A PROFESSIONAL choral singer from Worcester who is in the high category risk from coronavirus has told of the uncertainty and anxiety of returning to work during the pandemic.

Alexis Hutchinson, 25, is a professional lay clerk at Worcester Cathedral.

Alexis has autoimmune hepatitis and fibromyalgia, so falls under the extremely vulnerable category.

She said: “If you are a high risk person and you are advised to work from home and you can’t work from home, you need to be furloughed because it causes so much unnecessary stress and anxiety.”

She was diagnosed with autoimmune hepatitis in September 2019.

After finishing university, Alexis joined the cathedral’s choir in January 2019.

Before the pandemic hit, Alexis would sing in six services a week, including two on a Sunday and then on once in the evening on Monday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday.

During the first lockdown in March, she was put on furlough, and then moved onto flexi-furlough, which allows employers to bring their staff back to work part-time, but she has now returned to furlough full-time.

A recent article by the BBC showed that a study from the disabled charity Scope found that 22% of disabled staff were put in an ‘impossible position’ of having to choose between keeping their job or staying safe.

The charity wants the government to give clinically extremely vulnerable people an automatic right to be furloughed.

The government have said that it should be the employer’s responsibility.

Alexis said: “In September we started doing a couple of services a week, but when the second lockdown was announced we were told we would be put on flexi-furlough

“I’ve been incredibly lucky that the staff at the cathedral have been very supportive and I’ve now been put onto furlough again.

“When I was initially on flexi-furlough, I had a lot of going back-and-forth of not knowing if I should be going into work or not.

“There are a lot of people shielding, and because the government haven’t made it mandatory for employers to furlough staff and work from home, a lot of them are faced with the horrendous choice of either going into work or risking their health and keeping themselves safe but losing their job.”