I'm a doctor. I don't have cast iron job security, nor do a lot of other doctors, especially middle grade ones on training schemes with fixed end-date contracts. What its meant for locum GPs that I know is they've not been able to get jobs with telephone triages now taking up bulk of work in GP which the sessional GPs have been able to cover.
But I understand that there are people who are worse of. I don't think there's anybody who has said we want lockdown but we don't want financial protection for those hit hardest.
A little bit of it is self-preservation, I'm more likely to die from this disease if the hospital was overflowing with covid patients because of inadequate PPE which happened when we hit our peak. I don't want my patients to die either. I don't want my family member or friends who are clinically vulnerable to die either.
But I'm financially ok, I have a child so I'm well aware of educational issues. I'm also well aware and cognisant of safeguarding issues. And psychiatric and psychological impact that lockdown has on those socially shielding.
The fact is that a more widespread covid pandemic in my opinion would in the short and long term be worse for furloughing, worse for patients, worse for the economy, worse in every aspect. You won't need government to have a lockdown or legislate, not any would venture outside. That is not hyperbole. That is what would have happened without lockdown with rationing of ventilators, of oxygen. And this is still what can happen.
We should have locked down earlier and more severe measures before community spread got out of hand, during the delay phase doctors were literally begging CCGs, MPs to take what was happening in Italy more seriously. For mass testing etc. Groups like EveryDoctor, Doctor's Association UK, BMA have been behind a lot of what we've seen in our daily briefings. We then got told by government advisors that herd immunity was the strategy and behavioural science dictated lockdown would not be accept, more lobbying to MPs happened but it was too late by then.
There may be those for whom being able to work from home and being on 80% because of what they earn is ok for them. But I've not got to have that, I've been working in hell every day. And I'm cautious because frankly I know what this disease is and what it'll do if it goes unchecked.
I am also a doctor. Compared to almost every other job going, we do have cast iron job security. Short of gross negligence resulting in deaths or a consistent pattern of sexism/ racism etc, I struggle to see any real situation in which I (or most doctors) lose my/their job. This is not the case for almost any other job. If you're a consultant, a partner GP or salaried GP, you have to (generally) do something incredibly stupid or get incredibly unlucky (with a sprinkle of institutional racism) a la Bawa Garba to lose your job. Which means that for most doctors, once they've reached their mid 30s and reached what would generally be considered the end of their formal training as a GP or consultant, they pretty much have a job for life.
An F1 knows they will have a job for the next 2 years, cast-iron. If they're also not that bothered about speciality/ location, they will have a training job after that. I mean, some specialities in some areas are consistently under-filled. A 1st year trainee GP has a job guaranteed for the next 3 years. An IMT1 has a job for the next 3 years, an ST1 O&G/ Opthal trainee have one for the next 7 years I believe. An ST3 for the next 5 etc etc etc. Literally none of my juniors have had any difficulties getting jobs for this August, whether its for a training post, a fellow year or, for a lucky couple, with consultant jobs already laid out. The F2s have been a little more apprehensive about taking a year out to locum/ travel etc because of these circumstances.
Locum GPs and F3/F4s etc are a different matter because they have chosen a path, which I fully respect, which gives them infinitely more flexibility (and money!) than normal trainees. It is therefore not exactly strange that some of them are now scrambling a tad to get their normal shifts. If you pick something with more flexibility and money, its going to come with some negatives as well.
With all due respect, I'm not sure what the rest of the post has to do with what I actually posted. My post has nothing to do with being anti-lockdown, I am fully in favour of the lockdown and think we locked down too late and probably opened up too early as well (and what made it worse is that we started off between two different strategies and ended up doing neither one properly).
My point was in response to Wumminator, who (and I'm genuinely not trying to pile in here) was essentially suggesting that lockdown hasn't been that bad for kids/ teens. I was saying that the experience for middle and upper class families and kids has been utterly and wholly different from those of lower class kids and families. This isn't some fantasy I'm concocting, its fact. The former group are actually saving money at the moment, the latter taking out loans. The former are making sure their kids still continue to get as good an education as possible, the latter may be struggling to do so. According to the guardian article, up to 20% of the latter group have been receiving 0-1 hours of education a day for the past 4 months. 0-1 hours! That's insane.
So while I agree with the lockdown and think it has been and continues to be crucially important, I feel that many peoples' attitudes towards lockdown and its effects on certain groups within society has been quite flippant. Especially on this thread.
And it is very easy for us to say what's wrong with lockdown when we're either working in a hospital with our pretty reasonable salaries and not having to worry about having a job or working from home and on 100% salary with none of your normal expenses vs someone who....does not have these things.