Should we ask over 60s to stay in?

Miss A, re you asking why I'm keeping them? Force of habit. I have so many hospital appointments (or did, pre Covid), that I'm often asked by different consultants when various things happened or were diagnosed, so I keep the letters.

I like to compare each Shielding update with the previous one, to see what changes are afoot in hope of some improvement.
The last one was nine pages long! They tend to be quite depressing.

That’s okay MissAdventure I just got a bit confused.

Marydoll Scotland appear to be far more helpful than England regarding shielding information.
No surprise there though...

Ah, yes.
It's handy to have a definite timeline of things to hand.

I didn't realise the shielding letters were so long!

Marydoll cross posted.
We have had no shielding correspondence since April.

We have shielding info overload! Everytime I see text message, my heart sinks! It's never good news!
In saying that I'm very grateful for the support it affords.
This morning I had to phone Tesco about an item damaged on delivery.
The lovely, young man dealt with it and then advised me me when I could organise my Christmas delivery slot, as I was sheilding.
It has its advantages, though not many.?

Blimey Mary. No, we've got nothing like that.
It's quite alarming.
As you are probably are aware through our past correspondence, DH is in the shielding category times two (various RA medication plus COPD) and I'm unable to leave the house.
Scotland sounds so superior.

I would urge every one to watch this video of a care home resident absolutely pleading for help. This is what we are doing to people.

metro.co.uk/2020/10/22/care-home-resident-104-fights-back-tears-as-she-begs-to-see-family-again-13467009/

B9 I can't bear to watch that.
My grandmother is currently in a care home.
She was previously a resiliant, strong lady.
But she is now phoning me and other members of our family in absolute bits all hours of day and night.
I have no idea what to say to her.
It's an awful, awful situation.

Fanny I am so sorry for what you, and many thousands of others are going through. These are loved family members literally dying of loneliness, and no one seems to care a jot about their suffering as long as they are 'protected' from covid-19. There will be many like the doughty 83 year old yesterday who 'don't give a sod' about their risk of getting the disease, they just want to see their families for their remaining few months, or even years of life, which is what quality of life years is all about.

Thank you B9.
She keeps saying that everyone says that she has to be patient.
And then she says that she doesn't know what she is waiting for (which is so true for all of us, but especially those in her situation).
I honestly don't know what I can do for her. She is my mother's mom, and my mom died when she was only 49.
It's a nightmare

It is an extremely lonely life and sometimes I think, is this all worth it? Should I risk my life for a hug.
My year old grand daughter had been shielding too, so we were a bubble.
Since she started school ten weeks ago, I haven't seen her, nor had a hug. My son is afraid she will pick Covid up at school and pass Covid to me. My heart is breaking and I'm aware that others feel the same.

As predicted, I received the Shielding text message tonight , advising me of the proposed 5 tier system in Scotland and referring me to the shielding website.
The advice is not as draconian as previously. However, as I'm immunosuppressed, I won't really be going anywhere soon.

No. We are almost 70 and still active.We worked until we were 65. No intention of locking ourselves away. Both cancer sufferers and after two years of treatment no intention of hiding away at home. Life is too short. All life is a risk. We will take our chances and are perectly capable of making our own decisions.

Elderly people can still be active and working, but the immune system diminishes with age for all of us, regardless of how fit we are.
As a result, elderly individuals do not respond to immune challenges as robustly as the young.

I feel it's a personal decision, whether you stay in or not. However, we should consider the burden on the NHS and our families if we become ill.

The tragedy was that those in care homes, who feel imprisoned, were denied NHS care during the last lockdown. Certain CCGs wanted them all to sign DNRs (fair enough if meaning CPR only) but this was taken to mean that they gave up their right to be treated in hospital, they were just left to die in their care homes. I cannot begin to imagine what it must be like to be kept locked in, unable to see your loved ones, and knowing that you had nothing left to live for.

Poland has ordered its over 70's to stay in because the virus rates are increasing.

Ordered to stay in in Poland? Well that wouldn’t work in the UK! What makes me laugh is that if you are looking after your grandchildren you can carry on doing that even if you are over 60 or 70!

Iam64

Poland has ordered its over 70's to stay in because the virus rates are increasing.

I was told about this yesterday, by my colleague who lives just outside Warsaw. She said that their over 70s have been discouraged from going out, for anything other than emergencies, for several weeks now. However, they're not to leave their homes at all now and that army personnel will deliver food supplies to them if they have no family.

Exactly BlueSky, those of us who were clinically vulnerable and advised to isolate in March, remain clinically vulnerable. Yet, we are to return to work, providing it's covid safe. How one young relative who works in hospitality achieves that I'm unsure.
I previously did one full day plus extras in looking after grandchildren. I'm back to not seeing them because we're teir 3, they're at school, parents at work so the risks seem too high. I miss my family so much and realise its v tough for them juggling work without our help. Tough times

People we know caught it from the grandchildren they were looking after. Luckily in a mild form.

At this stage in the pandemic its unacceptable to ask any group to stay at home, especially if its based on age. When all this started, it was completely out of the blue and we needed to take extreme measures, which is why we all needed to stay home as much as possible. But we have had 8 months to devise a method of managing outbreaks, and have clearly failed miserably. The UK can't track cases properly, we can't provide adequate support for people who can't isolate because of their circumstances and we are encouraged to demonise groups we see as breaking the rules.

The only reasons we are being asked to stay indoors is to limit the impact on the NHS. We shouldn't delude ourselves that the government cares whether we individually catch this disease, their objective is to keep numbers within what a cash starved NHS can manage. As a money grabbing leftie, I'd quite like to see adequate funding for the NHS to manage this crisis properly, and a working T&T system.

Please be aware I'm not advocating lifting all the rules, not at all, but confining people to their homes because of governmental inadequacies in just not on.

But I’m not staying in ( or more accurately not going out at pre-pandemic levels) to save the NHS but because I don’t want to catch Covid. It’s quite a simple decision. I’d be acting exactly the same even if there were a magical increase in NHS capacity.

Exactly Suzie!

Oh, I'm the same suzie and BlueSky. But I'm not staying indoors completely and having my shopping delivered by the Army.... (That said, I'm not over 70, or even 60 )

For me, the difference would come if the government told me to stay indoors, like they did before. I read about the instruction to over seventies in Poland, and I'm trying to imagine the government trying to impose something similar here.

It would be phrased as "Stay inside, protect the NHS", when really it would be "stay inside because we're too incompetent to come up with anything else"