Covid19 - Shielding and self-isolating for vulnerable people - policies and issues

More details of the new model being developed can be found here:

https://www.phc.ox.ac.uk/news/oxfor...n-model-for-smarter-covid-19-shielding-advice

 

So my mum finally picked up a phone call. It was a private number, it wasn’t the Covid number (that actually comes up as “Covid” or something on the screen), but this was from the Council.

She asked to speak to me but I just confirmed my name and said I’m too unwell to talk. I passed the phone back to my mum and she just asked how I was doing, whether we will be ok for food and other support after shielding ends. My mum said we have things in place but what we may need help with is occasional errands out for the post office etc. But we have a lady from the Covid mutual aid helping us with that so far.

The council woman said yes you can ask for help, we have volunteers. She will be writing me an email. All in all my mum said she was helpful and seemed nice. We are not sure about volunteers but at some point I think we will need to use them. She said she sounded different to the people who call from the “Covid” response team, and it was a different phone number - presumably the Covid team, is not based at the local councils?Maybe those have been outsourced to various agencies or call centres or something.

 

I got a message left on my answer machine from the local council regarding shielding as well, so I wonder if they have been instructed to do this now that the national shielding programme is being 'paused'. The national 'shielding' calls were definitely outsourced and were call centre based, which is why they had to follow scripts.

The LAs are allowed to refer 'shielders' to the NHS volunteer 'Responders' so I would recommend checking out who they are planning to use as volunteers for you, and definitely clarify whether they have been DBS checked.

 

Well it's Tuesday the 22nd of December 2020 and I have just received quite a confusing text from the Government.

Basically it says that clinically extremely vulnerable people (henceforth officially known as CEVs) should shield.

It doesn't say that I should shield, just that CEVs should.

It seems likely that I have been sent this because, according to various organisations including my GP surgery, I am still CEV - but it doesn't say, when it would have been so easy to word the text to make it clear.

Don't get me wrong, I have been shielding since March, and had no intention of stopping shielding any time soon - I quite like shielding.

It's just the clarity, and speed, of information delivery that 'upsets' me.

3 days to send an unclear text?

I wonder how many people haven't been shielding who should have been, because it hasn't been made at all clear that they should.

 

I got an email yesterday but it never mentioned the word “shielding”, it was about being extremely clinically vulnerable and because my local area is in Tier 4, and said do not go out anywhere except very carefully for exercise & medical appts. It was signed “Matt Hancock” as before. It did basically describe shielding though. It says this will apply until 18th January 2021.

Maybe I’ll get the text later on.

 

The text I received was;

I have had no email.

ETA - It appears to suggest that CEV people should shield in a tier 4 area, including those not currently in one, e.g. if a CEV person is in a tier 2 area that they should go to a tier 4 area and shield there.

It does not state that I should shield.

I infer this simply because I have received the text and I 'assume' that it is not a global text sent to every mobile phone on a UK network.

Something which I do not know as a fact, and that this text doesn't mention.

'We' were told that the criteria for being considered CEV was changed after lockdown number 1, and that a new list was being drawn up. So simply because I was a CEV person last time round does not mean I am this time.

This is not clear communication.

It is not, despite it's brevity, easy to understand.

A simpler, easier to understand, and more useful message would have been;

or maybe

.

 

At the moment they are only contacting those in Tier 4 with this information.

 

I hate to break it to UK members, but the shielding programme has been axed:

https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/ukne...t-reshuffle/ar-AAOvtkd?ocid=ASUDHP&li=BBoPWjQ

For some reason I can't copy and paste any of the text into a quote box, but "Clinically extremely vulnerable people 'will not be advised to shield again' in future"

 

Life, and death, in the UK, protected by our masters, is so much fun.

The 'rate' here today is 296 - during the first lockdown it was never above 40, and it's now delta. AZ is far from 100% effective, so there is no guarantee that the two shots supplied have done anything but make me more ill. There is no guarantee that it isn't several times more dangerous out there, for me, than it was when it was deemed so unsafe that they ordered me not to go out, and provided what they laughingly called 'food' to ensure I had no excuse to go out.

 

Yep. this is my area:

 

Clinically extremely vulnerable will no longer be offered Covid guidance by Government as restrictions end

https://www.msn.com/en-gb/health/me...ictions-end/ar-AATUKDR?ocid=ASUDHP&li=AAnZ9Ug

"The Government is set to end all guidance for millions of people previously considered “clinically extremely vulnerable” as part of plans to start living with Covid, i has learned."

 

As I'm fairly sure any response I could make to that news would be seen as petulant, obvious, pointless, or mainly, against forum rules.......

I won't......

other than the above, obviously .

 

A moment's silence is probably the only valid response. Mourning the dead to come.

 

Sacrificed on the altar of ... Yes, rules that were supposed to be in place for some weeks yet, suddenly rescinded. I can't imagine why - oh, wait.

 

This is a step I thought the U.K. govt / NHS would never take. But they’ve done it.. How can this be safe, when we have to sit in waiting rooms? and what about as an inpatient? What about after surgery? How on earth can this be safe? The most sickest people go to hospital. If sick people are not safe from covid from nursing staff & doctors, let alone from other patients, then how can hospital keep functioning? genuinely in disbelief and am also devastated. I have several hospital / clinic appts to go to over the next few months.

https://twitter.com/user/status/1536646303853203457


https://twitter.com/user/status/1536646308718592000

https://www.southtees.nhs.uk/news/face-masks-no-longer-mandatory-for-all-visitors/