swans in the sunset

Of course, yes, Roy *Cropper*.

The Severe Risk designation is due to my contracting (following a first session of chemotherapy for metastatic prostate cancer last August) near-fatal Enterocolitis and spending 12 weeks in hospital.

Although at one point one of my lungs had collapsed and both were fluid-filled, and I was kept alive on oxygen, I myself don't think that they're permanently damaged, and hence have been ignoring the advice to shield myself for these last 11 weeks, a risk I rightly (it appears) thought worth taking.

I'm sorry to hear that, but glad you feel able to make your own decisions without surrendering to government tyranny.

The government is under attack both for imposing the lockdown at all and for imposing it too late and then easing it too soon. They can't win.

My decision was a personal one based on the fact that I'm going to die anyway, and I wasn't prepared to waste what limited time I have left, and the fine Spring weather, by being stuck indoors for 12 or more weeks. And (as I intuited) the risks were exaggerated - the NHS was not overwhelmed (the Nightingale emergency hospitals weren't even needed) and deaths weren't in the millions.

And it was obvious to me that the NHS criteria of who was at "severe risk" were very broad-brush, one-size-fits-all ones, and based mainly on guesswork.

A brave and wise decision. I hope your follow-up care is not being impeded by the lockdown?