did people actually shield

[Sheilashielder]

I live in an area where shielding was only paused in October and reintroduced in January and wa never allowed anything other than a few weeks where you could mix outside but not in gardens and a couple of weeks where you could mix in gardens. I’ve been seeing lots of posts saying people have “pretty much” shielded for a year and Anecdotal evidence from people o know suggests not many people actually followed the guidance at all who are now saying they’ve barely left he hosue for a year

My parents have, not left the house except for the hospital since mid March. No family have been in or touched them since then, not even at Christmas. They’ve both had the first jab and have said they won’t be out and about again until well after they’ve had their second dose. They are retired, both CEV but fairly well and have a garden. They have been crazy paranoid about the virus and been disinfecting shopping etc. They’ve gone beyond the government guidelines. Dad refused major surgery in Feb because he was worried about catching it in hospital, that probably saved his life, temporarily. Fair enough they’ve managed to avoid it so far.

@smoothchange

My dad has only left his house once since March, to get his flu jab. The health centre is a 3 minute walk from his home.

Ditto my shielding relative. Of course people have shielded. What you're seeing @Sheilashielder is people misusing the term.

We've been shielding since March last year, haven't left the house much other than for walks. Has really taken a toll on our health.

A friend took the guidance pretty seriously, shielded until August. But then the guidance changed and they stopped shielding. I found it odd, because the situation hadn't really changed. It didn't feel any safer to be out and about, to me.

@Sheilashielder I don’t understand what you get from this thread.
There are no prizes for shielding.

It’s miserable and extremely unnatural to lock ourselves away from society. Did you want a medal for being the most miserable among us?
I have said this before on another thread where op criticised others efforts - Why do you care what other people do as regards shielding?
It’s not a legal requirement.

A friend hasn't left her house since March. But her husband had to go to work. (Essential, but easy to distance from people, and outdoors). From September to December, the children had to go to school and university. So they just had to take as many precautions as they could.

So she didn't shield as well as other people might have.. but did her best.

I’m shielding and have followed the guidance pretty much to the letter

Even when shielding paused, I did little different (I made one trip to a friend’s shop and one trip to the bank) but apart from that continued to meet people only outdoors and never as many as six at a time.

I know quite a few people in RL who have lived like this And sometimes I’m the one with the most expansive attitude to what is safe enough

Because having leukaemia does out you at significantly greater risk of poor outcome (it’s the worst of any cancer, and very over-represented in ICU admissions - second most common co-morbidity)

It’s been a real test of resilience to keep going with it for so long. Especially in the face of comments which say - explicitly sometimes - that we should be let die so everyone else can have a better life. Or now that we should be de-prioritised for the vaccine so young healthy people can have it

I’m not sure what the purpose of the thread it, I hope it’s not to suggest that we are somehow not real, or liars about how we live

I've complied with shielding guidance since shielding began (except I still put the bin out despite getting the stupid texts saying not to because I judged that totally daft). My family also shielded with me.

As soon as we were allowed walks in the open air we did so and when shielding was paused in the summer I saw people in the open air sometimes.

Other shielding people I know went on holiday and all sorts of other things over the summer. That's their choice and in some ways I'm lucky to be able to reduce my risk as much as I have. I worked from home throughout, and in fact massively increased my hours including a lot of extra work directly related to researching covid treatments.

I know so many people who say they "haven't been anywhere" since the pandemic began who have actually been to loads of places. Everyone thinks they are being careful and following the rules, but if you've been following the stricter standards of shielding it sounds like LOADS (days out, shopping, camping trips etc).

I shielded completely for the first 12 - 16 weeks whilst my husband was furloughed and the kids were at home. Once my husband had to go back to work I started going for a daily walk (guidance changed to allow this).

Over the summer shielding was paused for me and we did go on a couple of UK breaks, but I was still really careful. Avoided any crowded places etc.

Once the children HAD to go back to school in Sept. I relaxed my shielding a bit as to me, the risk of them being in a classroom with 30 others all day posed a far bigger risk then any me seeing a friend out doors or having dinner in a covid safe resistant etc.

Since the schools have closed again in back to shielding (with one daily walk). Only my husband is leaving the house to go to work.

Shielding guidance and who is on the shielding list has changed many times since last March so someone who says they have shielded since then may have a similar story to mine, adjusting it based on risk factors.

@PurpleDaisies

The shielding guidance hasn’t stayed the same for everyone all the way through.

What a lovely judgy thread attacking people have been in an awful position throughout the whole pandemic.

This^

Should also have been posted in Coronavirus Topic - that's what it's there for 🙄

For anyone that thinks I’m being judged or mean spirited not at all. I have shielded and followed the guidance. It’s been awful and has taken its toll on my mental health. It’s more when people who say they have been shielding clearly haven’t makes me feel like others will think I haven’t properly. No judgment here but if you aren’t supposed to leave your house then going round to various other peoples isn’t shielding and I don’t think if you’ve not followed the guidance you can say you’ve been shielding for a year. I don’t know what I want to get out of r

My husband has been shielding and has followed it throughout. It has been tough as we run our own business and have teenage dc. We had decided that if they went back to school after Christmas then dh would go to live with his dad for a while but then thankfully didn’t have to do that.

We did go away for 3 days in the summer as I found a campsite where we had our own toilet per pitch which meant we didn’t have to share facilities with others. Also, I told the owners about dh and they put us at the edge of the site and didn’t book anyone into the pitch next to us so we had more space which was amazingly lovely of them. Dc really needed that holiday so it worked well.

My parents are still shielding. They’ve walked outside but apart from that have literally been nowhere since last March. We do any shopping they need. My mum had leukaemia and a bone marrow transplant in the past, they are Borge over 70 and mum has a phobia of being stuck back in hospital.

I’m in the clinically extremely vulnerable group and was supposed to shield and haven’t. My husband works in an office (healthcare related so essential and cannot work from home due to database confidentiality issues). My dd and ds both attend schools (in normal times) and my youngest has autism and learning disabilities which means staying home every day is awful and impossible due to mental health reasons. We are lucky enough to live rurally and I don’t work due to health reasons so I do stay at home as much as I can but I haven’t stopped doing to tesco as I hate online shopping and we go for walks everyday etc. I have medical appointments every month and need to go to those. Big city hospital etc. I need to collect prescriptions, I do send my dd aged 17 often but the pharmacy often screw things up and I need to sort them out. (I have 30 things on repeat prescription). We can all only do our best.

Both OH and I were told to shield and we have been inside 99% of the time since last March. The only exceptions were when we attended funerals, got our flu jab, and saw my parents for Xmas day. Apart from that OH had a hospital admission after the abundance wanted to take him in and he will be having a follow up appointment to that next week.

We are happy staying home waiting for our covid jabs. It seems silly to start taking risks now when we are so close to the end.

We live in an area that has had very high case numbers almost the entire time so there never seemed to be a time when it felt safe to go out, even when shielding was paused for a few weeks. We don't even have a garden ( we live in a block of flats) so it's been hard, but we are closer than ever.

It always gets a bit muddled as well when people who have not been advised to shield attempt to much the term to refer to their choosing to stick extremely strictly to the general population rules

They won’t be getting pharmacy deliveries, online supermarket delivery slots, council support, the late unlamented food parcels (anyone else irked that when we complained about the quality, we were told we should shut up and be grateful, whereas for children it’s a national stain)

@ArosGartref

It was paused in August where I am. That is when we were able to see MIL again. Before that she hadn't left the house for 6 months. It was a tough time.

Ime, I agree with previous poster that it's more common that people have been trying to 'shield' when it wasn't medically advised. It may be these people who describe themselves as shielding but were not required to fully comply.

It paused- for some lower risk people- in August.

It has never paused or stopped for everyone and it wasn't geographic.

My husband has been shielding since March. He never left the garden for months. After shielding was paused, we went out a couple of times, mostly car journeys where we hardly left the car ( only for change of scenery). Saw our daughters at Christmas ( but they self isolated so we could meet up). He is back to shielding again. I have been extremely careful too and am WFH.
He's had a text to state he should get the vaccine in mid February.

I’m not judging anyone but I think it is interesting how we all perceive our own behaviour.

Someone mentioned their auntie who was shielding but then showed them what she got at the shops. I have a few friends like that. Not claiming to shield but ‘we never see anyone’ then the next minute tell stories about how they popped into their elderly neighbours and they had the kids friends round because they felt sorry for them living in a flat in lockdown. The nicest people and doing really lovely things. I don’t judge them at all but I am not sure they are really ‘seeing nobody’.

I guess I see it in myself a bit too. It is so easy to say ‘I don’t go anywhere’ but forget I picked up a prescription and I went to the post office last week and I popped into the supermarket.

A bit like being on a diet I guess where you forget the junk food you ate. Or I have it with cycling. I commuted on my bike for about 5 years in my early 20s. I realised mid-30s I still thought of myself as ‘a cyclist’ despite moving to commuting by car when I had the kids and now getting on a bike about 10 times a year and then only to accompany kids to the park.

I have found lockdown tough. Shielding must be much tougher. And human behaviour is complex and interesting. No judgement here.

Yes. I know a number who have not left the house since March. I spoke on the phone to someone in December who hadn't spoken to another adult since August.

@OnlyTheLangoftheTitBerg Fair enough then but to me that’s not shielding as that is all I’ve done since March and I don’t consider myself shielding or when it comes to that hard done by in anyway . I was under the impression , obviously wrongly , that originally shielding people were advised not to go outside of their home , if walking is advised why is everyone not doing it ?

My MIL has only gone beyond her garden gate 3 times since lockdown started: for my late partner's funeral, to my SIL's for Christmas and to have her Covid vaccination. She has had the occasional socially distant visit from her adult children, when it was warm enough to stay out in the garden and her grandson and great-grandchild made a brief visit just before Christmas. They went into the house briefly so DGGC could see her Christmas decorations, but stayed more than 10m apart, wore masks and kept the windows and back door open.

I know that's not shielding, strictly speaking, but it comes damn close.

And I have a colleague who, apart from going for walks with her partner, went out once in the summer, to come to a team meeting which we had on the beach in July. She was able to walk there, she didn't want to use public transport or get a taxi. They are both CEV.

@Floralnomad the first bit of shielding yes people were advised not to go outside for walks but could go in the garden, then it changed, I think after 12 weeks?
Personally I haven't but that's because I have a health condition which means walks = covered in hives so I've stayed in

I know that's not shielding, strictly speaking, but it comes damn close

Whether it is shielding or not really depends on whether you had the letter. It's an actual defined group. So if she had the letter, it is shielding. And if she didn't she isn't, even if she has decided to isolate herself

Thank you @QueenPawPaws , I didn’t think I’d dreamed that up.