Friend said they're planning to break Covid rules..

[ThoroughlyForumed]

I was visiting a close friend yesterday evening (all fine in my location at the moment). We got to chatting about Christmas plans and what we would do 'if' rules changed or were upped in our area.
Luckily for me my family is a neat 6 so as long as we stay in medium we can celebrate together but obviously would change the plan if anything changed. Her family is a larger 11 and she very candidly just said they were all planning to celebrate together regardless of what rules are in place then. I sort of shrugged it off at the time as I didnt want to start a hypothetical argument but AIBU for being secretly pissed off with her for being so cavalier with Covid rules?

@PinkiOcelot

The majority of people on here are planning on sticking their fingers up to the rules. Did you not see the thread on it through the week? Made for depressing reading tbh. No one gives a shit about the rules.

I am a person who is ignoring the rules.... But not in that way, the rules are designed to keep the level of infection down to what is manageable for society as a whole, they are not designed to keep individual people safe. I'm going to do everything I can to make sure I don't get covid and will be going above and beyond the rules!

If you are going to judge them, then I’d question the friendship.

I couldn’t get worked up about people making choices which work for them in exceptional situations. I certainly wouldn’t judge a friend for it.

I’ve followed the rules and in most cases go beyond what they recommend, because that works for me.

There are things way beyond our control which lead to the figures we are seeing now. The government wants us to blame each other, don’t fall for their rhetoric. The reason we are in this situation is because of a failure in testing, tracking and tracing.

We have been a stickler for the rules. There are four of us ( one is a DD who will have come back from Uni) and then DF and MiL who are both in their 80s.MiL is in our bubble but DF is in my DSiS's but she is away at Christmas.

Am I seriously expected to to leave him on his own on Christmas Day?

I know many non Christian people who celebrate Christmas.
Because for most people it’s not a religious celebration anymore

Entirely irrelevant to the point made. Christmas won’t see a relaxation of the rules, just like other celebrations (religious or otherwise) didn’t.

Christmas is two months away...who knows what the rules will be by then?

minty personally I suspect Boris et al will revel in loosening the restrictions for a couple if days as a 'gift to the nation', probably complete with a Love Actually style speech about love and family

@ThoroughlyForumed

I assume you’re in tier 1. If you’re tier 2 by then will you not see anyone at all?

By Christmas it will have been 9 months...seriously, how much more are people expected to give up? Our entire lives, family, careers, education, social life, medical care, mental health, financial security? For what? To prolong the lives of primarily very elderly people?

Mumsnet seems to be full of people who are planning to break the rules. In real life I don't know anyone who is intending to (unless they're all lying!)

Honestly they may be lying TBH, or at least avoiding admitting things. I think people will only admit to breaking the rules if they know or guess you won't judge them, so highly rule compliant people may get a distorted view of their friends' and families' compliance. MN is probably more accurate too simply by virtue of being anonymous. I'm personally fairly compliant (we live in Tier 1) but I'm pretty open about thinking that things like the Rule of Six make no sense and take a massive toll on people. Almost everyone I know is bending the rules to some extent now, and these are mostly people who were very pro-The Rules even three months ago.

Anyway I agree that Boris will probably loosen the rules for at least Christmas Day, simply because so many people will just break them anyway & its less embarassing for the Government to give them permission.

@MegaBloxRoxx

minty personally I suspect Boris et al will revel in loosening the restrictions for a couple if days as a 'gift to the nation', probably complete with a Love Actually style speech about love and family

I agree

Im nauseated Just thinking about it

There are things way beyond our control which lead to the figures we are seeing now. The government wants us to blame each other, don’t fall for their rhetoric. The reason we are in this situation is because of a failure in testing, tracking and tracing
Agree with this!

Luckily for me my family is a neat 6 so as long as we stay in medium we can celebrate together

That's the main point isn't it?

@MegaBloxRoxx

minty personally I suspect Boris et al will revel in loosening the restrictions for a couple if days as a 'gift to the nation', probably complete with a Love Actually style speech about love and family

A gift to the nation, yes give your loved ones the gift of covid a bit like eat out to help spread the virus🙈

Don’t take it seriously. When they put us up to tier 2, I said “I’m still having Christmas for 11 of us.” Of course I won’t I was just being a belligerent so and so. I will not have family over for Christmas If I can’t, still want to stamp my feet and roll on the floor though.

Sometimes I think I’ve gone back in time to a communist draconian historical time. Meanwhile people are committing suicide, mental health is rising, people are missing life saving medical treatments, people are losing jobs, the world and society is changing and by the looks of it not for the better we shall see and then you see a post like this. God help us all

The reason we are in this shit state is not because of "rule breaking".

It is because of the lamentable state the government allowed the NHS to get into, and their shocking decisions and lack of action at the start of the pandemic. Every restriction and policy since has been designed to try and hide this. There is nothing remotely altruistic about their actions, so obviously they would rather the public blame one another for not sticking to "rules".

I am sick to bloody death of it. The damage they have directly inflicted on society is extraordinary.

@ThoroughlyForumed

I do acknowledge that I'm very lucky with the 6 but if there were more of us we would visit different family members in tandem and stick with whatever the rules are at the time. I agree no-one should feel alone at Christmas but chunks of time each is better than nothing

Just out of interest, in what way is that better than all going to one place and distancing sensibly? Other than it being within the roolz

You've just said "luckily for me" @ThoroughlyForumed how selfish a friend are you that she confided in you and yet here you are slagging her off.

The rules only apply to other people!

I think it’s a real dick move to break the rules like this when so many will be sacrificing to follow them but absolutely indicative of our selfish society.

It's brilliant that we've been convinced as a nation that this is all our fault for not following arbitrary, vague, changeable rules to the letter.

Remind me why an office is safe but the clothes section in a supermarket isn't? Taken to the extreme point the government even ran a communications campaign telling us to get back in the office!

Remind me why 'the science' back in spring said masks don't work but now they do, neither decision seemingly looking at evidence from 100 years of research into infection control. Either they work or they don't. It can't be a subjective opinion.

These are just two examples.
I'll be doing Xmas my way, thank you.

You're very lucky that your plans happen to fit in with the rule of six, what if they didn't? What if you had a family member or two that would be left on their own if you didn't bend the rules slightly and include them? I do agree that 11 is quite a lot over the limit of the rules but until you're in someone else's shoes you can't judge in my opinion.

I used to get really cross when I heard this, but after seeing my nanna completely crumble away over the past few months and have her undiagnosed dementia hugely accelerated by lockdown and the isolation, seeing my dad suffer a full mental breakdown because of covid, hear about all the covid related suicides, domestic violence and murders, I am now losing the will to be cross at the rule breakers.

I'm not talking about the twats having raves, I'm talking about situations where people are just desperate to see family etc.

I honestly don't know how much more I can take and I think I speak for a lot of people.

@OverTheRainbow88

Because you are lucky that your family fit nicely into the random number 6 that the Gov plucked out of thin air.

So get off your high horse as you aren’t in the difficult position of who to see at Christmas and who not to. Such judgement

This ^^