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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

to think peoples attitudes are just going to contribute to more lockdowns?

252 replies

firthy85 · 13/04/2021 05:33

ok. i have always been an advocate to get back our freedom but sensibly. went out yesterday to a local pub for a couple of hours and couldn't believe it. its a great pub lovely atmosphere and staff and has always been a child/dog friendly pub. no social distancing at all, at one point i was squished on a bench between about 5 people. kids running in and out of the pub messing about etc. i totally get that yesterday was a novelty to many people after being locked down since the beginning of november but i feel this total lack of self control is going to end badly for everyone. did you risk going out at all yesterday? aibu?

OP posts:
ilovesooty · 13/04/2021 15:53

@lynsey91 I see no reason for you to have got out and every reason for your husband to have made the polite request he made.
There is no reason whatsoever for calling him a dickhead either.

Spidey66 · 13/04/2021 15:54

@AlternativePerspective

There are two points to consider here.

Firstly, you were contributing to the rules being broken, ergo you should have gone home. Being squashed on a bench with six others wasn’t mandatory, it was a choice you made for yourself. Even if the pub hadn’t put the correct measures in place, you still chose to stay there.

/secondly following vaccination, the death rate and the hospitalisation rate from COVID has dropped dramatically. While there is some concern that vaccinations may not be as effective against new variants, this is an unknown. Added to which, the idea has never been to eradicate COVID, only to control it. COVID is always going to be here. People will always catch it, and they will always die from it, much as they do now with the flu. But we hopefully won’t go back to a situation where it sweeps through the population as it has done in the past year. Other pandemics such as the Spanish flu show that this is unlikely to be the case.

Therefore, there comes a point when we have to open up and allow life to return to normal. There has to be a balance.

I think that there are some measures such as masks which will become a more permanent or at least regular fixture such as in the flu season, and as mask averse as some people are I actually believe that this should be the case. Other countries manage it and have done for years, I don’t see any reason why we shouldn’t as well, especially if it means less hospitalisation and deaths from flu. But we literally cannot stay in lockdown forever. That goes against everything that we are as human beings.

PS: I have shielded for the best part of the past year. I have seen my partner maybe 5 times, and most recently not since December since we don’t live together. I was told that if I catch COVID I would be unlikely to survive. But I have been vaccinated.

But surviving COVID i no longer enough. What’s the point in surviving if we’re not actually living.

So if after this I happen to catch COVID and die, then so be it. That doesn’t mean that I advocate throwing caution to the wind, but there does have to come a point when we weigh up the risks. Against the achievements we’ve made.

I couldn't put it better myself. I heard on the telly a few days ago covid rates are something like less than 1 in 500, and in some places, including London where I am, it's even lower. You've probably got more chance of being run over on the way to or from the pub than catching covid in it.

We have to accept covid as a fact of life. Get vaccinated, self isolate as and when necessary, masks if it is still needed, regular handwashing. But we can't carry on like we have been the past year. For the economy, the NHS waiting lists, for peoples sanity, we gave to move on.

lynsey91 · 13/04/2021 16:21

[quote ilovesooty]@lynsey91 I see no reason for you to have got out and every reason for your husband to have made the polite request he made.
There is no reason whatsoever for calling him a dickhead either.[/quote]
Thank you. Sometimes mumsnet is like an alternate reality!

If we had all three been waiting for a lift my DH would, I know, have let the girl go in the first lift to arrive. He is a kind considerate person.

I was just gobsmacked that the girl seemed not to have a clue that she should not have got in the lift with us. Apart from the signs stating that has she not been aware of social distancing for the last year?

BlooperReel · 13/04/2021 16:30

I'm not sure why there are so many talking about more lockdowns, if we are to believe the stats, the most vulnerable have been given/offered the vaccine, which dramatically cuts severe illness and hospital admissions. The rest of the population is deemed far lower risk, and even then the vaccine roll out continues apace. Why would there be a need for more lockdowns?

LysistrataVickers · 13/04/2021 16:31

YABU unless the vaccine drive has been for nothing?

ilovesooty · 13/04/2021 17:07

The vaccination drive is a big part of our recovery but only one of a number of mitigation measures while restrictions are gradually relaxed.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/resources/idt-40ac92b1-1750-4e86-9936-2cda6b0acb3f

Sugarplumfairy65 · 13/04/2021 23:18

islockdownoveryet

Sugarplumfairy65

I can see another lockdown happening. A close relative lives abroad. Their country opened back up a couple of months ago, everyone went back to work, bars and restaurants were open etc. Now they are back in full lockdown. They are allowed out between 6am and 9am to exercise, they can request permission to go grocery shopping twice per week. They have to carry their permission slips with them when they leave the home. Caught without it and it's arrest.

But have they had 30+ million vaccinated?

50% of the adult population have been vaccinated.

Original poster
firthy85 · 14/04/2021 01:53

i didn't make this thread to flame the pub or its customers or to justify my own actions because i am fully aware i was just as bad and no i won't be reporting anything and certainly will be going back because its a centre of our community like many out of town hospitality venues. but its s our impulses as human beings. its been like being in prison this last year so for many the urges to get out and about again properly are intense which will ahve caused everyone including me to break sd etc. i just wanted to write this to ask opinions on where it may lead from here if we all don't start being a bit more careful. to the poster who said about parents taking dc to the pub as a first response to easing lockdown, yes. i totally get that its a bit like they take them to the pub because its easier than planning activities with them or just aranging playdates with other children in that support bubble.

OP posts:
MercyBooth · 14/04/2021 03:07

So......where is the spike from the Clapham Common vigil. Its been nearly five weeks.

RobboCop · 14/04/2021 03:33

This reply has been deleted

Message deleted by MNHQ. Here's a link to our Talk Guidelines.

Siepie · 14/04/2021 03:40

if i was coming down not to take too long because they were running out of tables and chairs so i thought i may aswell take a look. i was surprised not alarmed but i do understand it kind of came across like i was.

They told you beforehand that they were running out of tables, then you were surprised when you got there that there were lots of people?

Original poster
firthy85 · 14/04/2021 05:22

Siepie, i was surprised because it doesn't ordinarily get busy unless there is something happening on weekends like they used to have kareoke nights and live music but during the week is normally very quiet. ok lol lesson learned i guess should have made the original op longer to put my personal thoughts about how i felt and then moved on to asking opinions on whether people thought we were in a good or bad place to be free mingling. i think the problem with booking or not booking is the fact that pubs that are just drinking and bar snack pubs are opperating at such a loss as it is that they don't want to be too strict about who they let come in. and they have enough to do they hardly are going to have the time to walk around asking everyone at a table if they are in a support bubble or not.

OP posts:
Original poster
firthy85 · 14/04/2021 05:29

to the person who mentioned the sarah everard vigil yes i am surprised that we didn't see spikes from that. i'm certainly hoping we can continue to go out and that vaccinations will get us all back to normal because it is what we need. i'm still going to check replies through the day but not going to leave further comments so that it doesn't turn into too much of a zombie thread but to sumarise i take on board all your thoughts and comments here. i probably didn't make the best judgement call but suppose thats what being locked up for months does to you. i just thought it would be quieter because of where it is i certainly wouldn't have been prepared to try get into the city centre.

OP posts:
BritWifeinUSA · 14/04/2021 05:41

At one point werd you forced to squeeze between other people? Did someone hold a gun to you? If it was too crowded for you, you had the option of leaving. Just as any normal person would do if a pub is too crowded, too noisy, playing music they don’t like, etc.

RufustheSniggeringReindeer · 14/04/2021 08:36

ok lol lesson learned i guess should have made the original op longer to put my personal thoughts about how i felt

How you felt would have made no difference to my post, and I suspect to many others

Original poster
firthy85 · 14/04/2021 08:52

rufus why wouldn't it? if i had done that the flaming may not have been as heavy. stands to reason surely. if i had added it as a side note

OP posts:
RufustheSniggeringReindeer · 14/04/2021 09:02

I said my post and many others

Not every single post

I don’t really understand why you think ‘Oh my goodness the pub was so crowded and there was no social distancing, i wonder how this will affect covid rates...but i was having a lovely time’ would get a different response from some posters

(I do appreciate that there are some posters that don’t read properly and/or are just mean, they are on every thread)

LolaSmiles · 14/04/2021 09:03

I think your personal thoughts and the fact you were there make a difference, than someone who wasn't in the pubs as soon as possible talking about the measures.
As other posters have said you were there, you saw it was busy, and you chose to stay, so it makes no sense musing over whether the actions of the pub and all the other people are going to cause another wave.

I personally don't think we're out the woods yet, but it's good we're relaxing some measures. You won't see me in a crowded pub complaining about the fact other people have the audacity to be in same crowded pub with me.

You're not stuck in a crowd, you were part of the crowd.

RufustheSniggeringReindeer · 14/04/2021 09:03

I mean that woman at durdle door wasnt having a pop at beach goers, she was just saying how incredibly crowded it was and people are STILL taking the piss out of her

SilverGlitterBaubles · 14/04/2021 09:10

I think the risk outside is minimal OP, can't remember if it was Whitty or Vallance said as much. Meanwhile people are back on busy public transport, some services are still cut back which is making it worse. I think unventilated packed trains and buses with many wearing masks as chin slings poses a far worse risk and many do not have the option to avoid this situation unlike the pub.

UniversitySerf · 14/04/2021 09:18

MsTSwift My Now dead FIL was like this, he was an obnoxious man divorced from MIL for years but still bullied her. He retired to Spain and could never see the irony.

I have always loathed crowds and shopping of all types so it was an easy decision not to go. We usually go clothes shopping twice a year so will just stick to that.

Original poster
firthy85 · 14/04/2021 10:27

ok know i said i wasn't going to post much more on this thread but wish i could get through to people that i wasn't actually complaining about feeling unsafe i felt liberated just was interested in what people thought scenes like i described may affect the government road map to total normality. that's what i meant @rufus when i said if i had mentioned in my original OP that i was as guilty as everyone else of letting myself slip back into pre-covid ways. people were signing in and were being told by bar staff to stay sitting down and not to move around too much but there didn't seem to be a capacity limit.

OP posts:
Original poster
firthy85 · 14/04/2021 10:59

UniversitySerf. thanks for that one nice to be compared with someone who sounds like a total scumbag who bullies women

OP posts:
HOkieCOkie · 14/04/2021 11:34

So your allowed to go to the pub but no one else? Ok 👍