As Boris Johnson was declaring Freedom Day yesterday, I was flying back to London from a weekend in the Highlands.
Just like the prime minister I had asked myself “if not now, when?” and set off for a mini-adventure. Even catching a flight for the first time in well over a year was exciting.
In Scotland I completed a long, occasionally precipitous, ascent of Ben Nevis, took the briefest of dips in an icy loch and spent hours pedalling up and haring down vertiginous trails on a mountain bike.
Despite a near miss with a very large tree, the only time I felt in any real danger was in the crowded departure lounge at Inverness airport. I took refuge in a corner and consoled myself that everyone I could see was wearing a mask.
My risk antennae are acutely active. I have had leukaemia for more than a decade and subsequently developed a secondary cancer which required a bout of surgery and a hefty blast of chemotherapy this year.
These factors make me one of the estimated 500,000 people in Britain classed as immunocompromised (about 230,000 of those are blood cancer patients).
We were among the more than two million people who were classified as “clinically extremely vulnerable” to Covid 19 and advised to shield during lockdown.
Last year we were bombarded with letters from the government with advice on shielding: stay indoors, sit near a window, use a separate bathroom, sleep alone. It was alarmist, draconian and often impractical stuff.
Since shielding officially ended on April 1 this year, the advice pipeline has dried up. Instead we are receiving mixed messages from ministers who are variously whipping off their masks, keeping them on or using them only in crowded places.
Sajid Javid, who will be carrying a mask in his pocket and making a personal choice about when to use it, says the vaccine rollout has built a “wall of protection”.
The health secretary seems unaware that for the immunocompromised that wall is a flimsy construction. Our damaged immune systems do not respond as well to vaccines and we will have limited, if any, protection. I know my first Pfizer jab produced no antibody response.
The government’s claims that it has protected the most vulnerable are simply untrue because we cannot be fully protected.
I agree with lifting the vast majority of lockdown restrictions. My personal approach is pragmatic — I’ve been to the pub, to restaurants and I have a socially distanced gig lined up this week. But I’ve cancelled the music festival later this summer — sharing a field and compost toilets with thousands of sweaty music fans is probably an infection risk too far.
My appeal to ministers is to furnish shielders with full information about the limited efficacy of the vaccines for many and remind them of the need to remain vigilant. They should also be advising employers to allow vulnerable people to work from home or make special provision for them in the workplace.
And if Johnson and Javid really want to protect the vulnerable they should be keeping facemasks mandatory on public transport and crowded spaces. For many of us Covid-19 remains a lethal threat.
by
Sean O'Neil - Chief Reporter at The Times
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