Corona Virus Treatment

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OK, back to a serious point on this, and one of my frustrations that I will explain in more detail....

As you all know, I am (like others here) clinically extremely vulnerable and therefore have been shielding pretty much entirely since March - whenever i have had to stray into a supermarket or petrol station, I have been masked and gloved up (disposable gloves) and have followed distancing guidelines etc.

Due to my state of health, Mrs C was furloughed (that was the reason they chose her) back in April. She returned to work in the summer, and I arranged my work day to take her to work and collect her from work to minimise the risk of her picking the virus up on public transport.

She has returned after the Christmas holiday, and of course we are now in a completely different situation with this new variant so asked her line manager about the risks etc involved. The response was that an individual risk assessment would need to be done (fair enough) - however, she has now been back a week and that risk assessment has not happened. Social distancing is not happening in her workplace (not possible due to the size and layout) and essentially the only measures in place that I can discern are that the staff wear face masks. Cleanliness and hygiene has always been an issue and remains so, with nothing stepped up due to Covid at all. There is supposed to be a 'hand washing every 30 mins' policy, but the realities of the workload means that this is not happening.

Now, my own workplace, which I have not even been in due to working at home - brand new office, screens between every desk, mask policy, additional cleaning and disinfection and our sites have had no less than 8 random spot check visits by the HSE who were very happy that we were doing well in terms of Covid compliance. However, my own department has had three cases of Covid (two confirmed, one stayed isolated for a few weeks but refused to go for a test) and the department upstairs currently has only 7 staff out of a total of 56 available for work. 18 are off sick confirmed positive, 2 are hospitalised, the rest are isolating.

Now, my concern earlier was that Mrs C is going out each day into the environment that she is whilst I am under a shielding order. We do not have a spare room or the space to isolate as our house is small. Am I the only one that can see the level of risk here?

There is absolutely zero advice for relatives of those who are shielding on the government website, and the shielding info is a bit vague and has not been updated since the lockdown announcement (this was raised by an MP in parliament today, but I forget the name of the lady who raised it) - - surely anyone who is living with/caring for someone who is vulnerable should be furloughed or some sort of protection should be put in place? Don't get me wrong, we cannot afford to lose 20% of her salary - - but I get this, she loses 100% of mine.

 

@Fat Controller That's a horrible situation to be in. I hope it works out for you.

 

We always get an increase in posts on non-gardening threads in the winter.

We haven't got enough gardening to do and we can't go down the pub for any nonsensical conversations.

So we have it all here and go off topic all the time

 

I did wonder about emailing my MP because there does seem to be quite a significant hole in government guidance here - whilst I respect that they cannot cover every eventuality, surely allowing situations like this fail the very people that they claim to be protecting?

 

You can't lose anything by trying it.

 

I would hope that will be the case, yes, however there will be others of higher priority than I am ahead of me. I believe they are (rightly) starting in the higher age groups first, so I am likely to be toward March I think.

 

I would think that they would, for safety's sake, offer you the Astro-Zeneca Vaccine rather than the Pfizer vaccine as there seems to be a growing consensus that the former is the safer of the two for people with your medical vulnerabilitie.