Theory about when you can 'hug relatives'

[BabyLlamaZen]

I really can't see when this is ever going to happen this year. I have family members who keep saying "maybe soon" and crossing their fingers, but how on earth are the government ever going to be able to advocate hugging anyone except a small bubble? Especially after a summer of travel?

Maybe it's just me.

When do you think this will change?

[goose1964]

We don't hug each other so it makes no difference to us, except the grandchildren and I'm willing to take the risk for them

[FrugiFan]

I agree with PP that there will never be an official announcement that says "you can now hug". It hasnt really bothered me as we arent a huggy family and we havent made the children social distance from their grandparents, who are pretty much the only people they would be hugging. However I can see why it would be upsetting for people who usually hug family.

[Redolent]

The government won’t come out and say it any time soon.

However it’s clearly logical that if two households self-isolate for two weeks, they’re guaranteed risk-free interaction and physical contact when they do meet up.

[Ibizababyy]

I don’t think they are ever going to tell us to hug. They won’t want to take the blame for saying so if infection increases. I think the last announcement coupled with the stopping of daily briefings and the use of the ‘use your common sense’ phrase again almost encourages us to make our own decisions and read between the lines that hugging can happen now sensibly. We can now (next week) go into others houses- I think it is expected that after several hours of sitting in our families houses that we will relax, feel comfortable and creep within a metre of each other (in some houses sitting 1m apart even will be impossible). We will become complacent/ into old habits and hug before even realising what we’ve done- especially after several weeks of no daily briefing scaring the crap out of us and keeping it at the forefront of our minds.

Afterall it has now been said that family/ friends can babysit- how are they supposed to do that without touching the kids!? No one is realistically going to look after children from a 1m distance. It’s impossible.

[BumbleBeen]

No one is ever going to be able to tell you for sure that you and your mother (for example) definitely don't have it so can hug. It's about degrees of risk, prevalence in the community etc.

So the Government can tell us when it's less prevalent and therefore relatively safer, but you'll never know for sure that you're risk free unless - as pp says, you both self isolate for 2 weeks beforehand.

[Catsmother1]

I don’t think they will actually say you can hug. There are no daily briefings, and the reviews are only every 4 weeks. My daughter hugged her boyfriend for the first time a few weeks ago. She has mental health issues and the lack of contact made things worse. He still hasn’t come indoors, but will do from the 4th.
Some of the rules now don’t make sense to me. I was reading the holiday rules earlier - if you are vulnerable and in a bubble, you can share a hot tub with your bubble. If you are not vulnerable, and not in a bubble, you can’t share a hot tub with the other household you are on holiday with! No sense at all in that. I think we have to do our own risk assessment and make our own judgements.

[BabyLlamaZen]

This is what I think. It's possible we may get another chance at a bubble, but again think it would just be one other household. I'm not much of a hugger either, but I know a lot of family are desperate to hug my ds who hasn't seen a lot of them.

For example, I can't there being a point where the government say it's legally allowed for my household to bubble with my parents, and in laws, and my siblings, and dh siblings etc. We will have to pick and choose.

I think some of my family have this idea that come August we can all go around each other's houses and pass the baby.

[BabyLlamaZen]

E.g. my sisters say might not be allowed to hug DS until next year, as there will be limited bubbles over summer and we are estimating a horrible winter. It's a shame as they do all the right things and aren't rushing out to get their hair cut or wander around the shops. But I totally get it.

[FluffyKittensinabasket]

I’ve hugged my parents and MiL...why wait for the government?

[Greydrapex]

I’ve hugged my brother and mum.i didn’t see them for months. No way I was going to not give them a hug.

[Coyoacan]

If you know that the others are normally sensible and you and no-one in your household is particularly vulnerable, I think there is no harm in a bit of a hug.

We are still at the height of the epidemic here in Mexico but had an earthquake last week. So our epidemiologist said that, though not recommended at this stage, if you have to hug someone, the safest way is by keeping your faces turned away, or from behind.

[stayathomer]

I'm in Ireland and we've been easing down here, we wre in phase 3 of coming out of lockdown but we have my dh and a ds who are vulnerable so have been holding back a lot more than others and even though all is reopening the ads still tell you to stay home and work from home where possible, wear masks on public transport and in shops etc. We just met up with in laws for th he second time the other day and they hugged the children when we walked in. I might have winced, I'm not sure, but it was from both sides in that if the kids got sick I'd be so angry or if they got sick from our kids it'd be tragic. It's a very difficult one when the virus is still out there

[Chessie678]

From 4 July, once you are allowed to stay over night with another household, I don’t think there will be anything in law requiring social distancing from that other household. Social distancing in that context will only be a government recommendation. I am also not sure that extending bubbles would make much sense because there will be no legal requirement for social distancing between two households meeting indoors anyway and it also all starts to get too complicated to put on a legal basis. So basically follow the government guidance on social distancing with family etc if you want to but come 4 July there will be nothing to stop you making your own risk assessment about hugging grandparents etc. I think it will be difficult for the government to change their advice on it as they can’t guarantee that it’s safe for any particular person at a particular time even if the risk to a specific individual is negligible. I should say that I haven’t seen the draft legislation due to come in on 4 July but Boris gave a strong indication that most of the remaining restrictions will be guidance only and 2m social distancing has never been required by law in England anyway.