Woah woah woah hang on: I just got a second letter from @MattHancock and pals saying that because I’ve been identified as a high risk individual I won’t get support unless I register with their Extremely Vulnerable List or call the “National Shielding Helpline.” It’s opt-in?!

So let me get this straight: the governments approach to protecting those most vulnerable to COVID19 is to send them a four page densely worded letter which stipulates that they are high risk but to insist that if they want support as such they have to separately register?!

Not to mention the data protection issues I know people like @FryLegal are identifying and challenging in this, the U.K. govt’s bloody superforecasting geniuses at the Nudge Unit thought six sense pages of text and an opt-in was the best protective strategy?! Really?!

I’m livid, look at this

Image IDs later when I get time (I’m so sorry I’m raging and energy limited) and to clarify: this is the second letter of two pages, to follow the first letter which was four pages. Six pages over two letters.

Aside from the “opt in for shielding” approach, how are isolated people going to get this info if they’re worried about contamination from post? What about people with low literacy? What about people with significant support needs? Do you think we’ve all got PAs, @MattHancock?

After ten bloody years of us all going through the violence that is the disability benefits system, whether PIP or ESA too, after years of fighting letters that say “we’re sorry bc we know you’re disabled just not disabled enough to receive this benefit,” who is this for?!

Help us or don’t, but this nonsensical approach which creates more work, more correspondence and effectively invites ppl to sign up for state monitoring to get access to food, support? What is this, a backstop so if the data goes walkies you can say we consented to hand it over?

I’m getting offline, if anyone fancies helping out by tweeting a typed version of the text from the letter into the thread for access reasons that would be enormously appreciated, sensible discussion welcome, but overall: the shielding policy is too little too late and too absurd

Idk if i summarised this well yday But here’s a weird bit of this: I’m clearly on some NHS and govt register already, automatically, such that I can receive six dense pages of comms, but to get support, I have to take additional steps under guise of “personalisation”

This, for anyone used to being disabled in academia for example, is v similar to the way that disabled access works in what I think of as a licensing model: the proof that you’re entitled to help only licences you to make other requests for help, rather than just providing help

meanwhile the mere idea of an automatic state register of high risk ppl (ie disabled and chronically ill and elderly ppl) is really worrying! But this management is proving piecemeal and patchy and confusing and that makes a bad thing kinda differently worse

Also: I know of multiple older high risk people who aren’t currently checking their post, I know of others who like me haven’t yet signed up to the additional register we actually need to be on to get help bc it’s fucking terrifying and probably going to go badly, and this sucks!