the way. As a society, we need to be demanding that something can and should be done for this group. And as individuals, we can stop being so damn nasty and pointing out they might die. Believe me, every single one of them knows that.