The covid rules don’t make sense!

[blackbettybramblejam]

As of Next Monday my DS will be allowed to go to gymnastics and dance lessons- loads of 4 year olds tearing around inside together.
But he isn’t allowed one friend to play at our house! Just crazy.
The worst of it is that his nursery bans anyone for 10 days if a child discloses that they’ve had a friend round to play.
These arbitrary rules are insane!

Gym and dance lessons have measures in place and children will be kept apart. People won’t do that in homes.

Seriously your son will be questioned ?
Of course he can go to the toilet if he goes to a friends house he isn’t going to be thrown out of nursery. I think you are overthinking it and if you are really concerned maybe ask the nursery to clarify that your child won’t be questioned for using the toilet .
Playing in the garden is fine but not in the house .

@Lougle

Organised events will have measures in place to reduce the risk of transmission. People's homes don't.

Like the measures primary schools have in place?

They are mainly...opening the window if it opens, washing hands and hoping for the best.

I agree, OP. We are heading back to the rules in place last summer/autumn where you can’t have people in your house, but can see them if it means you’re spending money by doing so.

I do wonder if people are being purposely dense about this sometimes. Kids need to go to school much more than you need to have a haircut, so we make that judgement based on what risk is worth taking.

Activities like gym classes are supposed to take place with COVID secure measures in place. Are you going to make sure that a friend who comes round to play always stays two metres away from your child? Disinfect surfaces regularly, have a one way system? Probably not.

That nursery rule is bizarre. How do they ensure that it’s not just 4 year olds being 4 year olds and making things up?

@TheSmallAssassin

I do wonder if people are being purposely dense about this sometimes. Kids need to go to school much more than you need to have a haircut, so we make that judgement based on what risk is worth taking.

Activities like gym classes are supposed to take place with COVID secure measures in place. Are you going to make sure that a friend who comes round to play always stays two metres away from your child? Disinfect surfaces regularly, have a one way system? Probably not.

This.

Also I imagine that the gym/dance classes aren't taking place in a space the same size as your living room? Lots of kids in the class, but unlikely to be closer than 2 metres and talking face to face.

Your DS may or may not catch covid from school/gym etc and spread it to you in your home. If you have other people in your home and they have covid, it's a much higher risk that everyone in your house could also catch covid.

I work in 2 schools that’s 60 children per week, 20 members of staff I come into contact with and lots and lots of sneezes and germs come my way all term but that’s okay because I’m earning money and babysitting for children so their parents can earn money. It’s fucking farcical and I refuse to be gaslit any longer.

The rules have never made sense. Just a load of shite from an incompentent government bumbling around in the dark.

The preschool dancing and gym classes I attended last autumn (and hopefully starting again after easter) were very, very different to normal classes. Lots of individual equipment, only one child at a time on apparatus, everyone on there own socially distanced mat and hand sanitizer everywhere. Very different to a playdate situation.

I think it's frustrating that there are blanket rules, but I guess easier to enforce that way. If you can meet in pairs to go for a walk,(which has been allowed for some time) it cant be any more risky to play tennis or golf, but these are in the same category as rugby for example which is a contact sport and requires far closer contact.

It's not gaslighting to recognise that the world needs to keep turning, we need to keep the lights on. Our kids need to be educated. We don't desperately need to play in each others houses.

I’m liking the vaccine passport approach - no prof of Covid status required for taking public transport to the cinema/theatre/stadium, no proof required for a meal before, no proof required for a quick pint afterwards but proof required for the cinema/theatre/whatever.

Fuck off.

I live in a city in Scotland and the rules really do not make sense here. I'm allowed to go to the hairdressers next week but still not allowed to leave my city (as the city is the council area) for several weeks more. It's absolutely fucking ridiculous that I can sit inside and get my hair cut but can't go for a lovely walk in the countryside. I am really missing all the beautiful spring stuck in the city and it's terrible for mental health. I am SO fed up.

The rules never made sense.

@JeanClaudeVanDammit

That nursery rule is bizarre. How do they ensure that it’s not just 4 year olds being 4 year olds and making things up?

I think it's a brilliant rule in theory, but I agree that it'd be a nightmare to adjudicate on. Unless they "confront" the parents and the parents "confess"? I can barely get a sensible answer out of my son about what his own name is sometimes (he has developed an apparently hilarious alter ego called Patand), and he tells long rambling tales about all sorts of crap. Some of them make a lot of sense and sound very plausible, but I happen to know they happened six months ago, not this morning!

The risks only don't make sense if you view them as a threshold safe/unsafe. Instead think of each thing as an additional risk.

Imagine you're on a diet, counting calories. You have enough left on Monday to have a doughnut. The logic on this thread would then say "well... biscuits are less bad than doughnuts, so I'll eat them as well... toast is less bad than doughnuts and biscuits, so I'll eat loads of that..." No, the doughnut was instead, not a threshold at which everything is safe/ okay to eat and it was only okay in the context of how much else you'd eaten (which is the context of background risks).

At some point a choice had to be made between toast, biscuits and doughnuts. School and small sports businesses have educational, health and economic benefits, so even if you personally think they are worse than indoor play dates, they were chosen for other reasons, and you are using them (with measures in place to make them the least bad doughnut or biscuit it was possible to be).

It is purely a numbers game. They are just reducing the number of instances people meet. It's not about one activity being "safe" and another not.

The rules are about balancing risk with value of contact.
The rules look to restrict interactions at a national level, not a personal level.
The rules also take into account that some people will stretch them as far as possible, so where no one is policing them, they err on the side of caution.

To quote my DD - "why has it been ok for me to sit and eat lunch outside with my friends at school for the last 3 weeks, but it wasn't ok for me to do this out of school until Monday?" The reason is that school is considered a necessary interaction, but socialising out of school isn't. And in school, the teachers are at least making a vague attempt to enforce social distancing (they wouldn't allow hugging for example) but there is no such policing out of school.

None of the rules make sense.
Masks are pointless and there as a comfort blanket for the terminally frit.
‘Social distancing’ ditto.
Don’t bother trying yo find any logic or scince.

This "Our kids need to be educated. We don't desperately need to play in each others houses".

We can't have everything safely for a long time yet. School, controlled activities and outdoor meet ups are a positive compromise for now.

I don't think it makes sense to have shops shut. People are in close contact in supermarkets far more than they would be in for example, Primark. How does that make sense.

@seashells11

I don't think it makes sense to have shops shut. People are in close contact in supermarkets far more than they would be in for example, Primark. How does that make sense.

Because if you have supermarkets open, you have S people mixing. If you have Primark opening, you have S + P people mixing. If you have New Look opening you have S + P + N people mixing.

Ignoring overlaps/people who only go to one of them etc

Why OP has it taken you so long to realise this? They have been illogical for over a year in varying ways.

Just remember to express your opinion in the ballot box on May 6th if you have elections where you live.

@seashells11

I don't think it makes sense to have shops shut. People are in close contact in supermarkets far more than they would be in for example, Primark. How does that make sense.

Certainly makes no sense to have smaller shops shut who could easily have managed social distancing etc. All it's done is put them out of business and onto the dole queue.

The rules haven't really made sense all along.

We can't go into a neighbours house for a socially distanced cup of tea, but just over a week ago when the same neighbours 94 year old mum fell and broke her leg - two open fractures - we spent about 2.5 hours there because it was a medical emergency. We were definitely not socially distanced, there were 7 people - the two neighbours, three paramedics, my dh and I, all of us were needed to comfort\treat\get her manouvered and out the house etc. All seven of us in a space probably smaller than 5ft by 7ft, touching each other, breathing beside each other, holding our neighbours hand, sitting back to back with her to stop her toppling backward after she was moved out of the doorway she fell in - the paramedics were asking us to do things we would never have dreamed of doing during the pandemic, but they were necessary. But because not everyone can be trusted to socially distance in private no one is allowed to share a cup of tea across the room from the neighbour who we got very close to when her mum fell. Meeting in the garden means neighbours can tell on you if you are you getting too close, if you don't socially distance inside they can't see it to report you.

And all Covid tests have come back negative since - the neighbour is still in hospital so is having regular tests herself.