Shielding program stopped

[Egghead68]

For anyone this affects, the shielding program was stopped for good yesterday.

They snuck this news out under the cover of the cabinet reshuffle.

If people are to be killed off, it would be kinder (and, for those concerned about the economy, cheaper) to offer assisted suicide. A peaceful and painless death. Rather than to let the bodies pile up from Covid. Not least because Covid doesn't just kill. It leaves a significant minority disabled or long term ill.

@Smartiepants79 wow! Just wow!
I’m not CEV, but I’m
So Anxious for people who are. We could of kept small steps in place like masks in public areas, and household bubbles. Seems crazy the government took these restrictions yet wanting to make more restrictions over the winter!
The issue Covid has not gone away and CEv are just a number now on the death rates. It’s awful. It was never ever about protecting cev people it was about protecting the nhs and the government saw cev as taking a bed up. It
Was never to do about caring.
We have to learn to adapt to Covid not pretend it doesn’t exist! 🤦🏼‍♀️

@NannyAndJohn

You could change careers if the risk is more than you want to take.

Have some fucking empathy.

You sound like a nice person. I hope you’re happy with how you behave.

Lets look at it from a different perspective. I’m on the private sector. I have epilepsy. The things that set off my seizures are situations where there are several different loud noises at once (airports, train stations, etc are classic examples) and irregular sleep patterns. With my epilepsy I “wander” without knowing where I am or where I am going. I have walked into traffic before on more than one occasion. Do guess what? Working shifts or working in a nightclub, rail station, airport, etc are jobs I would never consider, for the sake of my health. Likewise driving. I’m one sleepless night away from losing my driving license so I would never take a job that required me to be out on the road the whole time. I don’t expect everywhere to be made quiet for me, I just accept that maybe my chosen job - I always wanted to work at sea on a ship for weeks at a time but people with epilepsy are not allowed to work on most shipping lines - will never happen and I have to compromise. Long before COVID people with all sorts of medical conditions had their choice of career limited by their condition. We just get on with it.

@Puzzledandpissedoff

It's going to be a "very difficult winter"

It always is

Nobody's suggesting Covid hasn't been a problem, but have folk really forgotten the linked headlines from at least the last ten years, all of them insisting that the NHS is about to break down?

Except for emergencies it's gone - finished - history, and nothing much will change until it's accepted we need a better system
Trouble is, anything Boris comes up with is likely to focus more on money for the cronies than the nation's needs

Well, the people who, you know, work in the NHS are saying that they have been under more pressure with covid than ever before

and I believe them

there is always stress on the NHS in winter

but it is hard to see how managing a pandemic wouldn't make things a lot worse?

I agree with you about needing to tackle the issue and the current government not wanting to ideologically

however, I think that the NHS will be greatly greatly missed if free healthcare is taken away from people

and most people these days just don't realise what a boon we have had or how difficult things are in the US where an illness can cost £100k+ and if you don't have health insurance you basically can just go to the wall healthwise

let's hope that's not our future

You might just get on with it @TheAverageForumUser, after I imagine some practise and trial and error, but there's over a million people on the CEV list, many of whom thought they were managing their various conditions just fine until now. And very suddenly they can't do anything about a huge risk to them because the government has decided it can't be bothered any more and is telling the whole fucking country to act like everything's back to normal.

Can't you see the difference?

And that's before we get to the impacts of long covid where we'll potentially have hundreds of thousands more unable to just take any job but needing to do all those calculations on what they can do without making themselves worse. Will you tell them to just get on with it because you do?

Can you imagine the absolute shitshow for the UK's labour force that's coming down the line? With a government that's decided it's all somebody else's problem, and if you need benefits or accommodations (they've already taken away the back to work scheme for the disabled) you're undeserving and greedy.

I went to a large out of town shopping centre yesterday, honestly I was appalled by the low level of mask wearing. Most of the shop staff were still wearing masks, but the sheer selfishness golf us as a nation is just terrible.

"08:47marieantoinehairnet

I went to a large out of town shopping centre yesterday, honestly I was appalled by the low level of mask wearing. Most of the shop staff were still wearing masks, but the sheer selfishness golf us as a nation is just terrible."

That is because it is not mansated and people want to live their lives without a manky piece of cloth underneath their chin
How hard is it?

mandated

There is more to life than catching covid.

@marieantoinehairnet

I went to a large out of town shopping centre yesterday, honestly I was appalled by the low level of mask wearing. Most of the shop staff were still wearing masks, but the sheer selfishness golf us as a nation is just terrible.

Mask wearing isn’t mandated anymore. It’s not selfish for people to get on with their lives as normal when there aren’t restrictions anymore.

"01:40Tinydancer321

@Smartiepants79 wow! Just wow!
I’m not CEV, but I’m
So Anxious for people who are. We could of kept small steps in place like masks in public areas, and household bubbles. Seems crazy the government took these restrictions yet wanting to make more restrictions over the winter!
The issue Covid has not gone away and CEv are just a number now on the death rates. It’s awful. It was never ever about protecting cev people it was about protecting the nhs and the government saw cev as taking a bed up. It
Was never to do about caring.
We have to learn to adapt to Covid not pretend it doesn’t exist! 🤦🏼‍♀️"

So you want to keep household bubbles? Are you for real? Yea let's ignore all the elderly and vulnerable again who live alone shall we? That's your anxiety, that's not a caring attitude.

Protecting people is making sure they don't become lonely and immobile because they are being isolated or immobile.

Not that we necessarily need to be like East Asia forever

I spent a lot of time working in various countries in east Asia before the pandemic. A minority of people would wear masks VOLUNTARILY in some settings. It was particularly common to see young women wearing masks on motorbikes- presumably to protect themselves from dust . Masks were not worn universally, or even by a majority of people, and were not mandated by the government. Children were not forced to wear masks in school.

"10:06Overthebow

marieantoinehairnet

I went to a large out of town shopping centre yesterday, honestly I was appalled by the low level of mask wearing. Most of the shop staff were still wearing masks, but the sheer selfishness golf us as a nation is just terrible.

Mask wearing isn’t mandated anymore. It’s not selfish for people to get on with their lives as normal when there aren’t restrictions anymore."

Agreed. Honestly when will people stop saying its selfish to live a life unrestricted?

@Bizawit

Not that we necessarily need to be like East Asia forever

I spent a lot of time working in various countries in east Asia before the pandemic. A minority of people would wear masks VOLUNTARILY in some settings. It was particularly common to see young women wearing masks on motorbikes- presumably to protect themselves from dust . Masks were not worn universally, or even by a majority of people, and were not mandated by the government. Children were not forced to wear masks in school.

People also didn’t go around judging other people according to whether they were wearing a mask or not, or calling people selfish and stupid for choosing not to.

@Bizawit

"People also didn’t go around judging other people according to whether they were wearing a mask or not, or calling people selfish and stupid for choosing not to."

No. This seems to be from a minority who cannot see other peoples points of view, only their own. With no thought for the younger generations.

@Peteycat

"08:47marieantoinehairnet

I went to a large out of town shopping centre yesterday, honestly I was appalled by the low level of mask wearing. Most of the shop staff were still wearing masks, but the sheer selfishness golf us as a nation is just terrible."

That is because it is not mansated and people want to live their lives without a manky piece of cloth underneath their chin
How hard is it?

It's not hard at all to wear one, yours might be manly, mine isn't

@Smartiepants79

Can ask, for those who were shielding, how long you think it should continue for? Or what you see as the solution that would make you feel ‘safe’. Safe is something we can promise to no one in my opinion. Covid is part of our lives now (along with all the other myriad things that can make us ill). It will forever be a possibility that you will catch it. I am genuinely curious as to what people think ought to be happening and for how long? What would make you feel more confident? When do you see the end point being?

Both me and my husband are (were) in the shielding group. We've had to start living again as we are youngish with teenage children at school.

To say I'm more than slightly concerned is an understatement. But what can we do? I know I had a good response to the vaccine as it was checked so that's making me feel slightly easier. Very few in my age group, fully vaccinated, have died. But I'm still extremely vulnerable to covid and will probably need to be hospitalised should I get it.

It's now with us forever and we have made the difficult decision as a family to start living again.

All family members take covid very seriously due to our health. So only going into indoor areas if it's needed. Only with a mask on. Only at quiet times. Home is fully ventilated with open windows and we all do lateral flow tests three times a week.

I don't think we can do more and out children need to start living again. School is the biggest risk. I just wish they had immunised the 12-15 group before the summer holidays to give us some protection now.

It's not realistic to keep shielding if you have children. It's a horrible balance but one that has to be made now we are vaccinated.

@beautifullymad

"It's not realistic to keep shielding if you have children. It's a horrible balance but one that has to be made now we are vaccinated."

I hope you catch up on all the things and fun you missed x

I think it's great that @beautifullymad is finding their own balance in this.

Can I say that people continuing to wear masks and respect social distancing are very much appreciated by us as a previously shielding family.

It is a courtesy that could make all the difference to someone else's life (and of course, as things stand, it is a choice, that the most thoughtful people make, if, of course, they can).

It is hard to see how managing a pandemic wouldn't make things a lot worse?

I agree, which is why I said nobody's suggesting that Covid hasn't been a problem.
But my point about incessant whining within the NHS stands; yes it may be a tough winter, but the situation's really not been helped by the insistence every single recent year that it's "on the brink of collapse". Rightly or wrongly, many who hear that think "God, they're at it again"

Not sure why the usual bogeyman of the US healthcare system's being brought into it again though. I agree it's not what we want here, but it's not as if it's the only alternative system

Well

Except for emergencies it's gone - finished - history, and nothing much will change until it's accepted we need a better system

The thing is, if we don't have the NHS in something like its current form, what would we have?

I suspect, something that involves private healthcare/ insurance and the obvious model, unfortunately, is the US one.

Germany and France have good state healthcare systems, but I don't see this current government putting a lot of resource into state healthcare, and it would be a very big job to re-organise a new state system really well.

I'd be really delighted to be wrong about this.

Any ideas about where they would be looking for a better alternative model?

@Peteycat how is a family bubble stopping us from seeing elderly people!!!!!
I’m talking about when a member of the family tests positive for Covid the whole family should isolate for 10 days!! Prob wouldn’t be a good idea to see granny ! As you could pass Covid on. It’s 10 days of isolation. Children don’t even need to be tested. I don’t understand your comment!

@Peteycat maybe you don’t understand all the regulation changes!!!
Sorry I’d a member of my family tested positive I wouldn’t visit someone vulnerable until 14 days had passed and I did a lft. Not being selfish that’s wanting to see them again!!!!