UK authorities warn against taking care of elderly neighbours

Think twice before checking on your elderly neighbours, as you might do more harm than good according to British authorities, as England struggles to balance kindness and common sense.

Members of the public take part in a national "clap for carers" to thank Britain's National Health Service workers, but authorities say not to help elderly neighbours in case of “super-spreading”. Picture: AFP

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Christmas is nine months away, but The Grinch paid a visit to London this week during the second week of lockdown.

A letter from the council arrived through my latch asking people to stop helping each other.

The glossy letter from the borough demanded that neighbours stop delivering food to the vulnerable and checking in on them.

“We know that community organised groups have been set up via social media to aid volunteering across the borough and though these efforts are well intended, we need to safeguard those receiving assistance and ensure support is delivered to the right people, at the right time and in the right way,” the letter to residents said.

That stream of consciousness sentence may have been more at home in James Joyce’s Ulysses, and is almost as nonsensical as that 730-page book.

Tourists walk around Piccadilly Circus, London, at Christmas time, before the global pandemic. Picture: Istock

More than 1.5 million elderly and sick Brits have been told to stay at home for 12 weeks – not even to go out for food or medicine.

The UK government asked people to volunteer and so far 750,000 have signed up for an official scheme.

But in my street at least, there was a WhatsApp group that started to help those nearby, too.

I understand that there is a risk of infection to these elderly and sick people if every well-meaning person drops around, gives them a kiss and a hug and coughs all over them.

But give people some credit for a brain.

From what I have seen in my street in the limited times I have left the house in the past two weeks, the elderly neighbour down the road has had people talking to her from the front gate while she stands at the door four metres away.

Food Delivery company 'Deliveroo' in Camden Town, north London. Employees are keeping their distance from customers. Picture: AFP

The grocery delivery man has been staying at a distance and the Deliveroo guy looks at you like you have the plague.

Another elderly neighbour dropped off a letter to us this week with activities for the kids that she pulled out from the paper.

My ratbags wrote a letter back and when we dropped it through her letter box I made sure they didn’t touch the gate handle, and I used my T-shirt when I did, after already making everyone wash their hands.

What this letter pointed out to me was the “mother knows best” attitude of the British bureaucracy.

A man knocks a pot from his window near West Middlesex University Hospital to show his support for NHS staff. But helping the elderly at home may spread the virus. Picture: AP Photo

But going by the scoreboard so far, it has been leaving a lot to be desired.

Doctors are screaming out for protective equipment that has been sitting in warehouses, which the army has been called in to finally liberate as if they were freeing Paris in World War Two.

And there have been so far only 3000 tests for frontline health workers of 500,000 staff.

Germany has been doing half a million tests each week.

While we don’t want helpers to become super spreaders, there has to be some common sense in the situation.

Surely at this time there needs to be more, not less, kindness going around.

Originally published as UK authorities warn against taking care of elderly neighbours