To all those who say "protect the vulnerable and let everyone else gets back to normal.

[Confuzzlediddled]

Stop talking rubbish!

My friend has lost her husband yesterday due to covid, he had underlying conditions and was shielding, hasn't left the house for months and just before Halloween his daughter tested positive after catching it at school.

He caught it from her and is now dead at 45, leaving a wife and 2 teenage children.

This is why everyone needs to do their bit, and you can't just let a deadly virus rip through and lock away the vulnerable, they have families, children who bring it home from school!!

Wear a mask, wash your hands and follow the damn rules people!!

[quote Confuzzlediddled]@vdbfamily so essentially you're saying what? That he deserved to die? That his life doesn't matter? You cold hearted specimen[/quote]
This not what she said.

You are in shock and most likely very upset about this news. Sometimes speaking to strangers online when you are in a vulnerable place actually isn't helpful.

Loom after yourself OP. If it's too much, step away from the thread and come back for a discussion when you are feeling better. Sorry for your friends loss and your loss too.

That obviously should say "Look after yourself..."

The prospect of a vaccine means that maybe next year we shall be able to protect the vulnerable in a way that actually works

Until the, you are right, OP. It’s a pants idea that will not work

That's a sad situation, but all it shows is that even without everyone being 'back to normal,' the risk is still there. Even with restrictions and lockdowns and vulnerable people taking precautions, people still catch covid and die. That's because covid is a highly infectious disease that is very very hard to detect. Short of making every single person stay at home 24/7 indefinitely there is literally no possible way to be 100% safe. It makes sense to take precautions but locking down and ensuring that people who are not vulnerable also suffer makes no sense - it doesn't help vulnerable people one bit, it just creates more and more and more problems and extends the difficulties caused by the virus beyond the actual effects of the virus itself - it blows the situation up rather than dealing with it.

Even if every single person followed every rule, people would still get infected. One of the main sources of infection is hospitals, where the rules are followed most carefully. Believing that we can somehow magically 'control' this virus is sending people dolally, it's making them feel responsible for things that they are simply not able to control. That man's daughter did not do anything wrong, and yet she gave her dad covid. I really hope she doesn't blame herself, because it isn't her fault. It's also not the fault of any other human being that they, by virtue of their biology, are susceptible viruses and can pass those viruses on. Being human is not a crime, being subject to illness is not a failing, wanting to engage with life is not morally wrong. People who happen to get infected with covid are not bad people. Following rules is not a magic solution to our vulnerability as living beings.

DH and I are both working from home and only one of us leaves the house to go to the shop once per week. My neighbours on the other hand are carrying on as normal. One neighbour (66) is listing numerous items on Freegle and people have been coming to collect (going into her house) for the past couple days. Two neighbours in their 90's have had friends and family visiting at the weekend and at one point there were 10 people inside one of their home. Another neighbour (73) has had 3 family members visit inside her home over the weekend and is now having a kitchen fitted for the past 2 days. Another neighbour (84) is having her carpets cleaned today. Plus neighbours are going into each other's houses. No one is wearing masks from what I can see. One of these neighbours also has a home health visitor twice daily (who does wear a mask). Is having all these extra visitors putting her at risk to carry something to another client? Two of these neighbours have people bringing them food each week despite the fact both of these neighbours are going to the local shop daily.
It makes me so angry that some people are following the rules to the letter, but then others act as if Covid isn't happening. I'm fed up with people saying 'protect the elderly' because from what I've seen it's the elderly not adhering to guidance.

Truly tragic for your friend. I can't imagine how his teenage daughter must feel about infecting him and him dying as a result.

@yellowsubmarines

DH and I are both working from home and only one of us leaves the house to go to the shop once per week. My neighbours on the other hand are carrying on as normal. One neighbour (66) is listing numerous items on Freegle and people have been coming to collect (going into her house) for the past couple days. Two neighbours in their 90's have had friends and family visiting at the weekend and at one point there were 10 people inside one of their home. Another neighbour (73) has had 3 family members visit inside her home over the weekend and is now having a kitchen fitted for the past 2 days. Another neighbour (84) is having her carpets cleaned today. Plus neighbours are going into each other's houses. No one is wearing masks from what I can see. One of these neighbours also has a home health visitor twice daily (who does wear a mask). Is having all these extra visitors putting her at risk to carry something to another client? Two of these neighbours have people bringing them food each week despite the fact both of these neighbours are going to the local shop daily. It makes me so angry that some people are following the rules to the letter, but then others act as if Covid isn't happening. I'm fed up with people saying 'protect the elderly' because from what I've seen it's the elderly not adhering to guidance.

Spying on your neighbours to this extent really isn't healthy.

[quote Confuzzlediddled]@vdbfamily so essentially you're saying what? That he deserved to die? That his life doesn't matter? You cold hearted specimen[/quote]
Of course they're not saying that ffs. Stop being so dramatic. It's true in many ways that the prevention of covid spread has had much worse consequences than if we hadn't done it, both financially and with regards to the health of a lot of people.

Of course they weren't saying he deserved to die for goodness sake - just that many, many other people are dying for the sake of protecting those who are shielding.

So, are you saying that everyone who dies due to a late cancer diagnosis deserves to die? That THEIR life doesn't matter? It's only the same thing.

The truth is that we can't carry on like this forever. Hopefully, before the end of the year we will have a viable vaccine that can be given to those at most risk. But if we don't, and people can't see their families, can't work, can't get treatment for other conditions .. the country is going to be in a VERY very poor state when all of this is over.

That is not to say that these people deserve to die.

It is simply to say that the risks of continuing with lockdowns might, on balance, not be worth it for a virus with such a low death rate. So, you might have saved x number of lives who would have died from covid, while at the same time taking treatment away from x amount of others, destroying the economy for future generations, ruining the educational experiences of our children.

You're looking at it saying 'this person who I know shouldn't have died' but you can't look at it like that. You have to look at each possibility and see which would have the most suffering or loss of life, and I (and many others) are beginning to believe that the lockdown is doing more harm than good.

Spying on your neighbours to this extent really isn't healthy.

Should DH and I avoid working in our garden or cleaning our windows or talking on the phone with next door or doing anything that might give us a glimpse of what's happening at our neighbours? What about when other next door and all their guests are so loud we can hear them, should DH and I wear headphones inside our own house to avoid listening to them break the rules?

Seeing and hearing what's happening right next or in front of you isn't so far fetched when DH and I and our friend and her DH next door are stuck home all day.

Thank you to posters who rightly pointed out that I was not trying to be heartless. On reflection it might have helped if I had begun by expressing condolences. Every such situation is heartbreaking. I work in a hospital and am setting frontline the effects of all this. The lack of visiting rights in care homes is forcing families to refuse care home placements and insist vulnerable elderly are discharged home to often unsafe situations just so they can still see their families. Patients at end of life are again refusing nursing homes because they want their families around them 24/7 so again are going home to die, often without all the resources they would need because they would only be available in nursing home or hospice. Every day I see people have to make heart breaking decisions because of Covid restrictions. There is no easy answer. The situation with hospitals is not as simple as done are saying. The other non Covid related work did not ask stop because hospitals were over run, it stopped because initially they thought they would be over run. Many hospitals in non bit spots had the quietest few months they have ever experienced. All elective surgery stopped at our hospital. We had a whole centre for his and knee ops sitting empty with staff re deployed. We had 4 medical wards closed. One has still not had to be reopened because people are still avoiding hospitals. This means when they are eventually so unwell they have to be admitted, they are then far more unwell than an earlier admission would have been. When elderly people stop going out for their daily walk and social catch up, they quickly decondition and also get depressed. When couples live together in abusive or just difficult relationships and cannot get out of the house, they are at risk of harm and this is a result of Covid restrictions but not direct Covid harm. As a previous poster said, current restrictions protect some people from Covid but increase potential harm to many more people.

@yellowsubmarines

Spying on your neighbours to this extent really isn't healthy.

Should DH and I avoid working in our garden or cleaning our windows or talking on the phone with next door or doing anything that might give us a glimpse of what's happening at our neighbours? What about when other next door and all their guests are so loud we can hear them, should DH and I wear headphones inside our own house to avoid listening to them break the rules?

Seeing and hearing what's happening right next or in front of you isn't so far fetched when DH and I and our friend and her DH next door are stuck home all day.

In order for you to know that level of detail about what they're doing you have to be watching out. Maybe you need to stop sitting around getting angry about people just living their lives and perhaps get a life of your own?

Protect the vulnerable extends to their families! Other people are dying including my friends dd because cancer treatment is still being cancelled- if we had fully shielded the vulnerable and let the rest of us catch it there wouldn't have been a chance to have a second wave, very few catch it twice (exh is working on it!)

vdbfamily could not have expressed it better myself. Thankyou for all that you do.

Agree with pp. If the vulnerable are protected that includes their household.

To fully shield the vulnerable to the extent that cancer treatment is completely unaffected is rather hard

I mean, we have been trying to stop covid getting into care homes by refusing to allow visitors , with many precautions for the staff, and that hasn't been terribly successful has it? Like we have failed to protect the most at risk, and now you want to protect enough vulnerable so that the NHS doesn't suffer ?

that means anyone over the age of 50. These people work, these people need health care , anything you want, they want

Which means we need to split everything...supermarkets, education, health

So on three days a week the over 50s work in schools, supermarkets, hospitals treating and serving the other vulnerable. The over 50 teachers teach the children who live with vulnerable parents

And on three days a week the under 50s go and do all those things

Of course that only works if no one over 50 is currently infected.

I’m sorry for your loss OP but wearing a mask, washing your hands are a small mitigation measure to an airborne virus. It is also a virus that leaves a number of people asymptomatic and for those that do develop symptoms don’t for the first few days after being infectious with it. It’s why even when schools were shut and we were on lockdown 1.0 cases still continued, albeit it at a much lower level. I think everyone knew that controlling an airborne virus in environments like schools was always going to be an uphill battle - it would be good if the government actually acknowledged that. Many parents chose to send their children back to school for their child’s education and mental health. I’m sure your friend and her husband had similar discussions between themselves and decided that route. Again, they were in a lose-lose situation. I hope the poor teenage daughter doesn’t feel responsible for this. Messages from the government with ‘don’t kill granny’, certainly won’t have helped though.

It’s a shit situation all round and PP is justified in pointing out that there are other people dying too early as an indirect consequence of this. It doesn’t make the death of your friend’s husband less worthy or stop the pain for you and his family. It’s a balancing act. We are very much between a rock and a hard place. We lockdown completely, sacrifice the economy, the mental health of so many people, cancel appointments for ongoing and new conditions. Or we don’t protect those that are vulnerable. Those who were against another lockdown or the social distancing are those that have been impacted throughout - lost their jobs, homes, had mental health crises, have cancer due to reduced screenings and access to medical services. It’s just shit.

@vdbfamily - what a horrible response

In order for you to know that level of detail about what they're doing you have to be watching out. Maybe you need to stop sitting around getting angry about people just living their lives and perhaps get a life of your own?

Thanks TheDailyCarbuncle! Now we have your permission I'll tell DH and our friends that the lockdown is over and we can get back to leading our normal lives.

I'm a vulnerable teacher and live with 2 other vulnerable people - my mum who has vascular dementia and my son. I'm doing my darndest to strip, wash and shower on return home before being with mum but really it's all me just making myself feel better. It's the being with classes all day in one room that will get me (and my kids) and bring it home. Ultimately we will get it because i've already had my bubble shut once and both my kids twice. I just can't protect myself at all as a teacher.

I feel awful because we haven't been anywhere or done anything. Shopping is delivered and we don't go anywhere. Yet children in my group chat happily about sleepovers and visiting and being out and about. We know through social service involvement that families in my class are mixing (to sell drugs) but there's nothing I can do. I feel like a sitting duck tbh. And teachers are not even on the priority list for vaccines.

I'm on my unpaid time now, before anyone moans!

@vdbfamily

I think the problem is that the restrictions put in place around Covid are causing excess deaths from other conditions so someone else will lose their parent to a cancer that needed treating in March. I watched Hospital last night and it was all about this. Urgent surgery being cancelled and delayed for 6 months because of Covid. It is tragic when people die young, but the increase in excess deaths is not just people doing of Covid, it is people doing of other conditions because of Covid restrictions. I am sympathetic to the view that we do all we can to protect the vulnerable but we have to also consider wider health economy and also economy generally as job losses and isolation lead to mental health issues which can also be life threatening.

I haven’t read the whole thread but have to respond to this one.

Surely your post is the reason why it’s so important everyone does their bit now to help control the virus not an argument for treating the vulnerable like they are something to be sacrificed?

And you do realise that those people who are in the CEV group are also highly likely to be effected by the delays in treatment? And what do you think hearing people basically say “fuck them they would die anyway” does for someone’s mental health?

It is a difficult balance. That is what the state is having to balance too right from the start - more might die from the measures than if they were not in place so all the time we are walking that tightrope and in effect deciding who lives and dies.

If we all totally isolated and did not get to work we would not be able to pay the wages of nurses, doctors and teachers for a start. There would be no NHS. There would be no state schooling.

So sorry for your friends loss

So sorry for you friend op. It is our biggest fear too. We have two kids currently self isolating due to close contact cases.
I don't understand why they haven't let kids of the ecv stay home and do online education even if just during shielding.

Although Totally I agree with @vdbfamily I am also sending huge condolences to you all

I also want to add that I totally agree that everyone needs to be doing their best for everybody and yes to social distancing, hand washing and making if you are within 2 metres of anyone for any period of time. I am not disagreeing with the post but I am saying it is an incredibly complex situation and many are dying as a result of the restrictions. That does not mean that every death is not tragic.