Shielders like me are noticing a divide
The very vulnerable can officially leave home for the first time in months, but freedom is still far off, says Juliette Wills
The nation is collectively punching the air as new lockdown rules are this week giving them more freedom to see friends and family, or reopen their businesses. Socialising and shopping are back on the agenda for most, but for the 2.5million people who have been “shielding” – those who, like me, are categorised as extremely vulnerable to complications from Covid-19 – things are far more complicated.
Shielders didn’t even warrant a mention in the Government’s press conferences until last weekend, when our reward for good behaviour was announced: we can finally go outside for a walk and meet one person from another household, still two metres apart, in the open. We may not go shopping, or enter anyone else’s house. Yet only two weeks prior to this, I had received a letter from the Government advising me to shield for a further 12 weeks, until September, a whopping near six months of confinement – enough to send anyone bananas.
I was shocked at the new announcement, not least because it was completely unexpected, but also because I’m not so sure that we, the most at risk, are safe to take the first steps back to the new normal. The virus is still around, after all – the only difference is the hospitals are now better equipped to handle it.
Shielders who have been dealing with isolation and feeling forgotten by the Government must now contend with a new problem: who do you trust? Will the person you socialise with be washing their hands, wearing gloves to go shopping, taking precautions that so many people have now abandoned? What about the people they’re now socialising or working with?
I’ve been shielding since March 1, three weeks earlier than the rest of the country having pre-empted the impact of the virus somewhat more astutely than our Government. A letter from Boris Johnson at the height of the virus’s impact warned me to stay indoors for 12 weeks and not leave the house under any circumstances.
I’m a fit, slim 47-year-old, I don’t smoke and I eat healthily, but that won’t save me; for the past 20 years I have had inflammatory bowel disease and spinal arthritis, asthma and rhinitis, which means my breathing is compromised. My body is further weakened by powerful immunesuppressants. Put simply, if I catch the virus I will likely die. I knew that, but seeing it in print in both that first and then second letter was sobering.
I was instructed to ask my neighbours to shop for me, leave items on the doorstep and walk away. Should we have a dog, someone else would have to walk it. When you’re sick, depressed and anxious, taking your dog for a walk (or someone else’s, as I frequently did) is often what keeps you going. I share my Cambridgeshire home with my husband, Gautier. That, too, unearthed unexpected difficulties: when indoors we were told to keep “at least 3ft” apart, and should someone in a shielder’s household leave for any reason, such as to go to work, or to buy food, we were told to “eat alone, in your room” and “not share a bathroom if possible”.
The guidance also stated that we should furiously disinfect every surface each time we touched something. We were not permitted to sit together on the sofa, nor hold hands, hug or kiss. All humans have a basic need to be social, to give love, and be loved: suddenly being told to behave like this with the person closest to you, whose role it is to care for you because you are sick, has been completely discombobulating; more so still, somehow, now we have been told to disregard these rules that were reiterated just a fortnight ago.
At first we tried “home shielding” for three weeks, because Gautier had to go food shopping (it took two months for us to get an online slot), by which time I was in tears on a daily basis. We made a couple of mistakes – I forgot to wipe down the kettle after I’d made a cup of tea, Gautier came “too close” to me in the living room. Missing my family, my friends and now missing a hug from or meal with my husband, I began to spiral.
Since I was a teenager I’ve obsessively wiped down trays and seatbelts on planes, touched buttons on train doors with my elbow rather than my finger and washed my hands fastidiously. I won’t touch the condiments in a restaurant. I’m also adversely affected by bright lights (like a gremlin) and peripheral noise. I almost died twice in hospital in 2001; the last time I was on a ward it was so filthy I picked up an infection and subsequently almost died at home.
Small wonder, then, that since coronavirus hit, my anxiety levels have gone through the roof. A few weeks in, we decided to go back to “normal”, the logic being that as Gautier wasn’t leaving the house – save for a late-night supermarket dash once a week wearing a mask and disposable gloves. We continue to disinfect our shopping, our post, the front door, ourselves. I have not touched a single surface outside of my home in 100 days.
Getting out into nature – common sense told me I was not going to catch the virus walking along a deserted canal path at 8am – has long been my way to stave off deep depression; as important to my survival as my medication. Nor, I reasoned, would I catch it from standing on the pavement chatting to neighbours who had also been self-isolating like pros because they were over 70. Friends in our street bake for us, and I for them. We swap seedlings and plants. We were good friends before the pandemic, now we were also each other’s carers.
Yet a divide is now appearing; while some friends are excited about restrictions being lifted, I feel nothing but trepidation. I don’t want to risk catching Covid-19 because my hair needs a trim or I want to buy a T-shirt. Shielding friends feel the same; one hasn’t been outside of her garden in three months and it’s unlikely, she says, that she will be in any rush to do so now. We have been conditioned into fearing the worst from the outside world; every person, surface or parcel is a potential killer. The idea of standing in line at the post office is as terrifying to me as being at Glastonbury.
It is clear that those of us shielding must tread carefully, move slowly, not follow the herd into the “new normal” until the virus leaves, or a vaccine becomes available. We must also contend with the notion that neither will materialise.
Gautier is desperate to see his family in France, but can’t risk bringing the virus home to me. He also needs to work (he is a musician and sometime handyman) further increasing the risk to me, but what else can we do? We have bills to pay and are not entitled to the Government’s furlough scheme.
For shielders who have followed the guidelines to the letter, now being able to go for a walk in the summer sun and chat with a friend will be a game-changer. As long as this disease is around, however, we’re still a long way from freedom.