New guidance just published on Clinically Extremely Vulnerable

[Goldistheanswer]

I’ve just read the guidance and it seems that there will be no shielding apart from in very small (high risk) areas and only for short periods of time.

[quote OpheliasCrayon]@Haenow you're kidding right? Not many vulnerable people in high risk jobs? Being high risk isn't just limited to being 80+ .... There are a LOT of us working in schools. I work in a few schools and there are a large number of staff in each that are vulnerable myself included. Please don't delude yourself thinking that this isn't as bad as it actually is[/quote]
I’m far from deluded, being young and in a client facing role. I live my life, even pre Covid and especially in winter, with a constant concern I may pick up a bug that’s dangerous to me. It’s not an unrealistic concern either given my history of repeated intensive care hospital admissions.

There are approximately 4.5m in the shielding group. Of that number, around half are of working age. Not everyone in that group will need to be shielded as they will be able to work from home or have adapted roles or work of covid secure places of work. Out of the approx 2.25m, there will be some who are teachers or nurses and the financial support should be targeted to them. I don’t need to be told to shield, I’d far rather the protections were to those who needed it!

@Ecosse

Of course there are individual cases and these people should be taken care of. But the vast majority of shielders did not work prior to lockdown- I think 70%.

Of the remaining group, many will be able to work from home so it would certainly be possible to pay the wages of the remainder. I’d start it from Monday.

@Ecosse

Where did you read this?

Here @Haenow www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/healthandsocialcare/conditionsanddiseases/bulletins/coronavirusandshieldingofclinicallyextremelyvulnerablepeopleinengland/28mayto3june2020

Only 28% of shielders work.

2% of 2.2 million CEV people is 616,000 people.

No financial support has been made available for them/us if we can’t work from home. We have a choice of risking our lives or quoting our jobs. In what world is that acceptable?

Quitting not quoting

And 28% not 2%

It’s not acceptable @Egghead68. I’d offer shielders who cannot work from home full pay to stay at home.

It’s madness to expect those who are vulnerable to attend work and school.

@Egghead68

2% of 2.2 million CEV people is 616,000 people.

No financial support has been made available for them/us if we can’t work from home. We have a choice of risking our lives or quoting our jobs. In what world is that acceptable?

Out of that numbers, some will be able to work from home and some will be public sector workers who are redeployed. Additionally, I understand they are seeking to revise the shielding list as we have learned more about what actually constitutes a risk.

And some will be people in neither of those categories who have to risk their lives or lose their jobs.

They were going to amend the shielding category but this has all gone quiet and instead they have abandoned shielding altogether.

www.google.co.uk/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/world/2020/oct/14/uk-shielders-on-the-rise-in-covid-cases

@Egghead68 then re-introducing shielding won’t help anyway. Most work places are risk assessing people individually.

Fortunately, even those who are the highest risk are still - statistically - unlikely to die, especially if we are of working age. The greatest risk is being 80 plus and not many are working at that age, although my grandfather worked until he was 85!

But I don’t understand what they want... some say they want to be paid to isolate. But another says they felt Isolated shielded.

If you paid me to stay in, fine. I’m mostly staying in anyway. But it would be a waste of money because my family are still having to go out into the world and could possibly bring the virus home.

Perhaps someone’s nutty-seeming idea of blocks of flats for shielders isn’t so nutty after all... those who really wanted to shield to the max could check into hotel corona all expenses paid, but they would not be able to leave if they wanted to keep the financial benefits.

To be fair anyone can make a decision to shield themselves without the government telling them too, but for those who are unable to wfh or attend school the GP or consultant should be able to issue individual shielding notes (like a sick note but specifically to shield) depending on area infection rates, the vulnerability and individual circumstances.

I'm in Merseyside, tier 3, anyone i my area previously shielding unable to WFH is basically fucked

I know a few self shielders, with the old, “I didn’t get a letter, but...”

They are - rightly or wrongly - terrified and it’s up to them if they want to barricade themselves in. I wish they wouldn’t be so vocal about lockdowns and “lives before economy” though.

I agree that in somewhere like Merseyside I would be going round in a hazmat suit and would be grateful for specific guidance.

It would be financially viable to pay 660K people to stay at home until say March when the weather starts to improve and hopefully the main risk has passed.

BUT they don't live alone. We can't afford to pay their partners too, and we can't expect their children to stay at home and not be educated (and don't say "online lessons" - that doesn't work medium/long term and kids don't want to be stuck at home for months). That's the bigger problem.

My uncle is 84 and he only stopped working recently!

Yes, they’d have to pay me, pay dh, pay ds and provide online education for dd (which wouldn’t go down well...).

It would be cheaper to stick me in a Travelodge with a tray left outside the door three times a day if I was that determined to shield to the max.

@obscureone

I think the Gov are saying "make your own decisions, you are on your own"

To be honest, I prefer this. It wasn't compulsory before, just guidance, so I'd have thought a large amount made their own decisions back then.

Irma, I believe in choice as far as it is possible.

I would like the choice to educate my kids at home for a few months without repercussions, It would cost no one a bean and we would be doing the work of the schools for them. We can take the financial hit (we aren't hugely wealthy but we can manage) and we can teach our kids. We 're very lucky to be able to do that.

If you and your family don't want to do that, you want to keep working and go on sending your kids to school, you should have that choice.

If you want to move into a Travel Lodge, then as long as Travel Lodge are happy, then fine. I'm not sure how much the Government would agree to finance that, though.

I think people's preference should be taken into account, we should follow the science as much as we can as a country and we should support each other in that. My local area has a fantastic volunteer support network available for people who are shielding and , for example, need help with their shopping (we just used Ocado)

I think it is reasonable that there is some government support for people's choices, although I can't imagine that there will be the funds or political energy to give a very luxurious shielding package for people

Exactly. Any package won’t be luxurious.

I was incensed at the beginning of lockdown at people on MN complaining about the government box. It was fine! Granted, it wasn’t Fortnum & Masons, but it was named brands and I used everything, until I found out how to cancel it without jeopardising my supermarket delivery slot. If people on here could use MN, then they could organise a supermarket delivery or contact those, as you say, who were more than willing to help. But people were going on about no fresh meat or “food preferences”. Strewth, I’m cross about it still! How could a person one week be going about their business (and potentially catching Covid) and the next this pathetic whinger. Obviously I am not referring here to the very elderly or previously disabled.

When students were incensed at the quality of their food boxes (which to me looked rather better than some council's for ECV) it made the front page of BBC website and there was generally lots of comments about how appalling it was to treat students like that.

If it's unacceptable for 14 days for a student, why should ECV be happy about having only that indefinitely?

Face it, some people just want them out of sight and out of mind

The students were paying £18 for these; they weren’t free.

It isn't that I don't think vulnerable people deserve to be treated well, at all. Quite the opposite.

I think it is a very difficult time for everyone and we should be working together to make things better (like the volunteers in our village).

However, protecting and caring for this number of people would be a huge logistical challenge.

So we just told the Government that we didn't need to aid box (as did a number of our neighbours) and we ordered from supermarkets instead.

But it is important that people get food, if they are highly vulnerable and/or ill, and it would need to be food that is adequate for their needs. We need to pull together on this.

It should be about supporting people, not doing them down.

The ECV boxes were paid for from council tax. So it's ok for every enfranchised local resident to say what hey think of the standards

Whether publicly or privately funded, is it really acceptable for someone to have no any in what they eat (whether for 14 days or 14 weeks).

@cologne4711

The vast majority of shielders are over 65 so I would surmise that most will not be living with someone who works and cannot do so from home.

Paying shielders and their family members who cannot work from home is a lot more affordable than shutting down the economy and keeping everyone at home.

[quote Ecosse]@cologne4711

The vast majority of shielders are over 65 so I would surmise that most will not be living with someone who works and cannot do so from home.

Paying shielders and their family members who cannot work from home is a lot more affordable than shutting down the economy and keeping everyone at home.[/quote]
But your idea wouldn't protect most of the genuinely extremely clinically vulnerable.

Diabetes wasn't included on the list - yet it's a condition with one of the very highest risks of serious illness or death from Covid.

One in four of the deaths worldwide have been in diabetics.

Many many diabetics are under 65 and working - lots in essential roles in hospitals social care, and schools. They also live with working age spouses and school age children.

As an aside, now that evidence is emerging of Covid triggering type 1 diabetes in some children and adults, I expect we'll see even more diabetics in the coming years.