I’m in the high-risk category for coronavirus – for families like mine, vague government guidance could be fatal

Here is why the government’s criminally negligent Covid-19 “advice” may have exposed me to a disease which – as someone with a long term health condition – potentially puts me in a sticky situation.

I’m a type 1 diabetic, which means, as per the government’s latest, updated advice, I’m supposed to be socially isolating myself, along with those aged over 70, people being treated for cancer and people with other health conditions.

Trouble is, the advisors who put it together, and the ministers who signed off on it, seem to have forgotten that some of us in the “serious long term health condition” group are parents. We have children who are at school.

And some of us have partners who work at schools that the government has flat refused to close in stark contrast to other European countries.

When I asked the Department of Health and Social Care about that gaping black hole at the heart of the government’s advice, the response was about as useful as one of Boris Johnson’s rambling press conferences.

I was sent a section from its website advising me to plan now for adapting my daily routine (duh, already done that), set up online shopping accounts (duh, already done that), create a contact list (duh yet again).

But, but, but I’m living with children. Fear not, because that was addressed.

“Keep following this advice to the best of your ability, however, we are aware that not all these measures will be possible.”

Ah, ok. So that’s it then? Seems so.

I mean, how can I best describe my view of this. How can I possibly sum up my feelings at this moment?

The answer to question 1: Dismal? Pathetic? Miserable? Wait, I know: Piss poor. Nope. Even that doesn’t quite do the trick.

My response to question 2: Raw anger of the type of rarely felt. Here’s why: As I write this my wife has just arrived home coughing and hacking. Half the staff at the school at which she works are now self-isolating with symptoms that tick all the wrong boxes.

Maybe it’s a chest infection (to which she is prone) but you can understand why there’s a tightness in my chest that isn’t caused by any virus other than the one that currently occupies Whitehall and the government benches at Westminster.

She actually said sorry for putting me at risk. It isn’t her who should be apologising. It really isn’t.

Fear is a horrible thing. It’s like a knife in your guts and now it’s twisting. It's fear for her, for me and for our children.

It’s the first time I’ve ever had cause to hope my wife has a chest infection.

This could have been solved. Parents could have been given the option to withdraw their children, people with partners at high risk could have been told to stay away.

The kids of key workers could have been allowed to go, catered for by a smaller staff. Ditto those who need feeding, because thanks to one of the government’s other policy failures, many children rely on schools for their one hot meal of the day, as I wrote last week.

These would have been sensible measures. They came to me in the course of five minutes pushing on a wheelchair before my wife’s symptoms emerged.

This isn’t because I’m particularly smart. The ideas should be fairly obvious to anyone with a grain of common sense. They just seem not to have occurred to people with first-class PPE degrees.

I imagine the schools will be closing soon anyway, especially in London. You can’t keep them open with no staff.

But goodness me there needs to be a reckoning when this has passed. I’d rather like to be around to see it.