Christmas morning Covid test being demanded

[Quarks69]

Is everyone else having these? My sister in law has demanded this from my side of the family as her elderly parents are going to be at the dinner. With a family of five and three are my busy teens I am worried that we could end up with no xmas day if one of us is asymptomatic (for the second year running obvs).

I do get that we are in bonkers times, but Was so looking Forward to seeing everyone, including my parents, that this is making me cross...isn’t this the point of the jabs!?

[quote PoleFairy]@x2boys but any illness is far worse in elderly/vulnerable! If you woke up with a slight sniffle and had a negative lateral flow would you not go to where you were planning on spending Christmas? Have you never in your life visited someone elderly whilst you felt less than 100% because if you did you were putting them at risk.

My granny died in January (years ago now) of pneumonia. People dont wake up with pneumonia one morning, it develops from a virus. I suspect someone, at some point over xmas, saw her whilst they had a mild cold or sniffle and for her it was fatal. We have never all sat around trying to work out who passed her this virus, who killed her. It's part of life. All this lateral flowing is starting to feel like playing god. 7 people have died of omicron with an average age of 83. I strongly suspect in the same time frame more people have died from common cold/flu type viruses[/quote]
Ah yes, the "Fuck it, it's natural selection" approach...

Yes, of course people have always passed viruses on and will have done in the past without realising. But the fact is, we can test for this one - if I could have taken an LFT every time I saw my grandad and it would tell me if I had anything that could be dangerous to him (flu etc), I absolutely would, wouldn't you!?

Just do n lft, surely that is bear minimum, and if you di have it why would you want to go mixing.

To not have one incase you do have it shows that you don't give a shit about other people.

@celiamary

We are deliberately not asking our visitors to test. We have no elderly parents left. No babies. We are all adults, all fully jabbed. One is a nurse. We are going to have Christmas as planned. Up to now we have gone along with all rules and we will do so again after Jan1st.

This is a great plan as long as the virus is also taking Christmas off.

Either the OP is an absolute dumb idiot OR they’re being goady…

I say both.

We have been really busy this week and have tested every day out of respect for the people we are around. I think it's how it's going to be for a while.

@RonaLisa

OP this is a daft question to put the MN jury, most of whom think we should be testing ourselves before we talk to someone via Zoom.

Grow up .

You have completely ignored my point @x2boys. Replace elderly with CEV in my post then. Are you saying everytime you are ill you isolate yourself from everyone CEV that you could possibly come into contact with yes? Every slight sniffle you have you stay full away from your husband for 7 days in a separate room and have no contact? So long as everyone is jabbed and boostered they have protection from this virus as best as any other. If people are lateral flowing before socialising then they should be doing the same for any other virus. If my lateral flow had come back negative I wouldnt be isolating for the next 7 days on the off chance I gave someone a cold. My DH works with CEV and if his lateral flow was negative then he would still have to go to work with a cold. The CEV he works with are no less susceptible to a cold than to covid now that they are jabbed.

I'm not saying the SIL is unreasonable as it's her house but I would just reply saying "sorry SIL we dont want to live on a knife edge as to whether our xmas is cancelled so will just do our own thing" and sort yourselves out.

And if she ever sees her parents when she has a cold I would be very

We are all testing Christmas Eve ahead of spending a long day in close proximity to our oldies but I do see where the OP is coming from, to a certain extent, I'm a primary teacher and you do see it very differently when you're teaching and quite literally a sitting duck all day every day in a school surrounded by covid and unvaccinated and untested children.

I think to a degree, family and friends who are close enough to spend Christmas together should understand that different things make different people uncomfortable so if they've asked then they obviously have concerns, I say respect that and test. I don't know if that's remotely helpful @Quarks69

We have all agreed to do LFTs on Christmas morning before meeting up just for piece of mind. DH and I will potentially be going to 3 separate gatherings and will do a test before each one and testing again in boxing day for another gathering.

I have to test daily for work anyway but this seems like the sensible idea at the moment.

As for not trusting LFTs it has been said all along they're not completely reliable if you have symptoms and should always book PCR in this circumstances.

@Weepingwillows12

I am doing them because I don't want to make my family ill if any of us have it and don't know. I also have limited seeing people as Christmas is my priority but one of my parents is immuno compromised.

Amongst friends it seems to be 50 50 on who is doing them but I think the host gets to decide. Fingers crossed your tests are fine.

This, with christmas baubles on.

How on earth is it remotely unreasonable - unless you think having an Xmas day is more important than elderly relatives health?

If the omicron wave of out of control infections turns into hospitalisations (fingers and toes crossed it doesn't, but medics are preparing) then elderly relatives will be back of the queue for medical help too. If there needs to be prioritisation, they won't be prioritised for the beds and care.

Doing an LFT surely is the least you can do to show a bit of Xmas spirit?

The HOPE was that the vaccines would reduce transmission, unfortunately that is not the case, particularly for omicron (as the exponential growth in infections in a majority double vaccinated population shows). They prevent severe disease, but less so in elderly people, who are still quite at risk, particularly from omicron which seems to have some immune escape.

Yeah we’re all doing it before our xmas meetup.

It isn’t exactly hard. Dab nose with cotton bud, swirl cotton bud in goo for 30 seconds, wait 15 min to read result. What’s hard about that?? Teachers and many other jobs have been doing it daily.

Seems to me, what you’re saying is thatif you have asymptomatic covid, you would prefer not to know that you have it, so you can party and infect the elderly.

Glad you’re not my relative. 🤨

My MIL is in her 80s.
We're testing
Why would we not?

I think it’s really short sighted to say you basically don’t mind if you pass covid on as it won’t necessarily hospitalise them because they are vaccinated. If you new you were carrying Noravirus would you happily risk passing it on because it’s unlikely to hospitalise someone? I Havnt demanded or even requested lfts from people personally, but I think your logic is stupid.

I'm not sure what you're saying?

That you'd rather go to Xmas WITH Covid and spread it to everyone, than stay home?

That's very unreasonable.

OP works with unvaccinated children, has teens in unvaccinated school settings, no ventilation, no masks required, no social distancing

I work with unvaccinated children in school, I have a teen (he’s CEV so triple jabbed) in college with some unvaccinated, definitely no ventilation, not allowed to wear masks around the children, no social distancing - THAT is the very reason that, despite testing, I am not seeing my FIL until DS and I have both been out of our settings for 10 days. Neither of us is willing to risk his health. School staff are among the most dangerous people to mix with IMO.

@PoleFairy

I get what you mean OP. It's a when does it end thing. If you woke up with a cold xmas morning (pre corona times) you wouldnt isolate the whole house and cancel xmas, you would steer clear of hugging/kissing the elderly there. The jabs and boosters are supposed to make this a routine illness (I have it atm and have a slight runny nose and cough I've had worse colds at xmas in previous years and have cracked on as normal!) So why are we actively trying to seek it out and make us miserable

Exactly.

Precovid elderly and vulnerable could die of pneumonia from a common cold, or from Common influenza.

Where are we going with this? In 2021 people now seem to think societ should do whatever it takes to not be ill. That humans should eliminate all risk. It’s just not feasible in the long run.

Everyone will be doing a test before we get together. It'd be rude not to.
I'd be gutted if one of us got a positive result but I am mentally prepared for that happening.

Very sensible.

I think we should all have at least lateral flow tests before me go out to meet with family, friends and to events, restaurants. I have been thinking of suggesting this to my friends before me meet next week.

The risk you take for yourselves fine.

But you don't get to choose the risk of illness or isolation for others.

If you're close enough to be going for Christmas, presumably you like these people. If you can't be bothered to do a test before because you think you ARE particularly at risk of catching as a teacher and bringing it to their home(and you don't know everyones risk/medical details) are you sure you actually understand the situation? You make your assessment for your risk, they do for them.

And yes, we're LFT-ing whenever we see anyone but are currently not seeing anyone and will have a quiet family Xmas in order to reduce the risk to my elderly and infirm parents when we see them after Xmas.

I don't think it's really ok to treat HCPs as cannon fodder yet again just so people can socialise and not bother with the completely easy and non onerous step of doing an LFT.

LFTs aren't perfect but the newer ones are more accurate and they do pick up asymptomatic infections, and that's the point.

a) The test isn't "being demanded" - the OP has the option of not taking a test and not going.
b) Being vaccinated doesn't mean you can't catch Covid and die of it, it just reduces the risk.

The OP's stance is the reason why the virus spreads so rapidly. "I work in a school therefore I should be able to do what I like on Xmas day" seems to be her position.

I think we should all have at least lateral flow tests before me go out to meet with family, friends and to events, restaurants. I have been thinking of suggesting this to my friends before me meet next week

Genuine question, will you carry on when the government starts charging for tests, say £5 a pop?

my point is lateral flows didn't pick up an infection, so all you people who are so smug in doing your lateral flows, you could still bloody have it!

Yes you could still have it but you'd be less likely to be very infectious to other people on the day you took a negative test. Which is what this is about - the risk to the OP's elderly in-laws.