How are vulnerable people still getting infected?

[mashainpink]

Genuine question and I hope I'm not coming across as goady in asking.

The death figures coming out of hospitals now is very worrying.

We know who the at-risk people are now. If you're old, with known underlying health conditions that are a contributing factor to hospitalisation/death with Covid, or obese, how are you even getting close enough to infected people to get Covid in the first place??

If I fell in to one of the categories above, you'd bet I'd be masked up to the fucking hilt. Limited contact with my household, not getting anywhere near 2m of other people, wearing gloves, masks, a face shield whilst I'm out, disinfecting all my shopping, asking to WFH (if I could).

Or are the majority of these hospital acquired infections? In which case hospitals need better infection control?

Or have very old people had enough of shielding and taking the risk of death because they'd soon die of boredom/loneliness?

Or is it something else I'm missing?

Because some are in work, some go shopping or out in general, some have children in school where you are at the mercy of other parents who do/don’t follow the rules. Likely the latter given how many don’t seem to understand SD remains in place even for children or can’t count to six.

One I know of locally caught it from a carer who came to the house.

[quote mashainpink]**@NervousInYorkshire* and @Thisisneverending* I see. I think because we as a family have been following the rules we might struggle to see how others can get infected [/quote]
What makes you think the ECV people I'm talking about haven't been 'following the rules'? Which rules exactly do you mean they've been breaking? (And I don't mean in the given instance of not being able to control other people's behaviour)

I am vulnerable. I have children who go to school. I am not going to socially distance from my children, I value their mental health. I think there will always be some risk, we can try and limit it, but hard to be entirely safe if you live with other people.

Well it's a strange concept I'll agree, this notion that we live interconnected lives and that therefore when community transmission rises then rates amongst people vulnerable to covid will also rise. However, it is the case. Which is why it's always been bullshit that we can let this thing rip through the population and somehow, magically, prevent a certain group within the population from getting it. Because they don't live alone on top of hills miles from anywhere.

Just think about yourself and your own circumstances op. How would you avoid contact with another living person? For a year?

You mention work. Would you give up work, if you couldn't work from home? How would you then pay your mortgage and buy food? You also mention family. Would you barricade yourself into your bedroom, or perhaps move into a different property altogether and leave your school attending bus riding children to fend for themselves? For a year?

Or what about if you relied on family members outside the home to undertake tasks personal and otherwise to keep you safe/well? Would you just dispense with that? Or would you hope that the rest of society would take a responsible attitude to keeping down transmission rates in order that your family members - who are probably out working, or who have children who work or attend education - are less likely to contract it and thus pass it to you? Which, given that it's all you can rely on to stop you from getting it, you would like to think they would.

Sigh. I don't think our strategies are working. But whatever, I've been a good girl. 63, slightly higher risk, definitely already had it anyway (antibody test confirmed). Worked from home. All home deliveries of b everything (nothing to do with Covid - been doing that for three years due to disability). Seen nobody. Visited nobody. Walk my dog every day - the only time I've been out - where there is nobody around (live in a rural area). Caught a bloody cold last week!!! Viruses may not be clever, but they are persistent. You could live on a desert island and still get one.

My step dad is highly clinically vulnerable. Shielding stopped. He was pushed back to work and contracted Covid a week later he's really struggling.

The clinically vulnerable have to go to work, have kids in school, provide childcare, work for the NHS, need to buy groceries, have family members who work, have carers come in, have to go to the dentist or doctor, need to go sign on, need to go to the bank, have to take the car for MOT, or are just unlucky.

Not all those in hospital are clinically vulnerable.

These two reasons together are why allowing it to run through society whilst shielding the vulnerable will inevitably lead to more deaths.

Loads are in workplaces or their children are at school.

It sounds like you're in a pretty privileged position op. Also feel the wide eyed innocent "oh my family follows the rules" is fooling no one. I suppose what follows is that anyone who gets infected is rule breaking?

@SleepymummyZzz

I’m CEV and an back to work as a teacher in my reception class as the government is no longer suggesting I shield. I suspect there are many people like me who have to return to non COVID secure workplaces despite being vulnerable and are becoming infected :-(

Me although I didn't shield by choice. I teach in two schools and I mean that's not at all covid secure. If I was choosing to shield j would be pretty upset right about now

My dad works in a primary school - he's not a teacher but infants are bad at social distancing. Luckily he's allowed to wear a mask.

I'm in the vulnerable category and the other 3 people in my house go to school, college and work in a supermarket. I can't stop them doing any of these things. I stay in and work from home. If I go out I wear a mask and avoid places where there are people. But they are going to bring it home to me at some point as they are out mixing with people. That's how vulnerable people get Covid. The only way I wouldn't get it is if I stayed somewhere alone.

My mum is obese and works in a school in one of the highest risk areas. She’s also in her late 60s. She doesn’t need to work but is very much of the opinion she won’t let Covid control her or make her afraid. I’m doing all the worrying for her and am absolutely terrified.

Sorry yes I need to recognise my privileged position here I understand that now. My DH is WFH, I'm SAHM to 2 DC, we have no family in the UK to think of, just ourselves and we are all fit and able so I guess "following the rules" is easy for us and we are largely unaffected, I didn't mean to be insensitive at all!

The only way to "protect the vulnerable" is to keep infection rates low by everyone doing what they can to limit transmission. That's it. There is no other way. But, the government isn't facilitating that, so rates are rising, so vulnerable people are getting infected.

Depends on your definition of fit and able, but a fair chunk of shielders, in non covid times and since then, wouldn't class themselves as disabled or in especially poor health, especially regarding well controlled underlying conditions that they're usually able to live with.

Most of the very vulnerable receive lots of personal care, daily. In their homes or in institutions. Many often visit hospitals or other medical environments (due to their health needs) so they are potentially around lots of other sick people.

Eventually the chains of transmission from not vulnerable people reach the vulnerable.

The numbers are very very low compared to what the numbers would be if we had remotely normal social contact going on.

So today's increase in death figures, just to clarify no disregard of any death just stating the facts,on average will have caught Covid-19 about 5 weeks ago, beginning of September.

I guess back then, seems a lifetime ago, the sun was still shining, rates seemed low, I expect some, many thought they would take a chance, see some people, grab a bit of company and fun before autumn/winter

It's so hard to balance our needs to "avoid a fucking virus" and not see anyone all summer.

Rates can be as low as you can get, you go to the newsagents, someone sneezes and you may catch well anything.

I caught the 11 yr olds cold because I school run him in the car, he was in the front, sneezing a bit, school didn't send him home, he was sneezing into elbow, windows open but I caught his cold, sibling and dad in same house, hugs, sofa closeness, neither of them did, it was just, it seems, those small few minutes in car that did it.

It's so random.

@mashainpink it isn't just a case of following the rules though. Most people are following the rules really. But the rules include sending your children to school, and schools are not covid secure, so even though you're following the rules you're also contributing to the exponential rises we've seen since schools went back, and thus putting vulnerable people at risk.

I am too btw. We all are.

I know who the at-risk people are now. If you're old, with known underlying health conditions that are a contributing factor to hospitalisation/death with Covid, or obese, how are you even getting close enough to infected people to get Covid in the first place??

My husband is CEV and we shielding as a family since mid March. All shopping has been delivered, we have worked from home 100% and we have not met up with extended family and friends.

However the children have now had to return to school/college, and although through choice I would be home schooling my children, we are foster carers and therefore are not able to do it with them - ironically although looked after children have to attend their schools, their social workers are working from home until next year!! So the foster children go off into their bubbles of 150 plus other children each day, more at the school gate and school bus, and therefore we no longer feel safe. I live every moment in fear for my husband since the children have returned to school - and there is nothing I can do about it because my husband's life is depending on strangers following the rules.

My vulnerable parents are essentially going on about their lives as they always have (with the exception of things like wearing masks, as they have to). They are not particularly bothering about social distancing and are regularly going out to restaurants, shops etc. Their view is that they are elderly and have to die of something so it might as well be Covid.

You also see any number of posts on MN from people who are mixing freely with elderly parents/grandparents. The line touted is always that it is up to the vulnerable person whether they want to take the risk. I suspect many of them are.

It's still the case though that the overwhelming majority of people dying from Covid are still elderly people, so they aren't catching it from working in schools or their kids going to school are they?

Is it in the care homes again?

It’s utter madness to me that shielding has not been reintroduced in a voluntary and funded basis.

We would be far more cost-effective offering shielders and family members the opportunity to stay at home than shutting down the whole economy and keeping everyone at home.

Some of the most vulnerable people are the ones least able to isolate themselves, due to a need for personal care and medical treatment.

It makes me so angry when people say "just shield the vulnerable", as if it was remotely possible.