Locking down to protect the well off

[IheartNiles]

Lockdowns protect the well off middle classes who can work from home in safe jobs. Lockdowns throw the working classes under the bus. The latter either take all the risk in public facing jobs, commuting on public transport, while their kids are left at home to educate selves. Or lose their jobs and income altogether.

It’s really depressing to hear women agitating for schools to shut. The repercussions of doing so are that WOMEN lose their jobs to perform childcare.

A high proportion of people who use this site need to pull their heads out of their overpriveged arses and take a look around. All the fucking shops and services you rely on are going to be decimated. No money will be forthcoming for the NHS without taxes. The NHS was cut to the bone after the last recession, the magic money tree that wasn’t there to increase nurses pay and might have helped mitigate against the current 40,000 and rising vacancies has shook bloody long and hard to pay for the consequences. Tell me how we are going to make this good because I can’t fucking see anything but misery ahead for the poorest among us.

I’m ‘middle class’ and my job meant me coming into contact with thousands of people since March. I did it whilst I was pregnant and at risk. My role is at risk now we’re going into second lockdown and so is DHs. So is this to protect me, my husband and my baby?

I hate the classism on this site. It’s all the damn time. Take your anger out on the elite in government, not those of us who were born into a certain class.

We would be the privileged you talk of - both WFH and won't be directly financially affected by a lockdown.

However, DH is also vulnerable and we've basically been shielding since March (with the exception of DD being back at school.)

It's been hard watching everybody all year who isn't worried about covid socialising, breaking restrictions, refusing to wear masks etc and who are collectively making our lives more difficult.

I'm afraid we've reached the point now of thinking I'm alright jack. Our personal priority is DH's health and we support a lockdown. Millions of people haven't cared about the likes of us all year, why should we care too much about them.

It's the fact that we need another lockdown to protect the NHS that is an absolute joke. 6 months we have had at least, to get the NHS to be able to cope. The NHS has struggled every winter for years. Instead of spunking billions of quid on furlough and a track and trace system that doesn't fucking work, it should have been invested in the NHS. A fast track scheme to get medical and nursing students signed off, to get the care industry the training and support it needs, to be able to support carers to be able to self isolate so they can care for their patients without worrying about infecting them, full, hospital grade PPE for them.

Instead as usual the working classes either worked their bollocks off or lost 20% of their income when they couldn't afford to live in the first place. Now they are facing redundancy, more income losses, a cycle of self isolation and juggling childcare. And another lockdown which will again disproportionately affect the less well off.

I can't see a second national lockdown working unless there is more targeted support.

@BullBailey

I’m ‘middle class’ and my job meant me coming into contact with thousands of people since March. I did it whilst I was pregnant and at risk. My role is at risk now we’re going into second lockdown and so is DHs. So is this to protect me, my husband and my baby?

I hate the classism on this site. It’s all the damn time. Take your anger out on the elite in government, not those of us who were born into a certain class.

I’m not saying that no middle classes were affected. Look at the arts and yes there will be middle class professionals who are exposed. But it’s the (at best) silence on this website about the disproportional effects of lockdown on the least well off and (at worst) agitating and crowing that make me fucking lose my rag.

I’m pretty sure most people (if faced with losing their job, home and prospects) would take the small risk of covid (which isn’t Ebola as much as some would like you to believe) by carrying on working over not. But this only affects some and those people are not usually the better off.

Absolutely agree OP. I say this as a middle class lawyer born into a working class family with a childhood blighted by unemployment and poverty. I said it right at the beginning back in March as well. I also said back in March that the affects on mental health would be disasterous. I was attacked on social media and accused of wanting my family to die. I know of three people who committed suicide during lockdown. Another friend’s marriage has ended when her husband descended into alcoholism. Another friend works in my local social services department. The referrals to her team skyrocketed.

it is to protect christmas

Our personal priority is DH's health and we support a lockdown

Because it benefits you, of course you do, you want everyone else do something to protect you, as you say "why should we care too much about them" - and the reason is you're asking them to sacrifice things for you - that's why. If you don't give a shit about them, why do you expect them to give a shit about you? You must recognise your hypocrisy?

I should have added that I lost my old job in the arts as a result of the first lockdown so I do sympathise with those made redundant, but still support this lockdown.

That awful fucking Dr Sarah Jarvis (when does that woman fit in being a GP among her endless TV appearances) summed the attitudes of the privileged up this morning. She was agitating for a lockdown and one of the presenters asked her what she would say to the people who would lose their jobs as a result. Her answer was that she understood how they felt as she would have a rubbish Christmas not being able to see her family. FFS!

@IheartNiles

I don’t give a fuck if you agree or not. But to pretend agitators for lockdowns aren’t coming over as gleeful and selfish is disingenuous.

I think you’re projecting your own fear there, understandably, but I don’t see it coming across like that at all. As much as I also don’t want lockdown, I can see that those calling for it are doing so because they are scared of the virus. I can’t blame them for that, the media and the government have created an unnecessary fear, and people are just reacting to it.

But what's MN are you on OP? There are plenty of posts, the majority actually I would say that don't want schools to close, and are against lockdown because of the bigger repracussions. Or did you start this to be goady?

i live in a block of housing association houses, we are busy as a block of houses, going out to work, no working from home here.
i feel quite bitter that my lack of qualifications have put me in this position, although tbh i am grateful that i do go into the office, which is a safish space.
i am not totally unqualified but there are others with more qualifications than me, earn more, who can work from home whereas i can't

Sarah Jarvis wants a lockdown because Covid has been so good for her career. She is an awful woman who has taken the piss out of others, spoken down to people and has changed her mind to suit the situation on multiple occasions.

sirfred I'm quite prepared to be called selfish but I dont see how I'm being hypocritical.

I'm not asking or expecting people to do anything. People haven't been doing what they should have been for months and it's clear they don't care about others. I'm merely supporting an enforced lockdown.

@Lucindainthesky

sirfred I'm quite prepared to be called selfish but I dont see how I'm being hypocritical.

I'm not asking or expecting people to do anything. People haven't been doing what they should have been for months and it's clear they don't care about others. I'm merely supporting an enforced lockdown.

there are more compliant people than not. but you only hear about the non compliant.

This
It's the fact that we need another lockdown to protect the NHS that is an absolute joke. 6 months we have had at least, to get the NHS to be able to cope. The NHS has struggled every winter for years. Instead of spunking billions of quid on furlough and a track and trace system that doesn't fucking work, it should have been invested in the NHS. A fast track scheme to get medical and nursing students signed off, to get the care industry the training and support it needs, to be able to support carers to be able to self isolate so they can care for their patients without worrying about infecting them, full, hospital grade PPE for them.

I agree on the whole OP. It is completely disproportionate locking down again. Its using a sledghammer to crack a nut.
Yes, covid can make some people really ill. It can kill some people. But lots of things kill people. A lot of my friends are in hospitality, and also theatre (and I know when people say "the arts" they think of well paid performers, but most people in theatre are technicians, caprenters, dressers, cleaners etc who don't get paid when they don't work). The whole thing is like some fucking endless bad dream and when we wake up we will be a much more broken and divided society.

Where are these threads? All I've seen today is people worried sick about lockdown and really not wanting another, whilst acknowledging that given the current situation, something needs to be done.

Still, your dog whistle OP has brought your mates running.

Middle classes today, it was the elderly in the week wasn't it? Are you moving onto the disabled next?

Given that the poorer sections of society that carry the most risk of exposure to COVID and have disproportionately worse outcomes from it, this bleating of lockdown being to "protect the rich" is

• odd. It's not those who can safely work from home that will be fighting it out for hospital beds in a few weeks is it?

I completely agree with you OP and I am middle class.

Totally agree OP.

Agreed. And the elderly who didn't mind throwing the younger generation under the bus with Brexit and who called millenials "snowflakes"

Middle class people agitating for lockdown while expecting working class people to grow, pick, pack and deliver their food, keep their power stations open, clean the streets, collect their rubbish etc etc

Jammin I'm not sure about that. Every day on the school run what I see is that nobody else seems to care about social distancing whatsoever. It feels like I am literally the only person attempting to keep distance. It goes without saying that I'm the only one in a mask. I am struggling now to care if their cafe or salon goes out of business tbh. I dont like feeling like this because I know I'm being a shit but I'm beyond caring.

I’ve read plenty of condemnation of NOT locking down disproportionately affecting working class and lower income people because they are forced to expose themselves to the risk of coming into contact with the public in bars/pubs/restaurants/supermarkets. So the middle class get judged for going to restaurants and making the staff risk getting the virus and then they get judged for being comfortable in lockdown. The reality is that either scenario, locking down or not, will make poorer people suffer more. Look at the Tory government in charge. Literally any decision they make will enrich the wealthy and make life harder for anyone poor and vulnerable. I know plenty of people who hate wfh. And people can have the opinion that lockdown is necessary without revelling in it or crowing about it. I don’t know anyone happy with lockdown. I don’t know anyone happy with not locking down either. It’s a pandemic; it’s shit and the suffering inflicted will not be doled out fairly. There is nothing to be gleeful about and I can’t see that anyone is??

So @HelloMissus work that train of thought through. If we dont lock down and infection rates keep rising will those people picking, packing, delivering, keeping power stations running be in more or less danger from COVID? Because lockdown or not they'll still be working right?