Care workers have a particularly hard job now – we should be treating them the same as NHS staff

I recently visited our local supermarket and had to wait in a line of seventy or eighty people, something I was perfectly happy about. A short while later a young lady in uniform and wearing an identity tag/pass arrived.

She approached the security chap on the door explaining that she was a care worker doing a client's shopping and asked to be let in. She was refused and told (politely) she would have to go to the back of the queue.

Care workers are employed to help elderly and vulnerable people live independent lives. In very many, perhaps even the majority of cases, they are helping to keep these people out of care or nursing homes and hospitals, doing this for the a low wage and most often without payment for travel time between clients.

The worker must visit the client to collect the shopping list, get to the shop or supermarket, find whatever is needed, queue to pay, and then get the goods back to the client. Often in very little time.

Add to this time consuming activity nearly twenty minutes queueing (how long it took me to get to the front of the line yesterday) and you can see that, with seven, eight, or even nine, clients a day, the carer is, in all probability, going to be running very, very late and probably working considerable unpaid overtime by the end of his/her working day!

I have spoken with the management of a few supermarkets since the above incident and there appears to be the same policy: That NHS staff will be admitted on request while care workers are expected to wait along with the rest of us.

Can someone, anyone, please explain to me the difference in the needs of a care assistant who is helping keep a client out of hospital or a care or nursing home and those of a nurse, doctor, ambulance driver or hospital cleaner? Because under our present circumstances I really am finding it difficult to see any difference whatsoever.

To me, this situation is ridiculous, even disgraceful!

Mike MacRory-Wilson

Brighton

Lockdown issues

I don’t know how much weight to be given to the assertion that "Lockdowns can’t end until Covid-19 vaccine found, study says" (Kate NG, 9 April). However I do know that those calling for an early end or for a date to be set for ending the lockdown are wrong.

How on earth can the ‘when’ be determined other than by waiting until it is the obvious action, and then waiting some more?

Eddie Dougall

Bury St Edmunds

Delivery questions

Dennis Baum’s suggestion in letters that Amazon be stopped from supplying non-essential items misses some important points.

Many of the employees in these warehouses are poorly paid: how many of them are in a position to give up work and to wait some time to receive only 80 per cent of their pay? What of the delivery drivers, many of whom are sole traders with no hope of receiving government support, are they to be deprived of their income too?

Provided they can be kept safe, these workers are doing many people a real favour and also helping to keep the economy going, which will have genuine long-term benefits for all of us.

They should be applauded for their efforts, rather than risk losing their livelihoods because of an ill-considered, one-size-fits-all approach. At times like this we need cool heads and a balanced approach that takes into account the bigger picture.

Ian Richards

Birmingham

Dennis Baum's letter about the comparative privilege of Amazon rings bells with me.

While the government has laws forbidding drones from being flown near residential dwellings, no comments are made about Amazon's plans to deliver in the future with drones, to residential dwellings.

Cole Davis

Norwich

Religious help

Religion is supposed to help the faithful followers in difficult times and convince them that there is a light of the end of a troublesome tunnel. Where have Justin Welby, the Archbishop of Canterbury and Pope Francis been during this pandemic?

All churches are closed and the two leaders of the largest religious groups need, to coin an American phrase, “to reach out” to people and give them hope in this dire time.

Christopher Learmont-Hughes

Wirral

Birds of a feather

I wonder if we will see many more migrating birds arriving this year, as the coronavirus pandemic sweeps Europe? One assumes this has meant that the shooting parties which kill many such birds as they fly over Europe have come to a halt.

I might even hear a cuckoo for the first time in several years. I certainly hope so, as the loss of this lovely sound is painful and very symbolic of the harm we are doing to the natural world.

Penny Little

Great Haseley