Christmas - following the rules or not?

[BIWitched]

From what we know right now (and accepting that things may change in the next few weeks) if you're in tier 2 or 3 re you going to obey the rules about not mixing households indoors?

YANBU - I will be ignoring the rules
YABU - it's my civic duty to obey the rules

Do not complain when school bubbles burst or close. Do not complain when you can't visit elderly relatives in care, or dying relatives in hospital. Do not complain when you loose your job. Do not complain when the wait to see a specialist for a cancer scare is forever, or your operation gets cancelled, or there is no bed for your husband when he has a stroke or your kids when they are in a RTA. Just get on with life, hope these things happen to other people and not you- because only you matter.

All of this is already happening, which I think is why so many people increasingly feel less inclined to follow “the rules”.

That's completely illogical though! Yes, things are shit right now, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't take steps to prevent them from getting worse. I agree with your comments about track and trace. The Government's handling of covid has been reckless and shambolic, but anyone who justifies doing as they please for Christmas by claiming it's some sort of 'fuck you' to Boris and co is either being disingenuous or deluding themselves. It is ordinary people who will suffer if the NHS is overwhelmed, schools close and we end up in another national lockdown. The poor and the vulnerable will suffer most.

@GingerAndTheBiscuits

Do not complain when school bubbles burst or close. Do not complain when you can't visit elderly relatives in care, or dying relatives in hospital. Do not complain when you loose your job. Do not complain when the wait to see a specialist for a cancer scare is forever, or your operation gets cancelled, or there is no bed for your husband when he has a stroke or your kids when they are in a RTA. Just get on with life, hope these things happen to other people and not you- because only you matter.

All of this is already happening, which I think is why so many people increasingly feel less inclined to follow “the rules”. The solution, as shown in all the countries that have returned to anything close to normal pending any possible vaccine, is effective track and trace and the government has shown absolutely zero inclination to get that up and running.

Yes, the moralising turn this thread has taken just makes it sound like a lot of people don't understand that the virus is now endemic in parts of our society. There's only so much that keeping away from your relatives is going to do when the governance is piss poor.

It’s easy . All of you who will be blatantly breaking the rules, pop over to the nhs thread and ask the nurses and doctors for their opinions.

Let’s see how you get on .

Why do you need track and trace if you are following the rules? And know who you have been in close contact with ?

Why do you need track and trace if you are following the rules? And know who you have been in close contact with ?

Restaurants use the Track and Trace app. You don't know if the person serving you or someone at the next table might be covid positive.

Even if everyone follows whichever tier rules apply at the time, there will be people meeting who do not meet at other times. I think there should be restrictions specifically at Christmas to prevent case numbers rising excessively afterwards. The one that I favour most of all is for universities to be online only from now until Easter, as much of the increase now has been when students started or returned to university, many of whom would have remained in their family home if all teaching had been online.

Chaotic45

Do not complain when you can't visit elderly relatives in care, or dying relatives in hospital - Mum died a week after lock down, so that's already happened.

Do not complain when you loose your job - That happened the last week in July

Do not complain when the wait to see a specialist for a cancer scare is forever - That's already happened. Dad's consultation was rescheduled from May and happened in September now he's got just a few weeks left.

Just get on with life, hope these things happen to other people and not you- because only you matter

Lock down, following the rules and doing all that was asked of us didn't matter a jot, so yes I will get on with life because these things happened to me - it seems I didn't matter.

There's only so much that keeping away from your relatives is going to do when the governance is piss poor.

I agree that our government has been shambolic. However, it is people who move the virus around. It can't move by itself. It seems to me that common sense isn't prevailing among so many people just now.

@Ginfordinner

There's only so much that keeping away from your relatives is going to do when the governance is piss poor.

I agree that our government has been shambolic. However, it is people who move the virus around. It can't move by itself. It seems to me that common sense isn't prevailing among so many people just now.

The point is though, that the virus is also being spread by people doing things that are legal and in some cases actively encouraged, like school. There is only so much social distancing that a society can actually achieve: even in a lockdown millions of people still need to work out of the home for things to keep functioning and some of them do jobs where it simply isn't possible to prevent any risk of covid transmission. Once a virus is in, you cannot contain it by 'common sense', and you particularly can't when government policy betrays such a lack of it. You need a functioning track and trace system and for people not to have to choose between isolating and eating. When you don't have those things, you're just papering over cracks.

You are not wrong Crapple

@Ginfordinner

You are not wrong Crapple

Thanks. I wish I was though.

Here's a mad thought; what if these rules dont actually work? So many people are obsessed with the idea of following the rules and not seeing family so things get better. What if, in reality, it doesnt actually make a difference, because it still spreads through workplaces and schools and universities like wildfire, like it's doing.

Those who love the rules seem to have a huge amount of faith in those who have created the rules, when in reality, the government have no idea if what they are implementing is going to work. It's not like they have done this before. Not seeing your mother isnt going to make this any better, and those who think following the rules will be a magic fix are kidding themselves. Come February, we will be in the exact same situation we are in now. We already had a full on locked down for 3 months and look what happened, or has everyone just conveniently forgotten that? Or are we supposed to follow the rules forever and not see our families indefinitely? Are you adament rule followers ok with that?

@SqidgeBum

Here's a mad thought; what if these rules dont actually work? So many people are obsessed with the idea of following the rules and not seeing family so things get better. What if, in reality, it doesnt actually make a difference, because it still spreads through workplaces and schools and universities like wildfire, like it's doing.

Those who love the rules seem to have a huge amount of faith in those who have created the rules, when in reality, the government have no idea if what they are implementing is going to work. It's not like they have done this before. Not seeing your mother isnt going to make this any better, and those who think following the rules will be a magic fix are kidding themselves. Come February, we will be in the exact same situation we are in now. We already had a full on locked down for 3 months and look what happened, or has everyone just conveniently forgotten that? Or are we supposed to follow the rules forever and not see our families indefinitely? Are you adament rule followers ok with that?

Yep This is why I'm going to break them (in a limited a specific way) over Christmas. Not because I'm a selfish careless idiot who wants peoples grannies to die but because what we collectively do for a 2 day period won't make any significant impact on the spread of the virus and it's fucking miserable not to be able to see family for months and months on end.

I am following the rules now and I'll follow them again from the 27th December. I'll happily firebreak lockdown for the whole of January if we can have Christmas without being made to feel like total shits.

@trappedsincesundaymorn

Chaotic45

Do not complain when you can't visit elderly relatives in care, or dying relatives in hospital - Mum died a week after lock down, so that's already happened.

Do not complain when you loose your job - That happened the last week in July

Do not complain when the wait to see a specialist for a cancer scare is forever - That's already happened. Dad's consultation was rescheduled from May and happened in September now he's got just a few weeks left.

Just get on with life, hope these things happen to other people and not you- because only you matter

Lock down, following the rules and doing all that was asked of us didn't matter a jot, so yes I will get on with life because these things happened to me - it seems I didn't matter.

I'm sorry

I’d rather we had a 2 week for real just before Christmas with schools And unis closed. Surely that would mean we could have a more normal Christmas, just with no large parties?

We always have Christmas at home with no family over anyway so nothing will change for us.

@SqidgeBum

Here's a mad thought; what if these rules dont actually work? So many people are obsessed with the idea of following the rules and not seeing family so things get better. What if, in reality, it doesnt actually make a difference, because it still spreads through workplaces and schools and universities like wildfire, like it's doing.

Those who love the rules seem to have a huge amount of faith in those who have created the rules, when in reality, the government have no idea if what they are implementing is going to work. It's not like they have done this before. Not seeing your mother isnt going to make this any better, and those who think following the rules will be a magic fix are kidding themselves. Come February, we will be in the exact same situation we are in now. We already had a full on locked down for 3 months and look what happened, or has everyone just conveniently forgotten that? Or are we supposed to follow the rules forever and not see our families indefinitely? Are you adament rule followers ok with that?

Well certainly in some cases it's been more risky to adhere to rules than to break them. As an example, I'm in GM and for weeks we were told we couldn't have informal childcare arrangements in private homes and gardens, but formal childcare settings were fine. If you could find one, of course. Plenty of times the formal setting involved many more contacts than being looked after by family or friends, and there's no guarantee a paid childcare worker is at lower risk of complications if they do catch the virus than the informal childcarer would be. There are without doubt situations where the formal childcare was the less safe option.

I agree that our government has been shambolic. However, it is people who move the virus around. It can't move by itself. It seems to me that common sense isn't prevailing among so many people just now

Yup. I'm getting a bit tired of people thinking they're somehow exceptions to this.

Millions of folk already facing restrictions because 'we' can't do the right thing, begging for a firebreak lockdown, and you lot are prepared to fuck it all up for a Christian festival hardly anyone observes for religious reasons, just so you can see granny, eat way too much food and spend silly money on tat nobody either wants or needs. Fuck me.

Same as all religions then, unless they’re brainwashed.

I am not mixing which means elderly relatives will be alone, but rather alone and safe than alone and sick. We will probably go and see them socially distanced. We are not that fussed about Christmas anyway in our family so not such a big deal for us.

Sorry I meant see them outside socially distanced not inside.

My Dad died in the summer, and I had really hoped the whole family could be together this Xmas to remember him and celebrate the first Xmas without him as one of the 'firsts' we all have to go through when we lose a loved one. I have already cancelled a trip to visit his grave on his birthday and spend that time with my Mum.

But, we've all taken the decision to follow the rules. My Mum can bubble with my brother and his family and I'm planning a much smaller Xmas in my home. I'm going to plan something very different to the usual Xmas, make it special in its own way, throw whatever money I have at the situation to make it fun. Make the most of the Plan B, I suppose.

Here's a mad thought; what if these rules dont actually work? So many people are obsessed with the idea of following the rules and not seeing family so things get better. What if, in reality, it doesnt actually make a difference, because it still spreads through workplaces and schools and universities like wildfire, like it's doing.

This is my thought on it too. They're just coming up with rules based on nothing really just to be seen to be doing something. If I thought that leaving my inlaws alone at Christmas would make a difference I'd do it but I don't think it will make any difference at all.

As things stand we will be ignoring the rule that says don't move out of a Tier 3 area but we will be going to self catering accommodation in a Tier 1 area which means we'll be allowed to go to my mum's house/go to church/the cinema with her and my dad (they live separately but get on).

As Drakeford has yet to tell us what the rules will be in 2 weeks, never mind for Christmas it’s impossible to say whether I will obey them or not.

I’m sure he’d love to ban Christmas if he thinks he could get away with it.