Stephen Hayers has been under a form of lockdown since the Covid-19 pandemic began (Image: Supplied)
It has been over four years since the UK entered its first national lockdown in response to the Covid-19 pandemic and nearly three years since the last of those lockdowns ended. Although those lockdowns feel both very recent and very long ago, for millions of people in the UK they never really ended either because of factors beyond their control.
According to Forgotten Lives UK there are over 2.1million people who are immunosuppressed, this means their immune systems don’t work as effectively as other people’s and so don’t protect them from viruses such as Covid-19.
As a result, this means that since the doors of the world reopened, people such as Stephen Hayers have been unable to live the life they had before Covid-19 took over the planet. Speaking to Express.co.uk, he explained how his life is at a standstill four years on.
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For millions of people the lockdowns haven’t ended (Image: Getty)
The 60-year-old from Manchester has a form of blood cancer known as mantel cell lymphoma and one of the impacts of this has been the development of secondary immunodeficiency.
Despite receiving his diagnosis in 2011, Stephen was still able to live a full and active life before the virus swept around the world and sent everyone inside. Stephen said the change was almost immediate.
He explained: “I had a business, I employed people, I employed an accountant and all of those things disappeared overnight when I had to stop my work.
“Covid hit and it all changed overnight. I was advised by my immunology consultant that I really needed to shield. Fortunately, I was in a position where I could afford to stop working for a period of time so that’s what I did.”
Stephen says the Government has to do more to help immunosuppressed people in the UK (Image: Getty)
Four years on and while he has begun to go out more Stephen says he is still in a partial lockdown: “I have now started to go back to my important medical appointments, but I do most of them face to face.”
Stephen is still unable to do the work he used to do because it involves a lot of face-to-face meetings which he is unable to safely conduct without putting his health at risk.
Stephen said social life has also been torn to shreds as well as his work. He summarised: “My work’s come to an end, my social life has come to an end.
“I’ve got friends which I haven’t seen in over four years and it’s not a complete lockdown, but it’s pretty close.”
While thousands of people have been under a form of lockdown for over four years, there has been a way out of this. A treatment called Evusheld was developed which could have allowed immunosuppressed people to rejoin the workforce.
Instead, the UK Government didn’t sign up and allow doses to be made available on the NHS that would have allowed people to return to work. The original Evusheld has now lost effectiveness, but an updated version is being developed.
On this Stephen said: “I understand that there are things which could be done about masking in hospitals which have now gone which would take away anxiety from important hospital appointments.
“It’s difficult because a picture has been painted that Covid is over, but for a lot of us, it’s certainly not. I think the main message would be, could you actually deliver this time round on providing preventative protection for the vulnerable and immunocompromised?
“It would be good if they [the UK] followed the suit of the 30 other countries who provided Evusheld last time. From an economic point of view denying us access to protection doesn’t make sense as well from a moral and health perspective.”
Rob Boxhall is another who has been living in a partial lockdown for four years (Image: Supplied)
Rob Boxhall, 58, from Herne Bay, is another who has spent the past four years in a partial lockdown. His wife, Mandy, 61, was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma in early 2020 just weeks before the first national lockdown. Alongside cancer, she was diagnosed with peripheral neuropathy in her hands and feet.
Rob explained that alongside caring for his wife and one of his daughters, he has been living with chronic stress, anxiety, and depression that was so bad he was eventually signed off from his job as a carer looking after young adults with disabilities.
On the impact of four years of full and partial lockdown, Rob said: “I do think the situation we’re in compounds the mental health situation rather drastically.
“If it wasn’t for Covid and the worry of that all the time I could probably have gone back to work. If it wasn’t for Covid I could have returned to work.”
Contributing to Rob’s poor mental health has been the loss of a social life for both him and his wife who has also lost some mobility over the past four years. Rob said: “We have to help her get in and out of the bath and get dressed at times. She loves doing crafts, she used to run a craft group for lots of elderly ladies once a month.
“I used to like going to gigs a lot or going out with a mate for a pint. We used to go on holiday twice a year. We can’t go out for meals because no one seems to recognise there are still vulnerable people who can still fall foul of Covid.”
The shielding means even seeing close family is difficult. Rob has two daughters, one of whom has two children. He said that so much preparation has to go into seeing his granddaughters that it almost becomes a military operation.
As if this wasn’t enough, Rob has revealed that he has in the past received abuse for wearing a mask which he wears as a just-in-case measure when he goes outside.
His message for the Government is simple: “Just help us, rather than stick your head in the sand. Bring about change. Make it known that if people are wearing masks, they’re wearing them for a reason. It seems like everyone now has turned their backs.”
A Department of Health and Social Care spokesperson told Express.co.uk: “We provided wide-ranging support for those at higher risk from COVID-19 both throughout, and since, the pandemic. Measures for this group have included a focused vaccination programme, antivirals, and therapeutics, as well as specific guidance.
“NICE have published independent guidance on the Evusheld treatment, and all decisions on the availability of medicines for NHS patients are taken on the basis of the available evidence of clinical and cost-effectiveness.”
