To think it's a straight choice between keeping your parents and grandparents safe and "a normal Christmas". You can't have both.

[PrincessNutNuts]

If members of your household go to work/school/the gym/the pub/ the shops or anywhere indoors with other people,

And if you don't all self-isolate for 14 days before Christmas,

Then you risk giving Covid to your parents and grandparents if you mix with them indoors during those 5 days.

That's just a fact isn't it?

YANBU Yes, you will be risking unknowingly endangering your loved ones,

YABU ???

Goosefoot

If my DM (83) decides to form a Christmas bubble with the milkman and the greengrocer (I wouldnt entirely put it past her) and gets sick then in the first instance her care is likely to fall to me. This puts me at greater risk as I help her out of bed, help her to wash etc.

I didnt choose her bubble but her bubble affects me.

heidipi my heart melts for your lovely mum. You're lucky.

My parents are still working etc and don't see themselves as being in need of protection and my one remaining grandparent wants to see us as it's probably her last Christmas. So I will be seeing them.

@zenithbear thank you, I know we're lucky. I'm going to make it my mission to remember that and chill the fuck out this Xmas. Even when my last nerve is jangling 😁

@GnomeDePlume

Goosefoot

If my DM (83) decides to form a Christmas bubble with the milkman and the greengrocer (I wouldnt entirely put it past her) and gets sick then in the first instance her care is likely to fall to me. This puts me at greater risk as I help her out of bed, help her to wash etc.

I didnt choose her bubble but her bubble affects me.

So you're saying you get to tell your mum who she can associated with so she won't get sick and become a problem?

That's pretty shitty, but also illogical - she's 83. Chances are high that no matter what she's going to become ill and need help within the next 5 or 10 years. Quite possibly for longer than covid would affect her. So you might want to think about preparing for that rather than spending time trying to tell another adult they are obliged to stay in until you decide otherwise.

If you aren't willing to take care of sick people, and people who are ill because they chose to go on a rainforest trek and caught a weird parasite, or went to an orgy and caught a gross communicable disease, or God forbid spent Christmas with family, and do it non-judgementally, you shouldn't be in healthcare. Carers are exposed to diseases, that's part of the job, and it doesn't mean they get to control what is ok for people to do.

@Goosefoot Agree 100%!!!

@GnomeDePlume, I am sorry but you cant tell your mum who she can see or not no more than anyone can tell you who you are seeing or not.

There is always a choice. If you don't feel you can look after you mum if she gets ill, then don't.
But don't use that as an excuse to tell her what to do. Nor should you use that as a way to play the martyr and still lok after her whilst feeling you have been shortchanged and it's all her fault.

@TheKeatingFive Agree. I also thought that is what the first lockdown was meant to be for.

@Movinghouseatlast

Totally agree with you.

I am saddened by how selfish people are and it has all come to the forefront during this time.

Selfish grandparents like me who want to see their family at Christmas and are prepared to take that calculated (low) risk?

How dare we?!

But if they end up in intensive care they keep another patient out? Can't they see that?

@LastGoldenDaysOfSummer what makes that other patient more worthy of care than them? You're being ridiculous.

I agree, OP.

I think if you’re alone then it’s fine to be with family, but otherwise you should stay at home (what we’re doing).

The numbers will rocket in January and February and all the sacrifices will have been for nothing.

But if they end up in intensive care they keep another patient out? Can't they see that?

So who is worthy of an intensive care bed? Not Covid patients who see their family at Christmas, apparently. I presume then that smokers/drinkers/obese people are equally unworthy? What about people who have car accidents? I mean, they don’t need to go out in the car, do they? Or shall we say they can have an intensive care bed if they had an accident going to work, but not if they’re just driving somewhere frivolous?

@TonMoulin and @Goosefoot

I wont be telling my DM who she can meet however she wont be in our Christmas bubble because we will be too much of a risk to her (supermarket workers plus returning students).

If she were to decide she wants to take a risk then as a fully grown adult that is her choice to make but I dont want her catching Covid from us on any of our consciences.

What I was trying to get across was that the risk taking doesnt just have potential to affect the risk taker or HCPs (who can be considered to be volunteers) but also all the family conscripts. It's a bit like having to share somebody's hangover when you didnt go to the party.

Yes, it's a risk. But did we not take risks that might endanger other people before 2020? There was always a risk that a frail elderly grandparent might get sick from spending lots of time with a young DC, from having a heart attack after a big boozy fatty Christmas lunch, from stumbling in the dark on the stairs in another person's house, in taking that cab to the station, even in getting in to the car that we drove them in.

So the U bit is the idea that this is a new problem.

What's new is the infantilising sense that the elderly are too ignorant or senile to assess these risks for themselves, and therefore require us to make their decisions for them. I wouldn't pressurise an elderly relative (if I had one -- all already dead, sadly) to come to mine. But I wouldn't have done that before. Nor would I be wagging my finger and tell them to spend Christmas alone for their own good. Some people who get the vaccine still get sick. An 80-something has a decent chance of not seeing next another Christmas even without Covid. Their call.

YANBU

My auntie is 91, and as fit if not more so, than some 70 year olds. But she is desperately lonely, and lives in a high tier area, alone, and more than 100 miles away from any of her few realtives. She's bubbled with my SIL and family, but that's not been a lot of use to her what with them living so far away.

But there's no way in hell that anyone should stop her going ahead with the plan to spend a few days over Christmas with SIL and co. It's probably the only thing keeping her going. If SIL was to withdraw that option (she won't) I don't know what it would do to DA.

My (fairly) old, vulnerable mum is taking covid far less seriously than me (young and healthy). So, me seeing her poses no additional risk to her, because I come into contact with basically noone, and she is mixing with more people than I am. I'm probably more likely to get covid from her than vice versa!

So if she ends up in ICU, it won't be because of me. That's as clear as I can keep my conscience.

Also, they're not going to give a frail elderly person elaborate intensive care in an NHS hospital while turning away a sick child because there are no beds. There was always triage, ie allocation of scare resources towards people more likely to benefit from them. And the withdrawal of care after a certain point where, in a fully privatised system, a wealthy person or their family might choose to continue it. There was a lot of 'do you want morphine as a trial in case the pain gets worse... ooh, whoops, he's lost consciousness and we won't need palliative care after all' on the liver where my father died. Not a good feeling for relatives -- it felt as if they just got fed up of trying to keep people alive knowing that they wouldn't walk out of the hospital. But I don't have an ethical problem with it. My father's last few months were insanely expensive to the NHS, he was miserable, we were miserable, and there would in retrospect have been little value in more of it.

Most elderly people who get Covid do, of course, like my (92 year old neighbour!) recover with fairly minimal or even no intervention. He had two nights on oxygen and is fine now. So even if the elderly relative gets it, the chance of them taking up a bed, ventilator and huge amount of nursing care for weeks on end is also very small.

[quote GnomeDePlume]@TonMoulin and @Goosefoot

I wont be telling my DM who she can meet however she wont be in our Christmas bubble because we will be too much of a risk to her (supermarket workers plus returning students).

If she were to decide she wants to take a risk then as a fully grown adult that is her choice to make but I dont want her catching Covid from us on any of our consciences.

What I was trying to get across was that the risk taking doesnt just have potential to affect the risk taker or HCPs (who can be considered to be volunteers) but also all the family conscripts. It's a bit like having to share somebody's hangover when you didnt go to the party.[/quote]
On the other hand, your mother could become ill in January and die within short order. And then you would have the fact that she'd spent Christmas without her family on your conscience.

What I would wonder is why your conscience is more important than what she would prefer? Everybody dies, and older people are often quite reconciled to that. Very often an infection of some sort contributes. We might keep the elderly around longer if we kept them truly isolated, but would anyone consider that worth it?

YABU everyone’s circumstances are different. Someone with terminal cancer will feel differently from someone shielding for another reason. Someone who has had COVID already or is younger will make a different risk assessment.

So YABU - because

1. Not all older people die of COVID, the vast majority don’t. There is a big difference in a fit 55yr old and a poorly 75year old’s level of risk.
2. Death is not the only consideration, quality of life when you are in your 80s is at least as important.

If members of your household go to work/school/the gym/the pub/ the shops or anywhere indoors with other people,

And if you don't all self-isolate for 14 days before Christmas,

Then you risk giving Covid to your parents and grandparents if you mix with them indoors during those 5 days.
Sounds very scaremongering to me as there are lots of ifs here. Not everyone has parents and grandparents or young children. We are a family of older middle aged parents (us) and young adults. None high risk and mostly working from home but in different regions. So no real risk. Yes I would be prepared to "risk" because there is really little risk in my opinion.

As a grandparent who’s 44 with no known underlying health conditions, I don’t think it’s a straight choice between keeping your parents/grandparents safe or a normal.

As a 44 yr old with elderly parents I think it’s a bit more nuanced than that.

Different circumstances different thought process and risk assessment.

YANBU

@Goosefoot
What I would wonder is why your conscience is more important than what she would prefer?

Simply because hers isnt the only vote. She is in her 80s with underlying health conditions, I am in my 50s with underlying health conditions.

If she were to come to my home for Christmas and catch Covid from us then there would be an element of blaming from her (she does this with colds so I cant see Covid being different). I would expect that I would need to look after her. Looking after her would make me far more likely to get sick myself and my underlying health conditions mean that I could get very sick.

My employer would not be very sympathetic if I was sick for any length of time. No salary means no mortgage payments.

I know there are a lot of possibles rather than probables in this but it does seem to be a lot of risk to take for a glorified Sunday lunch.

Presents will be exchanged in a socially distanced way beforehand. We will speak on the phone on the day. She will have her Christmas meal with DB (they have been in a bubble since March).

It's one day, it isnt a big deal for us.

Give your elderly relatives the gift of life this Christmas.

STAY THE FUCK AWAY FROM THEM!