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Credit: Andy Buchanan / AFP / Getty
I will always remember where I was when I heard the news that the government had changed the lockdown rules for shielding.
Warning: this is almost certainly the most predictable “Where were you when you heard the news about…?” you will ever come across.
I can tell you exactly where I was — in my room. Of course I was in my room. Because, save for occasional visits to the garden, loo breaks and some time in the kitchen when it’s empty — and one trip to the hospital — that is where I have been for every moment of every day for the past ten weeks.
Along with two million others, I have been shielding. In my case, because I have a “serious underlying health issue” — leukaemia, which was diagnosed over five years ago (but which I have probably had for much longer) and for which I have been treated since January.
Which is why, when I left the house yesterday morning after the guidelines changed to allow me outside, it was not just the first time I had gone for a walk in 10 weeks. It was also one of the most weirdly emotional few minutes of my life.
When I received my NHS letter advising me to shield, on 24 March, I wrote for UnHerd about how it brought home to me what the cancer diagnosis, perhaps strangely, had not done: that this could be it for me. Were I to get Covid-19 I would tick almost every ‘he’s a goner’ box going because, in addition to my suppressed immune system — worsened by the treatment — I am clinically obese. So my mortality suddenly became a very, as it were, live issue for me.
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SubscribeUnfortunately you are not the only person who thinks the same. A resent survey (published on the Spectator website) showed 41% of the people in the UK were afraid when they left the house. This is the crises that we will face over the next few years. The cure is going to be a lot worse than the disease with mental health being a leading issue followed very closely by deaths from untreated cancers, heart conditions, etc which will dwarf deaths from Covid 19!
Adults should be able to deal with this as they understand what has happened. They may need help but they will get through it. But what will happen to children who have been separated from friends and family and have been scared by the news and by parents actions. We really have to look past Covid 19 and look at the total picture.
Thank you for this very illuminating article. Until now I have been dismissive of all those people who are shielding or responsible for the safety of someone with compromised health and who have become paranoid about leaving home, touching anything that has not first been soaked in bleach for 5 days etc.or having contact with anybody else not in their household. You have explained the feelings that engulf people in that situation so well. I will be much more sympathetic.
I am in the healthy over 70 group, advised to avoid social situations, but able to go out and exercise each day and shop once a week and i will continue to get irritated by the worried well, who say they will not feel safe to leave home, return to work, send children to school until they can be 100% sure that no-one in their family will catch Covid, but then get into their cars, with their children and drive 2 hours to the seaside without realising the danger they put themselves in of being killed or seriously injured in a car accident.
I don’t have Stephen’s health problems and the major anxieties that go with them. He also fears that while not risk averse, he’s become risk obsessed. I don’t share that either. I do, however, have a vague, unspecific but strong feeling that I’ve allowed too much of me to change. Hey, I’ve just thought of a neat way of expressing it. It’s like those recovery routines in your computer which allow you to go back to the last time everything was working. That’s it: I need to find that date and condition and restart from there.
A hope I have is that people will become more “risk competent” i.e that they will have a better understanding of risk management. There is a tendency to be risk averse, the belief that it is just better to do nothing because “you can never be too careful”. Or alternatively to make decisions based on irrational chance like winning the lottery or becoming a film star. Health and safety is much derided. But what interests me about it is that it is really nothing more or less than rational risk management
There is nothing to fear except fear itself.
I relate to your fear as I have experienced similar feelings throughout. I first felt it in a supermarket when the hoarding and bulk buying was at its peak. I felt it again when entering highly controlled shops when retail caught up, but the security on the door, the markings on the floor and the plastic shielded and masked employees were alien to me. I feel it in my family, many of whom have very different views of lock down and distance and who are excitedly planning to go on holiday to Spain in August when the thought of even going near an airport, metal tube and another country is not something I wan to contemplate. I am not sure if my feelings are fear, rather uncertainty, weirdness and being fed up of our rudderless Government and scientists who have been woeful throughout. I agree that there is not a lot of good to come out of this except one thing. It has been a time for some of the world to stop and/or slow down and there has been contemplation and for many tragedy. John Lennon’s words come to mind and the ‘above us only sky’ is resonating today as all I can see is blue and white and no vapour trails from aircraft and so maybe the fear is not there just for a moment as I take in that benefit. I hope your treatment goes well and you will be okay and thank you for sharing your thoughts.
I can sympathise. Today is my first day outside after 14 days of state mandated quarantine in a hotel room, for crossing state lines, despite being healthy.
Just a room with a bed and ensuite. No chairs. No microwave. I was lucky enough to have a door that opened to the outside, so despite being extremely cold (Tasmania start of Winter) that door was open most days. I ate my meals on my bed. Read. Watched free to air TV – wi-fi internet on the island I am on is non existent. Knitted. Sat and sat and sat.
It was only 2 weeks but it was soul sapping. I remember lying in bed about 3am one night with my inner voice saying over and over “4 walls. That’s all. Just 4 walls.”
I thought I would get my creative on and write something profound. I had visions of walking out of there in my new just knitted jumper brandishing a best seller.
But today I just walked out and carried on.
Weird.
I wish you all the best and hope you recover well. x
I can relate to what I take to be the situation of the author’s family. Though I am 73, I am in good health, as far as I can tell. Every day I go out and run 5km+, keeping well away from people (they tend to keep away from runners anyway!). However, my wife is a survivor of cancer and several courses of chemotherapy, so i greet the end of lockdown with mixed feelings because I am effectively shielding-by-proxy. It looks as though I will be no more free than SP. There must be many of us vicarious-shielders, though presumably a young family will not allow itself to be restricted in order to shield grandma living with them. How that will work out remains to be seen
‘My family have all been free of the virus. My desk looks out on a large garden and we have had no problem getting food (if only we had, I might actually have lost some weight)’
Major risk factor is obesity. Reducing risk is within your grasp.