The Queen is setting an example to us all – a very bad one
By continuing to work after testing positive for Covid, the Queen will embolden employers to rush their staff back to the office, risking further outbreaks
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The Queen has tested positive for Covid and she’s working. Light duties, but still, gawd bless ’er.
The Blitz didn’t stop her. Geopolitical storms didn’t stop her. Come to think of it, wild horses couldn’t stop her. So of course she’s raising the disapproving eyebrow and telling the microscopic invader she’s not amused by its antics and she’s carrying on. Isn’t she amazing? An example to us all.
Her Majesty is indeed an example to us all. A bad one. A truly terrible example.
Set aside the fact that work is a good deal easier to cope with when you can declare “light duties” whenever you need. It also helps to have a battalion of servants on hand to cater for your every whim while you’re at your desk; no worries about who’s picking up the kids; no exhausting commute; no dilemmas over what to cook in the evening; or debates about whether the strained household budget will run to another Just Eat this month.
The real problem with her decision is that there will be, somewhere in her realm, a boss who says to a sick member of staff: “Look, if the bloody Queen can get out of bed with Covid at 95, you can manage to do your duties with that sniffle you’ve got. Get yourself in or you can sling your hook.”
If it turns out that person has Covid, with the statutory requirement to isolate having ended, and if that person should encounter someone who’s vulnerable through the course of their day, well, you don’t need me to explain how it could play out.
The UK’s “go to work sick” culture was bad enough when the flu was the worst thing we had to contend with. We’ve all seen the ads they trot out for cold season: there’s no need to worry about whatever nasty thing you’ve picked up, take one of our tablets and you’ll breeze through the day and be good for a half hour on the Peloton when you get home.
We’ve all dealt with the uncomfortable reality: turning up to work as walking, hoarsely talking snot factories, armed with packs of throat lozenges, sachets of hot lemon and cartons of painkillers in our top pockets, despite the fact that their impact is limited at best. We’ve all suffered through truly miserable days in which not much gets done beyond guaranteeing colleagues have to put up with the same thing after the requisite incubation period. Misery just loves company.
Some people don’t have much choice but to turn up given how miserable statutory sick pay is, a problem which is only going to get worse as the cost of living crisis mounts. Around 2 million people, mostly women, all low paid, don’t even qualify for the less than £100-a-week pittance currently on offer.
This was obviously a problem before because of the potential impact on vulnerable colleagues. Now, thanks to the government’s reckless decision to ditch isolation even after a positive Covid test – apparently motivated by the political science of trying to save a disreputable prime minister’s neck – going to work sick could literally kill.
Against that backdrop, the Queen could have taken the sensible course. Upon testing positive she could have performed one last official duty and signed off a press statement before doing the responsible thing and taking some time off. At 95, no one would have begrudged her that.
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Instead she’s being hailed as some sort of superhero by Tory Twitter, which is fond of telling British workers they’re the worst idlers in the world if they can’t shrug off something that’s “now no worse than flu”, even though it is demonstrably much worse.
People will take note. People will take cues from the woman whose will we are subject to, and from the newspapers cheering her on, and from the MPs and commentators doing the same.
Vulnerable people, those of us with disabilities, compromised immune systems, cancer sufferers, people with diabetes, will die as a result. It’s all but guaranteed.
You would think we have endured enough needless deaths throughout the course of this horrible period. Apparently not.
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