Shielding ends tomorrow, but it’s still too soon for many vulnerable Britons to enjoy new freedoms

Yes, the infection rate has dropped, but you won’t see me at a six-person barbecue this weekend. Here’s why

Those of us with health conditions and/or disabilities are accustomed to making use of decision trees before we even leave the house. This was true before Covid came along and added several new branches to them.

In my case the first branch contains the question “how do I get there?” For me that usually means, is it accessible by car and can I park somewhere nearby? Public transport is about as welcoming to disabled people as a Southern Baptist church would be to rapper Lil Nas X rolling up in a pair of his “Satan Shoes”.

I then have to ask if the place is accessible. Then there’s the question of, ahem, facilities. And so it goes, on and on.

Those steps are purely practical. Covid means I’ve had to become an amateur public health sleuth because the government has said precious little about the “extra precautions” it wants me to take when shielding ends tomorrow morning.

“So would you be happy with me coming over to play backgammon in the back garden now,” a shielding friend of mine asked, while we were trying to get our heads around the issue.

I’ve been an aficionado of that ancient gambling game for years now and have missed playing in person. The person asking the question is an old friend and former colleague and I’m pretty sure I can trust her to be careful. This meant the answer to that question on my newly complex decision tree was easy: sure.

Read more:

• Britons warned not to ‘blow it now’ as lockdown easing and warm weather sees outdoor spaces packed
• ‘I crave social interaction’: Britons share ‘cautious optimism’ about lockdown restrictions lifting
• The government fails to protect shielders in back to work advice

“What about a barbecue with six people?” These are also now allowed in England as part of the gradual easing of restrictions. While the answer to that one involved a little more thought, the answer was still fairly easy. No, no I won’t be going.

If it were just me, maybe it would be different. I’ve had one Astra shot, good for what you could class as third-party fire and theft Covid protection, and managed to survive a brush with the scourge last year – although it knocked me flat for a couple of months and I don’t care to repeat the process.

With transmission rates being lower out of doors, maybe it’d be OK. Trouble is, it’s not just me I’ve got to worry about. I’ve only been shielding for a few weeks, officially. Unofficially I’ve been doing it since lockdown started because my wife is immuno-compromised. So no, I wouldn’t want to be risking her for the sake of a cheeseburger and a beer, however enticing the prospect might be.

The sting in the tail is that her decision tree has been cut down. Thanks to the government putting employers above people, she has to return to work, which puts her in an indoor setting with other people.

Now, her employer is doing the right Covid prevention things but that’s not true of all of them. Disturbingly, the GMB union tells me it has come across incidences of employers suggesting shielders could do more high-risk tasks because they’ve been vaccinated when for some – people with compromised immune systems would be an example – the vaccines may be less effective.

Even with the measures that have been put in place, my wife will still be at far more risk than I would be at the notional barbie I won’t be going to.

Meanwhile, crowds of jackasses have flooded into parks where they’ve been boozing, littering and, crucially, ignoring social distancing.

“Don’t blow it,” said health secretary Matt Hancock. He, along with communities secretary Robert Jenrick, put his name to the letter telling shielders to turn up to work and screw the risks, for which shame on him.

But the warning was well made. Trouble is, there is a subsection of people who don’t care. They’re the sort of people who indulge in fly-tipping, play thumping dance music in residential areas at 3am, let their dogs run wild and leave mess unattended. Then there are the Covid-denialists bleating about their liberty to infect their fellow Britons.

Hancock is clearly worried about the potential for Covid cases to start rising again, and he should be. If this happens, how long will it be before the government restarts shielding? Which means back to miserable, isolating, ultra lockdown, again. If it acts too late people will once again die needlessly.

It’s all about risk, and the government’s assessment of risk up until now has been decidedly dubious, which is why Britain has one of the world’s highest death tolls. You’d think someone would be saying “enough already” but apparently not. We shielders are on our own.