To those who just want to carry on as normal

[cpatty]

I've name changed for this, as I am sure this won't make me a popular person around here but hear me out and excuse that I really do not have a way with words

To all those who want the vunerable/elderly to stay at home for god knows how long so they can just carry on as normal and not follow social distancing etc and take the risk, would you forgo the right to hospital treatment if you became unwell with covid as a direct result of being irresponsible?

The vunerable people who are being told constantly to just stay at home, will more than likely require hospital treatment over the winter for non covid related issues as a lot of them do regularly. Hospitals full to the neck of covid patients really isn't going to be of any help to these people at all !
We have a vunerable family member, regular hospital attendances and it gets worse in the hospitals year on year. Sat for hours waiting to be seen despite being extremely unwell (and yes that does happen, its not just people who really don't need to be there sitting for hours on end) sometimes days on a trolley or a chair waiting on a bed becoming available and this was before covid !

Personally i'm not too worried about covid in terms of contracting it, because we have been staying in since March so the risks of contracting it are low for us however the worry is that far too many people are carrying on as normal and this will most certainly lead to a lot of them requiring treatment in hospital for Covid and leads me to worry hugely about the access to medical treatment this winter.
And really why should that vunerable person who has taken care of their health as best as they possibly could and followed guidance to avoid getting covid to protect the NHS, why should that person have to suffer because so many other people choose to be irresponsble thinking they are invincible, it won't happen to them, but then they do end up really ill and requiring hospital treatment. This will lead to an overwhelmed NHS !

This folks is why even if you aren't vunerable. Everyone must do everything that they can to prevent it getting to that stage !

Personally i'm not too worried about covid in terms of contracting it, because we have been staying in since March

Good for you.

Lots of people don't have that option, do they?

@Derbygerbil that's the people we need to prioritise for care. Doctors, nurses, teachers. We all need to adhere to the rules to protect them - including the vulnerable who are far more like to swallow up resources (unnecessarily if they protect themselves)

@GabriellaMontez

Quite. Saying "we made loads of lovely cakes and did crafts"

Yep, these people's children always just positively flourished during lockdown. Fabulous, most of the kids in my schools biggest achievement was getting to level 58394595 on Fortnite

@trappedsincesundaymorn but we are all making sacrifices. We are in an see with local lockdown. Under current rules my 80 Herat old mil doesn't have to adhere to any other rules than I do. She is routinely having visitors into her block if flats with other vulnerable older people live at a time of high infection rates. It's not acceptable and would t be if she were young either.

Old people aren't kids but a lot of them have the luxury of not having jobs anymore and some sort of financial income. We don't. My job goes then we are homeless in 6 months. So are Mullins if others if we go into lockdown again. So not a child but very selfish

Not sure why people think the comments about smokers is a valid argument. It's a well known fact that smokers pay far more in tax than they cost the NHS.

Smoking costs the NHS around £2.7billion a year, yet smokers pay around £9billion in tax.

As a smoker, you can thank me later

Yes, I would forgo hospital treatment. Is that ok?

May I just note that healthcare where I live has been more efficient since March. GP access, via internet and email has been much better. In April when I had awful sciatica emailed GP via internet system at 8am and had Dr on phone by 8.45. Much much better than calling three times and waiting for the phone to be answered for up to 30 mins. Repeat prescriptions have worked better DD has had a consultation about menstrual issues: had her implant removed and been referred for a scan. All in good time. She had the scan yesterday: apt at 3 40, seen at 3.30 and back in the car at 3.50. It's a level of efficiency I haven't seen in the NHS for years.

Back in Feb/March three of us were travelling up to London daily - all fine. From mid March we worked from home and followed the rules. DD returned from uni. DH visited his mother as soon as social bubbles announced. My 20 somethings have observed the rules and are both going to uni in a cpl of weeks and will be observant there.

Meanwhile MIL has had a bad lockdown and dementia has escalated and she now needs carers. Her social world was: church, luncheon club, hairdresser, play reading group. All gone.

My mother and step have carried on as usual. Daily seaside walk, weekly trip to supermarket and farm shop. Once able have had friends visit the garden. Now can have a bridge 4. Their lives have barely changed.

It has been easy for us to wfh. I have been going in 2 days pw since mid June; DH'srole has continued largely. Even in main lockdown we had nice local walks and cd go to the supermarket. We have had a UK holiday and have eaten out.

If a lockdown means groups of 6, 10pm curfew, shops open, schools open, uni's open and work continuing that's fine. As is mask wearing and social distancing. We can live without big events and have had a few opera nights with good recordings at home. However our DC need to return to something more normal and I believe we all have to adjust and learn to live alongside this wretched virus. As our grandparents had to live alongside: tb, polio, diphtheria, scarlet fever etc. The world didnt stop turning in previous generations and for the sake of our overall futures and our children's futures it cannot stop turning again now.

taraRoo

So you would prefer an 80 year old to stay shut away, lonely and miserable. Keep your distance from her, wash your hands and wear a mask when you see her. Let her live what's left of her life with a bit of happiness or would you rather she died lonely and miserable. Before you jump on with "well she will if she gets covid", that's her risk to take. My dad has said he would rather risk getting it than being alone for what's left of his life. There's more to life than merely existing.

We need some kind of normality here as people that work for the government ( NHS , schools etc) are paid their wages by the tax payer. Another lockdown would cripple the economy even more. NHS staff still want their money , our local school head still wants his six figure salary , they don't say ' we will work for free for a while do they? How do people think they are paid ? By others going out to work to pay their wages.
I haven't got the answers and I'm no economist , but it seems the ones wanting longer or another national lock down are not looking at the whole picture.
I'm not teacher bashing by the way as they have worked hard and doing their best but so have millions of others too!
I take on board the arguments about the vulnerable. I've lost relatives to this disease myself and couldn't be with them at the end of their life , but we won't have any NHS left if we continue to lockdown fully. The economy is just as important here because it keeps everything moving.
I can see all the arguments and I'm glad I don't work for the NHS , but people have to eat and we can't all have the luxury of staying home for 24/7.
All that extra cleaning in schools the money has to come from somewhere for the extra needed.
I agreed with the first lockdown and applied and stuck to the rules , but the knock on effects of all this worry me more.
It's an impossible situation.

@amusedtodeath1

Seems the AD lot are a bit stressed today. Losing the argument brings out the worst in some people.

Good question though. Would anyone be prepared to put their money where their mouth is and forgo medical treatment. The danger is tiny after all?

I think they should have to wear "do not treat" bracelets or tattoos. Why waste our resources on those who don't take it seriously?

OP - if you're looking for someone to blame right now, you need to look at the government systems, not normal people just trying to get on with life. The abysmall test and trqce system has a lot to answer for the situation we are in right now (facing further lockdowns etc).

The tier 2 testing has been causing time delays that have enabled the spread of the virus and increased the R rate.

Imagine if people are at their most contagious just before they develop symptoms (clever things these viruses) - most people incubate and develop symptoms in 5 days. If test and trace takes longer than 4 days (which if you look at the stats is happening a lot...) doesn't take a genius to see how the virus is spreading. Mostly it's just a virus doing what it does best... if you want to reduce it you need a highly effective test and trace system. (With masks, social distancing and hand washing measures).

I'd be really interested in seeing the granular data that shows actual test and trace data - ie how many test requests and returns were fulfilled in time to allow contact tracers time to get to people within 4 days.

I'm really confused by the AD thing. They seem so negative, paranoid and angry (dementory?) and I really don't follow what they are advocating for.

I think they should have to wear "do not treat" bracelets or tattoos. Why waste our resources on those who don't take it seriously

As long as it's just not for covid. I mean if your child doesn't do what they are told and has an accident, are others allowed to say "well you shouldn't seek treatment for them because they didn't take your warning seriously, so why waste resources".

You haven't thought your argument through have you?

Wow. What a thoroughly unpleasant post. Fat people are too stupid to know that they're at higher risk and they deserve to die?

But why is it any worse than saying that older people or those with underlying health issues aren’t worth the sacrifice to the young and fit?

I’ll admit to thinking it’s a pity the virus doesn’t target the type of stupidity that leads people to say isolate the vulnerable and let the rest of us crack on with no understanding whatsoever of what that would actually look like in practice. And yes I’d expect that a lot of them are fat as well as ignorant and gobby.

Oh well this kicked off as expected by some people.
Some very reasonable arguments for and against the idea, also some posters who clearly don't understand discussion and everyone having different views
It was a hypothetical question out of interest more than anything else and it was more so if people could go back to complete normality, given theres a lot of people who are absolutely desperate to do so (and are doing so in many ways) with no social distancing, just back to normal life pre covid.
I agree people should risk assess themselves, i also do not advocate for further complete lockdowns etc however i do feel like government protection for those most vunerable who really do want to protect themselves have now been removed. Shielders forced back into work, vunerable children and those with vunerable family members being forced to attend school or deregister completely losing their school place whenever realisticly while this epidemic is growing again these peoples risk is growing by the day.
I do believe that the vast vast majority of children for example should be at school, we shouldn't be impacted on their education for what will be a very low risk to them and also so their parents can attend work in turn dealing with the economy however i also believe we should be providing a remote education for those children and families where the risk is high so their education is not disadvantaged.
I also fear the long term implications of covid on the NHS, what will the outcome be if lots of otherwise healthy people get covid and it leaves then with life long medical conditions (this has also been seen in mild covid cases) in 5 years from now will the health service be able to cope and provide treatment for these people.
During another peak of the virus will the health service be able to cope with all other health needs. We clearly can see that they cannot and as a direct result already vunerable people and also non vunerable are being impacted by either routine cancer prevention programmes or cancer treatment and various other services being massively impacted and therefore we must protect these services as people are unneccessarily dying not from covid but in relation to the effect covid is having on services and it seems pretty clear the NHS would not be able to cope with both during another peak. I'm in an area of the country where normal services have still not resumed despite a quiet summer on the covid front !

A lot of people are following the guidelines, those are probably our only defence against getting to an out of control covid situation, rule of 6, social distancing etc etc while continuing on their everyday lives as best they can and that is the ideal scenario however you only have to look at many many posts on here where people choose to make what they want of it and that their right to have a family party trumps the rights of everyone else in the entire country. Social media as well, plenty of family meetings which you are allowed to do....but WITH social distancing, and definintely at this stage the amount meeting family and friends but not social distancing is outweighing those who are but again thats just what i'm seeing and isn't representive of the entire country

OK some actual data.

Right now (3rd Sept - 9th Sept) only 9.3% of home test results are returned within 48 hours (this was only at 37.9% since test and trace launched). And this is the stage before the data even gets to the 'trace' bit.

OP, I see where you're coming from (vulnerable people shouldn't have to suffer alone, while everyone else carries on as they please) but there are lots of problems with your analysis.

First, if the assessment of vulnerable vs. relatively invulnerable is made correctly, we won't see large numbers of reckless young people needing hospital treatment for covid. People not in a vulnerable category might be fairly ill and need a couple of weeks in bed but they are extremely unlikely to be hospitalised.

Second, you seem to be suggesting that the NHS should be reserving most of its resources for a very small number of people. In practice that may be what happens, but as a policy it's unfair.

Some vulnerable people are vulnerable through no fault of their own; others are vulnerable because of prior lifestyle choices (the smoker with lung cancer, the alcoholic with cirrhosis, the very obese). It wouldn't be fair to say that someone who goes out enjoying themselves now is denied care, but someone who did exactly the same thing in the past (only changing their behaviour on becoming ill) should get it.
The NHS is there for all of us. Care isn't rationed by some measure of 'merit'. No one should ever be blamed for needing it, and within reason everybody should be allowed the treatment they need.

Third, not everyone you see out and about is hell bent on anti-social hedonism! A lot of people are desperately trying to keep their businesses afloat or hold on to their jobs. There is nothing reckless or wrong about that.

@InsaneInTheViralMembrane

OP - when your "vulnerable family member" dies of old age/falling down the stairs/car crash on the way to hospital - can we all crack on then or will another of YOUR relatives have moved into the vulnerable group by virtue of co-morbidities which come with age?

Don't be so bloody selfish. The world revolves around exactly NONE of us and we operate as a whole for the benefit of all of us - and of course there will ALWAYS be outliers.

You don't get a fucking hospital bed reserved in your name just because you're often a bit peely-wally.

Fwiw I'm vulnerable and waiting for brain surgery. I'm also a single mum with nobody to take over the kids should I cark it. Yet still I don't believe the entire world needs to come to a halt just for me. What sort of entitled person would do that?

Can i just point out that not all vunerable people are old and just waiting on a fall down the stairs as i'm sure with you well realise given your own vunerabilities I know various people who would get very unwell or die if they contracted covid, lots are young people in the age bracket of 20-30's who in a pre covid world were leading a fairly normal life and contributing to the economy I also don't think that people in your situation should have delays to treatments and surgeries because the NHS is unfit for purpose and as someone else pointed out now seems to have become the National covid service !

@KitKatastrophe

would you forgo the right to hospital treatment if you became unwell with covid as a direct result of being irresponsible?

Only if they stop treating smokers with lung cancer, alcoholics with liver disease, obese people with type 2 diabetes. Direct results of irresponsible behaviour.

Lets not bother to treat people with flu who didn't get the jab this year - or who declined any other vaccine and then became ill.

Oh and people who are injured in RTAs as they shouldnt have been so irresponsible driving a car when they know theres a risk of injury. Ditto for people falling off bikes, drowning, sports or DIY related injuries, all could be avoided if we just stayed indoors and didnt move.

Fair point !

@Forgone90

If I was garunteed to go back to complete normality as it was pre covid I would happily do that without hospital treatment if I got the virus.

I am a big believer that if its your time it's your time. No doubt in 20 years time we will be moaning like crazy that the world is massively over populated by 15-20% yet a virus that has the maximum potential to kill off 0.6% had brought the world To its knees.

Survival of the fittest is the world's natural way of making sure their is a balance. yet we as humans believe we have the right to extend life indefinitely for our own personal reasons.

I get that it's different when personal feelings come into play and it's not all just about numbers. However the world doesn't care about people's feelings.

Making your disdain for people more vulnerable than you very clear there op. Your post has made me feel really depressed that people really think that way. We are a rich country, we can afford to look after the more vulnerable.

If you believe in survival of the fittest @Forgone90 does that mean that you won't have any treatment if you had an illness? If you has cancer you would refuse treatment? If had pneumonia you'd refuse antibiotics? According to your logic, you should refuse treatment, as it is "your time".

what will the outcome be if lots of otherwise healthy people get covid and it leaves then with life long medical conditions

I keep wondering the same about the many people with existing conditions whose appointments have been cancelled? Cancelled surgeries, routine monitoring of chronic conditions postponed until 'next year'.

People developing complications of what should be manageable problems.

@Sparklfairy

Not sure why people think the comments about smokers is a valid argument. It's a well known fact that smokers pay far more in tax than they cost the NHS.

Smoking costs the NHS around £2.7billion a year, yet smokers pay around £9billion in tax.

As a smoker, you can thank me later

Sorry, doesnt matter how much you've paid in.

If you've been naughty and smoked, overeaten or visited family you're no longer worthy of treatment.

@GabriellaMontez

what will the outcome be if lots of otherwise healthy people get covid and it leaves then with life long medical conditions

I keep wondering the same about the many people with existing conditions whose appointments have been cancelled? Cancelled surgeries, routine monitoring of chronic conditions postponed until 'next year'.

People developing complications of what should be manageable problems.

Very worrying indeed !

Reading through the different all very valid views on this thread on both sides of the argument. There just isn't a one size fits all solution to the problem unfortunately

But the Government really do need to get their act together on the NHS and i think thats potentially one thing everyone could agree on. That these delays should not be happening !

So as well as ‘worthiness’ based on behaviour, shall we also factor in whether people are net contributors to the system too?
As a high earning family we are net contributors. If I behave irresponsibly does that negate that? Does someone who doesn’t pay much in to the system but hasn’t left their house since March get preferential treatment?

Now vulnerable kids are being asked to go to school. Shielding parents forced to send their kids