To think we soon won’t be isolating even when we have covid.

[Grida]

If covid is spreading as rapidly as it seems to be, surely people who have tested positive but who don’t have symptoms/aren’t feeling ill will have to carry on working. The country will stop functioning otherwise.

That's my dream scenario, OP.

I bet the week this comes in to force is the week I get covid and miss out on two weeks full pay for sitting in my house 🤣 2 fucking years , out every day in the community supporting vulnerable people, worked to the bone at some points and I still haven't got it 🤣

I want two weeks full pay for a mild cold and a cough like all the other staff members have had. And it's not like I've been asymptomatic I've tested 3 times a week, PCR to begin with and now LFT's 😭

But saying that, I haven't had any of my immediate family test positive either, son, mother, grandmother, brother and his wife and their 3 kids. None of us have caught it 🤷🏻‍♀️

I thought the idea is really to try to protect everyone who might need hospital care? Flu kills people every year but the number of hospitalisations isn't often so high that critical care can't be offered to those who need it. It's not necessarily about stopping vulnerable people getting covid for the sake of proecting them alone but keeping hospitals running so that the man who has a heart attack in January or the child in a car accident etc can all be treated. If there are so many cases there aren't enough healthcare workers, or so many cases that hospitals are overwhelmed, then anyone who urgently needs hospital care is in big trouble. And that could be any of us.

Dear God I so very much hope this happens sooner rather than later.

Forgot to add that you still need to isolate for 7 days here and get tested (I think) three times if you are in the same restaurant as a positive case. Anyone who has travelled from an interstate hotspot has test twice while here (as well as needing to test negative before entering the state).We have people waiting in line for up to 8 hours for testing. It’s insane.

@CoffeeMuggins

What do we expect the vulnerable to do when this happens? Stay inside forever or gamble with their lives every time they need to go to work or pop to the shops?

I suppose if they're extremely vulnerable then every trip to the shop is a gamble with their lives when they might pick up norovirus, flu, a cold, chicken pox or whatever else? We never had legally enforced self isolation for those illnesses. And they have had 3 vaccines...

@aliceca that’s interesting, do you have a source? I didn’t know there was a legal obligation to self isolate for anything other than covid- that’s interesting to know. Obviously aware that education/nurseries/hospitals etc have policies on staying away for certain illnesses, but had no idea it was a legal requirement to isolate for anything.

@RoomOfRequirement

That would be awful for the vulnerable!

I can understand stopping isolation for exposure, and not going into a lockdown anymore, but let's not forget people are STILL dying of Covid, and if someone tests positive they shouldn't be allowed to go into the office or work in a store!

I am truly sorry that there are folk who are clinically vulnerable but their vulnerability doesn’t trump those who are mentally unwell due to the ongoing need to isolate and the ever present threat of lockdown. One illness does not trump another. We all must get on with life.

@CoffeeMuggins

What do we expect the vulnerable to do when this happens? Stay inside forever or gamble with their lives every time they need to go to work or pop to the shops?

I suppose if they're extremely vulnerable then every trip to the shop is a gamble with their lives when they might pick up norovirus, flu, a cold, chicken pox or whatever else? We never had legally enforced self isolation for those illnesses. And they have had 3 vaccines...

And realistically don't we all "gamble with our lives" in everything we do? Every time we get in the car, bus or train, cross the road, climb the stairs etc.

Makes total sense and it’s nice to hear some on here, instead of hysteria.

@RoomOfRequirement

Wow. So the answer is 'fuck them!' Great, you're all wonderful.

Imagine if you will, that a burglar is smashing their way through your front door with an axe (a job I had to resource last week). You call 999, petrified. The officers take 10 minutes to get there as the nearest unit is 15 miles way. Now the burglar has got into your house and is attacking your husband. But yay ! The police are there and arrest the man.

Now imagine that the officers that normally cover your area are all off isolating with Covid and working from home, although they just have a bit of a cold and feel fine to work. So now the response time is going to be 40 minutes because you live in a rural area, the nearest unit is 30 miles away but they have to finish at the previous emergency before they get to you. Also the control room of your local force is very short staffed due to isolating and your 999 call was answered by a call handler in another force who didn't know where you live and originally sent the incident to the wrong force. So there's already been a delay.

By the time the officers eventually get to you, your husband has a broken jaw, the burglar has got away with half your jewellery and £2k you had taken out for Christmas.

Yes this is an extreme example but this is what staff shortages on the emergency services mean. We cannot afford to lose whole sections of officers and front line staff to isolating all the time.

This morning we had officers with a man who had had very likely had a stroke. Their cat 2 response ETA, usually 18 minutes, was 5 hrs. We had to move heaven and earth to actually get an ambulance to him because they are so short staffed.

If Tesco's or schools are short staffed it doesn't really matter. For us it's literally a matter of life and death.

Great good idea, tested positive feel ok? Ok go to work

Spread it amongst those cancer patients you look after, or the person you are operating on

spread it amongst those kids you teach, who can take it home and spread across the elderly relatives, after all they have had their life

Spread it amongst others you work without who have to take time off work, but don’t you worry that they only get SSP and can’t afford food that week for the rest of the family

If you go to work positive you will spread it, it will mean even more of sick ( simple equation, workforce of 10: you have it positive, ok to work, can’t wfh, so in you go, then 5 others go down with it who are unwell, so instead of just 1 person off, they now have 5 )

@Grida

If covid is spreading as rapidly as it seems to be, surely people who have tested positive but who don’t have symptoms/aren’t feeling ill will have to carry on working. The country will stop functioning otherwise.

Maybe they're just waiting to ascertain whether it is incontrovertibly milder, then will scrap or at least reduce the ten days.

🤞🤞🤞

We need to look at zero hours contracts and statutory sick pay more than anything else. Too many people can’t afford to be sensible about taking time off when ill.

But clearly this won't happen

As others have said it is all to do with protecting the resources of ICU and hospital beds. The numbers admitted can fluctuate wildly, most of whom are unvaxed, but there we are.

Anyway, I see freedom during Spring and Summer/early Autumn, then restrictions in the colder darker months when people are mingling more indoors. That will change if NHS is given huge resources to care for seriously ill patients, and vax reluctant folk take a jab for all our sakes.

Just my view.

That’s the other issue, the culture of going to work when sick and employers being really unsympathetic. I have taught in a school when I’ve had pneumonia, I felt too guilty to take time off and ended up quite dangerously unwell. (Still didn’t take any time off- was just very unwell for the Christmas holidays).

The problem is, lots of people have mild covid symptoms or even none at all. By having to isolate for ten days, maybe multiple times, it has a huge effect.

There is no right answer to this but I honestly can’t see us testing and isolating forever.

Impact, not effect that should say.

Totally agree - I have long covid unfortunately- another friend has developed asthma as a result in her 40’s and I have lost two relatives to covid - so don’t tell me it is just like flu!!

We've had Covid in the last week....... DH, myself, 2 DD's. 3 of us vaccinated, 1 not. All with same degree of symptoms.... a minor headachey cold that gives you 2/3 days of feeling off colour and a minor fever. We're all 7 days into isolating, have all got negative LFT's and are climbing the walls.

I appreciate that some are vulnerable to Covid, just as they are any viral infection. But I'm over having my life restricted because of mass health anxiety and covid hysteria.

@HesterShaw1

But clearly this won't happen

Of course it will eventually. We can't isolate people for a week or two forever, for mild or asymptomatic symptoms, when workplaces and general society is full of ill people about anyway. Try working in an office any day of the year, it's full of ill people.

It's a question of when.

what a vile nasty thread this is

It really isn't a vile and nasty thread. It's just where a lot of people are right now, this is the point that they have reached. I can understand that if you're not at this point then it will probably seem crazy to read. But people aren't trying to be callous or nasty, they are questioning how realistic and logical it is to carry on as we currently are.

Vaccinate everyone. It won’t work by making vaccines compulsory, because people are so against it. But I reckon if all restaurants, all cinemas, all venues and all shops refuse to allow entry to unvaccinated people, it will force those people to either vaccinate, or live a very restricted life.

@helpfulperson

Which is probably what will happen with Covid too now.

Probably - but it also might kill 50000. With Omicron right now we don't know. In a couple of weeks we'll have a better idea.

What do you feel is an acceptable attrition rate to disrupt your life for the greater good, how many people should we let die so you can go to your Christmas. Or if we decide 20000 people dying from a cause is ok we could just do away with all regulation of driving like drink driving rules and speed limits.

A new highly transmissible variant in the middle of winter, when we're fully opened up -this year, is obviously not the right time to stop isolating.

Maybe testing and isolating will become part of winter in future (like masks) but it won't be a permanent 365 day thing.

Hope so