Covid Enquiry

MaizieD

ayse

I’ve never been a fan of people turning up to work with coughs, colds etc. and then sharing them round everyone. I believe people should be able to stay away from work if they are likely to spread disease. Anyone with Covid should remain off work.

Unfortunately those on zero hours contracts are not in a position to be able to do this and the current ethos continues to be come to work and share your germs! Employers tend to expect their employees to come to work whatever.

It needs a change from this ethic to protecting others from ill health. I can’t see it happening.

The message from the Palace, that the Queen continues to undertake 'light duties' (whatever that might mean) while having covid, hasn't helped much, has it?

It's been trumpeted across the RW press as HM showing us a fine example of soldiering on while ill.

If HM can do it, so can everyone else, then?

Yes if you work from home and have very mild symptoms, and wish to work what is the problem. You can sign off sick also. Some people seem to want to make a mountain over a molehill.

Casdon

I think the reason we’ve been told that the Queen is doing light duties is that if we’d been told she was resting the media would have gone into meltdown that she was much iller than we’d been told, was on her deathbed etc. light duties is not fanning those flames.

I think this is probably nearer the mark - the media would be in a frenzy if told the Queen had been advised to rest - we’ve all seen the media feeding frenzy with regard to Ukraine. The president of Ukraine was appealing to the press to moderate their language and stop aggravating the situation - it would be exactly the same if there was even a suggestion the Queen had taken to her bed.

Light duties for a Queen isn't the same as having to go to work for a full shift when you don't feel well but are not allowed a test. And she has loads of staff to cook and clean for her. If free tests are stopped all kinds of infected staff will be at work ready to infect vulnerable customers and co-workers. Johnson is reckless with our lives, especially those with underlying morbidities.

Dinahmo " We're heading back to the days when workers turned up to a particular place and then would be either given a day's work or sent home. This is wrong and we need a change of work methods."

My grandfather in the thirties and forties, after being gassed in WW1, worked as an outside house painter. They had to turn up for work in all dreadful weathers, and stand around until someone in a nice warm dry office decided whether it was a good day to be putting on paint. If it wasn't, they were sent home with half pay, but only after a set time, by when they were drenched and frozen, (The employers' motive behind this was that it was then too late for them to go elsewhere to find casual work for the day, so they were kept tied to their job. If they just stayed away and risked finding work somewhere portering or something, and, if they were lucky, to earn a full day's pay, they got no pay for that day and could find when they returned that they had no job at all).

He had bronchitis every year, but still stood in sleet for hours so as to be sure of his half pay to feed his family (until one year the "bronchitis" turned out to be lung cancer).

Progress in work conditions has been fought for and painfully won, but it can be lost in an instant.