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Covid

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Original poster

Time to shield the shielded and let everyone else get on with it?

70 replies

GQKP · 27/12/2020 11:07

I'll start by saying I am CEV. I also have Covid.

I do go out occasionally to medical appointments or for a drive. I sometimes see friends from at least 5m away in the front garden (as I'm unable to walk distance).

I've no idea how I've got this. I can not tell you how super careful I am with space, hand sanitiser / washing hands / PPE and basically not going out.

But I got Covid.

I'm not sure we can stop or contain Covid. I really have gotten to the the point where I believe that CEV are financially supported to stay isolated and everyone else gets on with it.

OP posts:
Mumof3andlovingit · 27/12/2020 11:10

@GQKP

I'll start by saying I am CEV. I also have Covid.

I do go out occasionally to medical appointments or for a drive. I sometimes see friends from at least 5m away in the front garden (as I'm unable to walk distance).

I've no idea how I've got this. I can not tell you how super careful I am with space, hand sanitiser / washing hands / PPE and basically not going out.

But I got Covid.

I'm not sure we can stop or contain Covid. I really have gotten to the the point where I believe that CEV are financially supported to stay isolated and everyone else gets on with it.

So sorry to hear you have covid, hoping you have a mild case. Flowers Do you have children that go to school? Also I’ve heard of some people in a similar situation to you who have caught it from deliveries or that’s what they think as they have had no contact with anyone else.
Ponoka7 · 27/12/2020 11:21

How do we manage the lack of Staff across Social/health care, education and other skilled jobs? What compensation do we award if people who are vulnerable, but not shielded, get it and die?

Do we really need to do this with the vaccination programs and the Oxford roll out?

Saltn · 27/12/2020 11:24

Agree. I dont want a vaccination for what will most likely just be a mild illness for me. I also dont think lockdowns do anything but delay the inevitable. I want my life back. I want my childrens lives back. Enough already .

Original poster
GQKP · 27/12/2020 11:24

Thank you. Fingers crossed I'm not needing hospitalisation as yet.

Nope, no children of school age.

It makes no sense. This new strain must be something else ! (I am in London).

OP posts:
KendraTheVampireSlayer · 27/12/2020 11:25

What do you mean by this new strain must be something else, OP?

PTW1234 · 27/12/2020 11:27

The priority list for the vaccine is estimated to include 25 million people. It is impossible

Saltn · 27/12/2020 11:29

@Ponoka7. I'm not sure what you mean lack of staff. Surely all of those jobs are at high risk of catching covid now?

If people are vulnerable and not isolated themselves they why would there be compensation?we dont compensate people for other illnesses do we ?

The reality is this infection kills a minority,and of those the majority are at the end of their lives anyway. Yes that's harsh. But the reality is we let people lose livelihoods, children miss education and all of us missing out on life to save the few.we dont so this for flu, cancer etc so why covid ?

Original poster
GQKP · 27/12/2020 11:30

Ponka
The Shielded have always had a choice. To shield, or not. We managed at the beginning for the Shielded not to go to work. They should be given the opportunity not to have to work again for the foreseeable - and be fully covered for that financially.

Anyone in care homes etc just to carry on as is. They now have rapid tests for up to 2 visitors a week for each person.

OP posts:
Saltn · 27/12/2020 11:31

The 'new stain' stuff is a red herring. Viruses change all the time and they do it so they can spread more efficiently. The virus is here to stay, we just need to live with it.

Original poster
GQKP · 27/12/2020 11:32

@KendraTheVampireSlayerKendraTheVampireSlayer

Sorry, I just mean super super infectious.

OP posts:
Greysparkles · 27/12/2020 11:38

The reality is this infection kills a minority,and of those the majority are at the end of their lives anyway

Honestly I fucking despair.

You do realise its not the 70-90 year olds on ventilators?
It's the "previously healthy" 40-60

So yea, let's let it spread exponentially, without even bothering to try and mitigate the spread and see what happen eh?
Want to take a guess as to how that would play out?

The death age average would go down that's for sure! When doctors have to choose which person gets the bed.

The people taking up space in hospital are not at the end of their fucking lives! Most get better and go home, but that takes time, resources, staff and treatment. If all that wasn't available then they wouldn't survive!

AwaAnBileYerHeid · 27/12/2020 11:40

Refer to your thread title if you want to know how you likely got covid.

My mum is CEV. She can stay in the house all she likes, not socialise with anyone, shield to the highest hilt. But if she still has carers going in, has to attend essential medical appts, gets groceries delivered etc and these non vulnerable workers are just 'getting on with it', then its likely that they can pass the virus onto people like my mum who has been very careful and basically shielded since March.

OppsUpsSide · 27/12/2020 11:41

No I want to know more about how this ‘new strain’ might effect children first.

Orf1abc · 27/12/2020 11:43

The Shielded have always had a choice. To shield, or not. We managed at the beginning for the Shielded not to go to work. They should be given the opportunity not to have to work again for the foreseeable - and be fully covered for that financially.

You're free to claim ESA like other long term sick people do. I trust you don't expect them to be given more?

Bagelsandbrie · 27/12/2020 11:43

Not everyone who is vulnerable can shield.

I am 40 and in the clinically extremely vulnerable group. I am also a mum to a severely disabled child who needs to go to school - for routine and mental health reasons- and mum to a 17 year old who is in her second year of A levels and needs to complete those to get to university next year. I am also married to someone who works in healthcare. Maybe I should just move myself out and stay in a remote flat on my own somewhere...?!

As it stands I’ve just had to carry on trying to be as careful as I can whilst life continues much the same as it has before.

Sorehandsandfeet · 27/12/2020 11:44

I get where you are coming from but I don't agree. I am not vulnerable or in any way near the end of my life (late thirties), i'm a healthy weight and I got covid in october. I was hospitalised and am still unwell now. I would love my old life and fitness back. My chest radiography is still nowhere near normal and I am so, so exhausted.
If everyone was to be infected the health services will be over run, even if the 'vulnerable' are shielded. The fact is that we still don't really know what makes a person vulnerable and that is the problem.
Our health services are at breaking point. In hospital I heard the stories from the nurses, many were scared and told me they wished the public could see what was going on in the wards. I was told that many in hospital were middle aged and in reaaonable health before covid.
The vaccine program is being rolled out. The finish line is around the corner.
As you are vulnerable and are coping with covid you may feel it is being overblown, I had the opposite experience. I am more afraid now than I was before. I would not wish that illness on anyone.

Orf1abc · 27/12/2020 11:45
  • 'Them' being CEV people. Those on disability benefits already receive the bare minimum.
TheSilentStars · 27/12/2020 11:46

If you search thread titles word for word the same as yours, you'll see it's been explained why it's unfeasible and morally questionable about a hundred times since March.

MichelleScarn · 27/12/2020 11:48

So in being CEV you are wanting you to be fully financially looked after, and the rest of us to go out to work and accept the risk?

megletthesecond · 27/12/2020 11:49

How do you propose the NHS, schools and emergency services manage when more of their staff are ill?

We probably only have to muddle through until spring 2022 when vaccinations are done and we know a lot more about the virus and mutations. Just be patient.

bathorshower · 27/12/2020 11:53

At the moment about 20% of hospital beds and rising are taken up with covid patients, with some obvious effects on other treatment. A good proportion of those patients will not have been CEV to start with. If we just 'let everyone get on with it' we won't have a functioning health service at all. I really don't think we can risk that, leaving aside the question about 'shielding' if you have care needs yourself, or care for others.

mrsm43s · 27/12/2020 11:53

The problem with two groups, the vulnerable shielding, and the non vulnerable carrying on as normal is that the two groups would have to stay completely separate since Covid will rip through the group that are carrying on as normal. So by default you are denying the elderly and the vulnerable (including vulnerable children) access to social care, denying them access to medical treatment, denying them access to education, denying them the ability to live as a family with non vulnerable people, they would literally have to live in their own, with no help or support from anyone. Do you really think that's OK? Or do you just consider them expendable?

Original poster
GQKP · 27/12/2020 11:54

Michelle

Yes I think we do have to protect the CEV people.

Not me though because I've got covid and I work from home.

OP posts:
lavenderlou · 27/12/2020 11:55

If this was actually a viable option, you can bet the UK government would already have taken it. It's not as if they are known for their benevolence to the vulnerable.

fungussingstheblues · 27/12/2020 11:56

We probably only have to muddle through until spring 2022

By "muddle through", you mean just put up with further devastating blows to the economy, accept the increase in suicides and simply take the wave of extra, avoidable deaths from cancer etc on the chin?