Current guidelines are irresponsible

[Rookiemistake]

I am on my second bout of Covid in 8 months despite being fully vaccinated. I have been ill both times, pretty incapacitated for two days and a bit more functional for the last three. Regardless, it has been disruptive and I am healthy with no underlying conditions. My teen ds has also had it for the first time. He was similar to me and about to start mocks for his A Levels.

Talking to someone the other day and they said it'll be like flu and we'll learn to live with it. It's not like flu. I'm 43 and I've had flu twice in my whole life yet I've already had this twice in less than a year.

I have stayed at home and will do until I either test negative or reach 10 days and am not symptomatic. However, I could if I choose, just go around as normal. My ds was allowed back into school after three days if he felt well. He didn't go but he could have as he was feeling much better by day 4. He would have still been spreading it and there are kids at school and on his bus in the middle of their GCSE's. I just think we are being entirely irresponsible. This is not a cold.

I'm not advocating a full lockdown but I think there needs to be more stringent controls if people are knowingly positive.

What do others think?

It isn't about stopping the spread but by lessening it where possible and reducing impact.

There isn't any evidence they lessen the spread either. As for the impact, services are broadly coping, so why would you? All these 'simple mitigations' have costs attached.

Any measures taken need to have a cost/benefit analysis applied. We can't just indulge people's desire to feel that 'something's being done'.

Supporting businesses to pay full sick pay to covid positive people, while a much better idea than our previous policy of telling people to isolate and lose money, is not a control. It's also irrelevant if people don't test because they don't want to be subjected to a legal isolation requirement or pressure from employers who don't wish to do without them.

What's absent here is any idea of what this practically looks like. Free testing for symptomatic people only would require some kind of system to police it, in the middle of a labour shortage. As that isn't happening, it would in reality be free testing to the entire population whenever wanted. If you're ok with that and are willing to fund it, that's fine, but call it that.

Then that leaves us with where that money is coming from, and the evidence that enough people are actually going to engage in testing and isolation again to mean it has a meaningful impact. When you talk about controls on people who are knowingly positive, what you mean is you want people to identify themselves as covid positive so they can be restricted from doing things they'd do otherwise. That is not an attractive prospect to a lot of the population.

@ChoiceMummy
Wow! Hit someone whilst they are down why don't you!
My company which was profitable for 20 years employed 30 people!!! All lost their jobs when the company went under. It was horrific - I did everything to try and save it and their jobs. The debt just became unmanageable and I lost my house too. Sadly in my late 50's now and was tricky to get another job so unfortunately I couldn't be picky with one that offered me fabulous sick pay! Now in rented and trying to keep a roof over my head.

Yes, if it's that much of a basic common sense measure it'll be easy to prove that we should be doing it. As we're almost two and a half years into this pandemic, there's no longer any excuse for failing to show the working out.

Agree that all options have pros and cons, with various £costs attached, including vaccine only. Why do some people seem prepared to accept the costs of not doing anything above vaccine without question though?

YANBU.

I think it might be helpful to define what the word restriction means.

if you mean restriction as in lockdowns, yes we’ve had a few but we have never been in an extremely strict lockdown the way the Chinese have done. We’ve never been in a situation where we’ve waited to have NO covid cases before reopening. Which tbh is fair enough. I’m nit sure the country would have coped with that because of the high number if cases we had each time we went into lockdown.

if my restriction you mean wearing a mask… I’m sorry but that is not a restriction. At most it’s a bit of a nonsense to start with but most people get used to it Wo many problem. Many countries have been wearing masks as a matter of fact much before the pandemic for example.

If by restriction you mean increasing ventilation and having HEPA filters… I’m at loss as to how this could be an issue for the individual. Its likely that no one would actually notice tbh.

If by restriction, you mean having the vaccine… well we’ve been there. It sort of works to prevent deaths. Not to prevent all the other stuff coming with covid. But it’s done.

Now I don’t think we should talk about restriction for any of those measures. But we could talk of prevention measures (which are reflecting better what they do). They are more like a buoyancy aide that will help you from drowning rather than something that will restrict you from drowning iyswim.

As to whether these measures work…

actually we know. Plenty of research around that will tell you that

• all of those measures all help to some degree. Vaccines are good at protecting from death. Increasing ventilation protects spreading the disease.


• there isn’t. ONE measure that will lead to zero covid but all of them together are helping reduce the spread and therefore the number if people being ill


• Lockdowns are good measure to take when things are totally out of control (like we were in 2020) OR when the outbreak is very small (short term lockdown of a week, maybe two)


• etc…

Saying that the ‘restrictions’ didn’t help (and I assume you are thinking about masks for example) doesn’t make sense when all the data we have are showing the opposite.

I agree.

I also wonder why costs associated with one solution or the other is always restricted to a very narrow view of what it means ‘to be efficient’.

Like the long term effect of covid doesn’t matter. Or the fact it has mutated so often (and the risk associate with it).

I don’t know but for me it seems logical to say that lowering the number of cases will lower the cost to the economy. Less people off sick because less people will get covid (I’m talking about people too unwell to work - like it is with the flu). Less people unable to work (because of LC). All of it will directly affect companies.
But also as people get ill more often, can’t work full time etc… it means that those people will have less money to spend so there will be secondary impact on the economy too. For those who are badly affected, they will need a carer so again someone else who won’t be able to go to work and so on.

As the Bank of England said, there is a cost to letting covid run Wo any measures. Why don’t we take that into account too?

As the Bank of England said, there is a cost to letting covid run Wo any measures. Why don’t we take that into account too?

The term 'letting' is based on an assumption that we actually have a choice in the matter, that a virus needs our permission to run amok. But that aside, nobody ever seems prepared to cost it on here. It's invariably just assumptions and people who think their take is common sense. It's also, for people who are genuinely trying to do it seriously, a very difficult thing to do.

But in the absence of clear evidence about which is the least harmful approach, the status quo is to not restrict people who are ill, not least because of how impractical that is. The list of notifiable diseases is actually quite small and most people will have minimal experience of them. That means people who want to change the status quo are the ones where the burden of proof falls.

And practically speaking, outside of a police state you can't actually stringently control ill people for an open ended period. We didn't really manage to do it even with some very restrictive laws in place and when the majority of the population was somewhat on board, so it's simply not plausible that it could happen now. There isn't a lot of point coming up with a public health plan that the public aren't having.

For stating the obvious.

Whatever the reason why, people choose to take such roles so jog on and stop the violins when it comes to o lt receiving ssp.

Right so people now need to leave their jobs and find new ones with sick pay ‘cuz covid’ and if they don’t they are SELFISH PEOPLE.

I suppose people struggling to make ends meet and relying on food banks shouldn’t have CHOSEN low paid employment so it’s all their fault for basically not making the CHOICE to have a better paid job

@ApplesandBunions - we do have some choice in the matter though. As for difficulties in assessments and them being based on assumptions - aren't all the scenarios faced with difficulties and assumptions? I don't see that the current situation is 'status quo'. How many pandemics have we been through?! It's a pretty extreme response - the opposite to an extreme lockdown. It would be good to have some balance.

I don't think there should be any further restrictions as such but people who will be paid etc should isolate if possible. If you have to work just take sensible precautions such as trying to give people space and not accept lifts from ECV etc.
Obviously assuming you know.

@ChoiceMummy thank you for you wonderful advice, I am now on Indeed and Reed updating my CV saying I only want to be put forward for roles with full sick pay.
Ironically if I don't get a role with full sick pay and get Covid again I will be out on the street with no where to isolate anyway!
I hope you continue to have a very happy life up on your pedestal with no ill fortune coming your way.

@iamamother thank you

Oh dear God, you actually believe people choose to work for shit employers? And what do you mean by they 'chose not to mitigate that risk in any way' as if we don't know but I want to hear you actually say it

I bet you're exactly the sort of person who berates people who can't work, but also berates those who do but in precarious employment through no fault of their own.

And also believes that working hard for shit employers to make ends meet means people must have made poor choices.

Choice in the matter of 'letting', do you mean? If so, where's the proof of that? We had restrictions more significant than what OP has so far mentioned not very long ago and it didn't stop Omicron from running amok, and in addition to that the experiences of Scotland and England when the latter removed restrictions provides us with a useful comparison.

Also, of course the current situation is the status quo. People being able to go to work and school if they are mildly ill but still well enough to continue about their business is the normal way of our society. Trying to prevent that doesn't become 'balanced' because, entirely without evidence, you've decided you prefer the sound of it. It doesn't become a workable idea either.

Except we don't have to. We can go to work. So why would we claim SSP when we can work?

As I said, choices.
Everyone could, if they were wanting or willing to make the effort, improve their work situation. In many ways these opportunities are greater now than they've ever been with apprenticeships etc.
If people have opted to decide that they don't wish to improve their outlook or would rather hide behind potential barriers then that again is their choice.
Sick pay isn't solely relevant to covid. It can become a need at anytime, due to accidents, health conditions as well as contagious conditions. To not have this contingency nor put any mitigation in place for this choice, is incredibly foolish.
To take the opinion that everyone is done to and not in control of their own destiny is incredibly naive.

Because apparently that the reasons so many are absolutely selfish cf when it comes to covid.

And to suggest that everyone is in control of their own destiny is plain ignorant. As is imagining that everyone can just snap up a better job.

I'd love to see how someone with a mortgage, bills and DC to pay for would get by on an apprentice salary, by the way.

But other people's health isn't my problem. If they don't want to be sick they should just improve their health and not let it affect them so bad....

@ChoiceMummy

Most care providers don't offer more than SSP for sickness, well for those who do the actual caring anyway, full pay was only offered during the height of covid because it was provided by the government, and probably only because of the bad press they got for putting positive people in homes full of vulnerable people and causing death and suffering, and even then the government tried to blame care homes for 40,000 deaths within the sector.

I'm just one of thousands of carers who have left the industry because of bullshit like this and attitudes like yours. I made the right choice for me because I shouldn't be footing the bill for the protection of others when it's already being paid for and the middle men, the providers, are creaming profit off that, exploiting their workforce to do so.

There's a well publicised shortage of care workers, let's hope you never find yourself in a position where you need to give up your better job with sickness pay to care for one of your relatives that need it because there's no one available to pay a pittance to and give the bare legal minimum requirements (and sometimes not even that) and treat badly, because they've all gone off and got better jobs.

Although when people like you are the ones affected, people who consider themselves better than the lowly workers who are relied upon by others to provide an essential service, then someone might take notice and something might get done. I doubt it though, because people like you fail to see the correlation between relying on these jobs and you being able to go and actually do your better job.

@ChoiceMummy lol, I'll add apprenticeship opportunities welcome to my CV at age 58!
Out of curiosity what industry do you work in?

Many current apprenticeships pay more than minimum wage, offer better progression and pay.
To remain so ignorant of the ways that one's future can be improved is concerning and apathetic.