They beat the coronavirus, but stigma still haunts Britain’s elderly Covid-19 survivors

‘Some people when they spotted me, they recoiled,’ says Robert Embleton, 79, who won a nearly month-long battle against the disease

The former naval officer says the country’s lockdown is ‘sapping the equanimity and self-confidence’ of most elderly people

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Former British naval officer Robert Embleton. Photo: AP

Published: 9:07pm, 9 May 2020Updated: 9:09pm, 9 May 2020

From resounding applause to ostracisation and isolation.

That is essentially the journey Lt. Cmdr. Robert Embleton, who served 34 years in Britain’s Royal Navy, took by ambulance when discharged from Derriford Hospital in Plymouth, southwestern England, on April 8 following his near-month sickness with Covid-19.

Arriving at his retirement home, he immediately went into self-isolation with his wife of 55 years, Jean, who has shown no symptoms of the virus. Soon after, Embleton realised he was carrying some new baggage – the stigma of the virus. He even considered buying a bell to warn of his presence.

“I was regarded as a sort of leper, a plague carrier. Some people when they spotted me, they recoiled,” the 79-year-old said. “I was particularly regarded as a menace.”

That is some contrast to his final moments at Derriford Hospital, when the “somewhat embarrassed” Embleton received a round of applause from all the frontline staff from the cleaners to the doctors.

Embleton, who received an MBE honour from Queen Elizabeth in 1993 for outstanding service to the Royal Navy, thinks the lockdown rules are too strict for some elderly people. He understands the need to shield those elderly with underlying health conditions, but says others should be treated with much more “common sense.”

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