Anyone else's Parents swanning about as if they are immortal?

[Namechange2020onceagain]

Just had a chat with my Mum, she then asked if I want anything from B&Q as they are popping in there tomorrow! This is after they went shopping to Sainsburys this morning and then said they are going again on Friday.

I have said I will get any shopping they need, but they keep going out.

FFS they are both over 70 and my Dad will die if he gets the virus. They are not taking it seriously at all.

Not sure if it a reflection of the snowflake generations who have no resilience to any kind of distress or a selfish older generations

At this time we don't need people throwing around casual insults about the younger generation (or any generation) do we?

My DD, 20 yo, seeing as her Uni course is curtailed, has re-started her part time job as an adult social care worker, helping the older generation live at home, she isn't worried, neither are any of her friends, two of whom are going back to work in residential homes.

The other way to regard the way that they are behaving is as an example of Darwinism in action.

Unfortunately they will take up medical care and ITU spaces before they are finished.

(Facetious comment rather than said in anger)

I'll be honest, I do feel that not all, but many younger people are "snowflakes

You know what is snowflakey? Being unable to curtail oneself for the greater good in the event of a national emergency.
It's the very opposite, spoilt and self indulgent.

No most older people have not "lived through worse". Someone previously mentioned HIV, measles and mumps. That was my reality too and I was born in 1975. And it wasn't anything like this in terms of sheer global disruption.

Yes one of them has three risk factors for increased risk and is still going out. I’ve offered to collect shopping and medication and bring it round but he’s going out anyway.

I do wonder, genuinely, if this is all a bit pointless?

Isn't the virus here already? The majority have probably been exposed already?

Basically I wonder if all these measures are simply there to make us feel like we're doing something.

No the majority have not already been exposed even in the areas with high occurrences..perhaps 1 in 10,000

How do you know?

There has been one confirmed case at our nursery, one at the local softplay and a suspected one at DH work.

That's a lot of people exposed.

Yup, my dad is 73 has COPD and Parkinson's disease and yet he is going out to lunch with his wife, giving people lifts as favours and going to the stables to visit his horses. Yet happy to tell me that I'm doing the right thing keeping my ds5 in isolation because he has a cough.

Britain didn't win the war. The Germans lost through overconfidence spreading themselves too thin, helped by a. Savage Russian winter and the Americans

The last big pandemic was in 1957 (Asian flu) so a lot of older people have seen this before.

Because I can do sums

We know the likely death rate, we know the number in hospital, we know the incubation period and the rate of infection

Even if we are wildly wrong about those numbers, most people have not got it already

to spread such a false story could lead to people reducing their protection and so lead to mor deaths

My "D"M is doing all of the stuff she enjoys like seeing her friends or going out to lunch but expecting me and my DSister to do all of the other things for her like shopping. Both of us have asthma and both have jobs that are unlikely to stop even during a crisis.

Snowflake = being a dick about something as easy as staying in

The wartime rhetoric doesn’t help at all

This is sort of reassuring it’s not just my DM and ILs but also sort of terrifying!

DM is 76, in very highest category of risk (according to the government published advice) - blood cancer.

Rang her yesterday to have a conversation about how she was going to manage with isolation and she was at her bloody usual volunteering thing, with an 84 yr old other volunteer, which involves dealing with members of the public coming in. Asked her why. She said “well, people need [this charitable service]! And we had an email from [chief exec of very large household name charity] saying we are continuing for now!”. She was then planning on going to the shops. And continuing with another role she does involving putting on concerts for local people (average audience age: 75), with a concert due in a couple of weeks. Seemed surprised when I said she and the other organisers should definitely cancel the concert.

DH rang his ILs (both 73), and MIL visits her 108 yr old mother, and asked what they’d be doing differently. “Oh nothing really” 😫. “Well the government isn’t really being very clear about what to do”. Yes they are!

They are all educated people with full access to the internet to actually read what the government is saying. I don’t know why they don’t believe it includes them.

Although fortunately they all seemed to listen when DH and I read them out the government guidance verbatim, and did seem to concede they’d need to do things different from now on.

Good luck to everyone else with parents 70+...

And they are not wartime people as they were babies in the late 1940s. We had to point out to them that we are massively changing what we do in response to the social distancing guidance, even though DH, I and the DCs have no relevant health conditions, are young, fit and healthy.

the last pandemic - which I definitely do remember was in 1968/9 - the Hong Kong Flu
Can there not be any more of these threads recounting how your particular parents/ in-laws are being irresponsible - it is not helping anyone and no-one is really interested or enraged in yet another 13 pages (I have not RTFT) of moaning about the older generation - as if it is the only one that is being irresponsible and stupid.

It is your particular examples of the behaviour of your family members that highlights their stupidity and there are those kind of people in all generations
rant over. I am avoiding any more of these threads

I printed this off and left a copy on each of there day seats, they are slowly getting the message now, my mum even thanked me for caring.

www.gov.uk/government/publications/covid-19-guidance-on-social-distancing-and-for-vulnerable-people/guidance-on-social-distancing-for-everyone-in-the-uk-and-protecting-older-people-and-vulnerable-adults

What sums? The calculated confirmed cases?

That's not including mild cases (slight cough, feeling ok) who didn't bother medics. Nor does it include those who didn't develop symptoms.

I think we're wasting our time to a certain extent

Yet I presume these people will be taking hospital beds when they get the virus, if there are any available to them?

Utterly selfish.

Went to town today (small market town South Coast Large pop of elderly people there ) for Doctor appt DD.Cafes full of people having coffee /cakes .Moving about like normal! Old guy spoke to us ,felt it was all a bit "overblown" apparently !. We went for our appointment and came straight home again .Our town has shut Art gallery ,but swimming pool open still! WTAF?

Apparently my dad is. (I'm NC with him, but my younger brother sees him)
He has COPD, emphysema, angina and kidney problems. He's still wandering about not giving a toss
Ah well 🤷

I haven’t read the whole thread but read the first few pages, and I’m shocked that some older people aren’t taking this seriously.
I strongly recommend people (especially the older parents who are ignoring the advice to self isolate) watch this:
www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p059y0p1

It was broadcast in 2018 but is spookily accurate in its predictions. It demonstrates really well - via a simulation - how each and every interaction with people during the course of a day directly contribute to the disease spiralling out of control.

Some people might listen to the BBC whereas they don’t believe their own children.

We know that about 80% of cases are extramly mild and about 15% end up in hospital,
admissions double every few days because of cases out there but not yet confirmed

So if you know how many in hospital, you know how many in total will be in hospital next week and therefore you know how many people are out there with it

If you multiply that number by 10 you still get know where near to what you are suggesting

@MaxNormal agree. My DM keeps saying this, that they 'lived through worse' -post war baby..