Looks like shielding might be returning

[2X4B523P]

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8727553/Up-4-5million-risk-Covid-told-stay-home-new-shielding-plan.html

Couldn’t see another thread but excuse me if I’ve missed it.

So shielding is currently paused and it looks like there’s a plan to restart it and with extended to more people.

Also, the divide and conquer will work nicely for attitudes such as "my taxes are paying for Janet to be shielded but I saw her in Aldi"...

The government will love it.

Have you tried being in your house for months on end without going out

Yes, not too surprisingly :)

Some of this thread is about work.

Exercise at home, in a small house/flat? Jog on the spot for 6 months ? Yeah, great idea.

@Ecosse

Personally I’d be happy to fund shielding for family members as well.

The shielded and their family should be furloughed on 80% pay, high-quality online school provision should be set up for shielded DC as well as DC who have shielded family members (with laptop and internet provided).

I’d also make sure practical things were in place- so food and medicine deliveries provided.

That would give us the best chance of avoiding a catastrophic national shutdown which would decimate the economy and your DC’s futures.

Why 80% of our pay? We should be paid compensation in addition for the sacrifices we're making. What about mental health, being isolated and confined to home? What about being able to exercise and our general fitness? Hospital and drs appointments?

The ONS report on the CEV for July had these interesting figures.

If the 2 million plus CEV told to shield 623,000 were working prior to being told to shield.
227,000 worked from home (so do not need financial support.
The remaining 1.5m were either over working age, or already at home so either on pensions or benefits. Or family support. So their financial needs don't change.

Therefore - what we really need to look at is supporting the 396000 vulnerable who need to shield but can't contribute to the economy because it will risk their life and health.

My solution would be to furlough all those 396000 until the r is right down. Or a vaccine.

All those currently unemployed can take their jobs on a temporary basis. Get the economy going and start getting life back to normal without overwhelming the NHS.

If the CEV don't want to lockdown they are just going to have to take their chances.. whilst everyone else starts to live a normal life . The virus will spread like wildfire but will have little impact on the healthy.

Bank rolling 396000 for six months whilst the economy gets going is a drop in the ocean compared with country wide furlough and decimated businesses.

For the economy to get back on its feet.

Can't believe how many people are confident that shielding could be an alternative to current measures and allow the 'rest of us' to 'get back to normal.

First of all depending on the decisions about who should shield, it may be hard to get back to normal with so many key workers shielding. Presumably if people not shielding are to behave as normal then the criteria for shielding would have to be broad, it could be as many as half of GPs and a third of teachers for example, just based on age.

Second, even if you took all these officially more vulnerable people out of circulation, the remaining population still couldn't proceed as normal through a natural peak. There would still be massively high rates of key worker staff absence, people staying away from businesses etc, surge in demand for healthcare. Even before lockdown places were closing to protect staff or due to lack of custom. Those not classed as vulnerable are going to include a very high number who are afraid and don't participate, and/or do become very ill. Even mild cases, unless everyone at your workplace is happy to have you come in...will cause huge disruption. We'd still see the consequences of exponential growth.

Shielding is for the protection of some highly vulnerable people who would be at very high risk even with current restrictions, and to relieve some of the pressure on the NHS. It isn't an alternative to other measures.

@Snowpatrolling

My nans dr has told her a couple of weeks ago she will be in shielding again, it’s not a case of IF, it’s a case of WHEN.

My dr also pussyfooted when I asked and all he would say is make sure any vulnerable person I see or deal with is stocked up on things they need, and to also stock myself up. He said whilst he couldn’t tell me anything I’m thinking along the right tracks.

He couldn’t tell you anything because he probably doesn’t know! Or maybe the two GPs in my family would prefer me to be ill.

Agree that it’s if not when though.

if you couldn't work from home last time you could have been furloughed - it was one of the reasons employers were allowed to furlough staff. I suspect they will do the same this time around, but only for those who have to shield

That makes sense. I am guessing that a lot of people who shielded last time but without a solid medical reason will be really unhappy about this.

@Didkdt

This is half true. Shielding was about us playing a role in the NHS not being overwhelmed because we the 2 million caught Covid and needed high level treatment. It was made clear that those shielded would be at the back of the line for ICU if we caught it because it was believed our chances of survival would be less. I can envisage that if too many of the shielded did not comply it would be enforced.

But wasn’t that mostly bollocks?

People had cancer treatment stopped and will now die as a result of lockdown whilst part of the nhs ate cake and made videos

The NHS has totally failed so many people during lockdown

@EDSGFC

It’s not about ‘carrying on socialising’. It’s avoid ensuring that tens of millions of people do not lose their jobs and that DC’s education is not stopped for another 6 months.

I actually wrote to my (conservative) MP when the shielding policy and strategies were introduced and it was a SNAFU. I helpfully suggested if they would introduce employment and income protection for shielded people, they could have a snappy slogan (which Boris loves) such as "pay and protect".

I never got a reply. Well I thought it was a good idea

True @donnadenise but I run, cycle and planning to start swimming again this week, not so easy to do from the front room.

@notevenat20 do you mean those who chose to shield versus those who were advised to shield?

I was advised to shield (before shielding was actually a thing), thankfully I can work from home, and I did until I got COVID, at which point I was on furlough whilst I recovered.

I was meant to go back to our office this week, as I can reach there without using public transport, however, that decision has now be halted.

Can shielders work? In my workplace shielders has no choice as they had to work from home due to insurance given it was giv advice

It was made clear that those shielded would be at the back of the line for ICU

Bollocks. I was shielding, and I was in ICU. The Government have never said shielded patients would not be provided space in ICU.

Why is it that people seek a black and white solution to something so variable.

Not every vunerable person is in the same position, in fact it is exactly the opposite .

There is not one answer .

It’s all about minimising risk . Not eliminating it .

They may have different groups and companies could furlough those in highest band

Work from home if you can

Family to minimise their risk as much as possible .

I have a relative who is a young mum in the highest category but she works fro: home . It has to send her children to school so she can work .

She needs to know that the families she is exposed to are taking care and testing when necessary to minimise the risk of bringing the virus home . But she also could do with making sure the family get delivery slots so she can minimise that risk as well.

That is totally different to an elderly person in a care home .who also needs human family contact.

It’s so easy to criticise when you are not making the policy.

@Ecosse love you.

Never have I seen a mn poster who gets it!

@midgebabe

There will be no money left...exactly like there was no money left after the Second World War, yet the world didn't fall apart then , and they managed to create the NHS.

country money does not work like a household budget.

The UK debt for WW2 was not fully repaid until December 2006. It was 2015 before we paid off WW1. So no, "country money" - national economies - does not work like a household budget. But national debt has an impact on every single person in a country, it has an impact on the economy, on taxes, and on a wide range of things. The current level of debt will be decades in repayment, and it will have to be repaid. If you think that people won't pay for all this (and their children, their grandchildren and their great grandchildren...) who exactly do you think will pay for it?

It is a complete nonsense to suggest that creating the NHS in 1948 means that debts somehow don't have to be repaid or that "everything will be all right". Have you seen the state of the NHS these days? Or adult social care? Or childrens services? They, and lots of other public services have been slashed to the bone because we are servicing huge amounts of debt as a country - "austerity" was rationalised on the fact that we could not continue to spend and increase the national debt. Whether that is true or not, and /or whether the way the world economies operate is "fair" or "rational" are irrelevancies. The UK is more heavily in debt than it has ever been, to the tune of at least £2trillion. And we are about to crash out of any relationship with our major trading partners without any viable alternatives (chlorinated chicken, anyone?). We are shedding jobs at an astounding rate, and nobody seems to have noticed that this whole "working from home is possible" simply underlines that fact that many UK jobs can be done far more cheaply from home - in Manila or Mumbai.

Is there any part of this moment in time that looks economically rosy???

What are you supposed to do if you are told to shield but your kids have to go to school?

How can anyone shield effectively with children?!!

Shielding is for the protection of some highly vulnerable people who would be at very high risk even with current restrictions, and to relieve some of the pressure on the NHS. It isn't an alternative to other measures.
This is true. The current restrictions cannot be eased for the general population because the virus numbers and R number would quickly be so high that even the 'new normal' would not be possible and the second wave would continue indefinitely.
The economic problems at the moment do involve a large amount of acceleration of an existing trend and that part of the restructuring cannot be reversed. And the need for increased numbers of workers in other parts of the economy where there are shortages actually needs to be facilitated not impeded.

@Hipsterpotamus

It was made clear that those shielded would be at the back of the line for ICU

Bollocks. I was shielding, and I was in ICU. The Government have never said shielded patients would not be provided space in ICU.

If the NHS was over run. They were clear it would be assessed on how likely you were to recover and quality of life you got a bed because the armageddon never came. The Nightingales were never needed but they were clear the BMA etc there was a criteria list if there was competition for beds So no not bollocks as you so crassly put it

@Hipsterpotamus

It was made clear that those shielded would be at the back of the line for ICU

Bollocks. I was shielding, and I was in ICU. The Government have never said shielded patients would not be provided space in ICU.

I think the point is that if there’s no space in ICU then you can’t be provided one. If there is one spare bed and there is a person who is young and healthy vs a person with a condition that means they are not as likely to survive they will pick the young healthy person for the ICU space.

And when that debt was repaid I'm 2015, did you notice how much better off we all became? No, because that's how much impact that debt actually had on your life

I was shielded, quite expecting to be again, if I am honest.

They are not going to give someone cev an icu bed if they are over run @Hipsterpotamus they will give them to those they have more chance of saving. Harsh (I’m shielded too so I get it) but true.