Why is it OK for people to sit in the same room together on TV, but not for us to sit in the garden?

[ImaPinkToothbrush]

Just watching Saturday Kitchen. They've changed the format a bit so that there are only two people eating together in the studio, with others joining by video link.

Watching the two blokes sit together at the table drinking wine together... made me wonder... how come they're allowed to do that and we're not?

The same applies to BBC Breakfast news - two presenters sit together on the sofa, at a safe distance apart. From a disease transmission point of view, it's low risk but there's still a risk. But I assume they've been allowed to risk assess it, and consider it ok

Surely therefore we should be allowed to the same? I wouldn't dream of going inside someone's house - but sitting in their garden for a chat at a safe distance? Surely that's less risky than sitting together in a studio?

"I feel like we're being treated like morons unable to intelligently assess the risk ourselves."

that's correct and the reason is that we have far too many who are unable to intelligently assess the risk ourselves.

Exactly this.

Also there is a huge difference between a very few people doing it in a TV studio and everyone doing it right across the country.

Could it be about human contact being more likely? As jn people would be likely to touch the gate, chair, door and hand out e.g. glass or cup to the others?

Because people are allowed to go to their place of work as long as distancing can be maintained.

You sitting in a garden improves at most 3 people's wellbeing. It could be argued that these shows improve hundreds of thousands or millions of people's wellbeing.

But people care about the wellbeing of the people they know not the millions of others. My recently widowed DM benefits more from seeing me and DD from across the garden than watching someone drink wine on the telly, so this is how people make decisions.

The same applies to BBC Breakfast news - two presenters sit together on the sofa, at a safe distance apart. From a disease transmission point of view, it's low risk but there's still a risk. But I assume they've been allowed to risk assess it, and consider it ok

But presenters on television are public, and under intense scrutiny.

The weekend before lockdown showed how non-sensible a sizeable proportion of the population is.

The inability to keep 2metres away from other people (not in their own household) is still on regular display on streets, in shops, in my experience on my once a week dash to get food. A lot of people are stupid or selfish, or both. They don't think about keeping their distance.

And so we are all subject to much stricter regulation that we might be if the Covidiots could learn to keep their distance.

I really worry when they start to ease the lockdown. I can keep my distance, but I can't control other people who are not so responsible & put me at potential risk.

It counts as work and people are allowed to sit however at work. This isn't really essential work, but if there were no entertainment on at all, people would be more bored. I suppose they think it's good for the nation's morale.

The weekend before lockdown showed how non-sensible a sizeable proportion of the population is.

Not even just then, we all saw the pictures from Westmister Bridge.

I ask about the human contact because out for a walk the other day, I spotted a few people all 2m apart outside a house, in the garden on to the park, one of them was very carefully handing out glasses to each of them then carefully going back to being in their seat.

It just seemed daft in a way, as he was handing round all the drinks, instead of having them help themselves!

"I get that they are allowed to do it. My question is why? "

because working and earning money is essential to keep the economy going
so some additional risks must be taken
e.g. especially those who commute by public transport

but socialising in gardens is of no economic benefit

And of course, it is always about reducing the numbers of risks taken:

Just because comparatively few people have to take additional risks Mon-Fri for work,
is no justification for 50 million more people taking those additional risks for fun

The government said to stay home unless you need to go out for < a list of reasons >

which included work - NOT just "essential" work

but specifically excluded mixing socially with anyone outside your household

We don't want everyone jumping in their cars, hitting the roads, and tootling off to visit friends everywhere, even if it is just to sit in gardens and chat.

If you feel you're good at risk assessment and responsible etc then make your decisions. No one has been fitted with an ankle monitor and the police have been given the right to police those who don't comply.

I've sat down in my parents garden at a distance for a chat and catch up (no cups of tea provided etc as that would mean touching the same things) and no helicopter has come to get me. In theory I could have taken a flask of tea or bottle of wine with me.

I think what we've seen in the media is that common sense approaches in the countryside or even suburbs (bar overly zealous police officers chasing people down on the moors) are allowed but in cities even following the advice (eg. you're allowed to go for a walk, ah but you're walk involves an open space that has thousands of people living within close proximity your walk looks like a mass gathering and the police will be attending).

Presumably they decided it would have been too unpopular to eg. announce no one was allowed in or out of London in March even though that could have allowed some areas of the country to avoid lockdown altogether. Or they decided they couldn't police it. Reality is for some areas of the country sitting in your mum and dad's spacious garden for a chat when dropping off their medication is indeed harmless but trying to interact with your parents when they live on the 9th floor of a tower block is a tad different.

We've got one size fits all rules. I'm not complaining and personally think school closures and SD should have happened sooner however I can see the discrepancies and disparities that have arisen from being determined to have UK wide rules.

Broadcasting and journalism are essential industries, that is why they are still working. Key workers are more than just NHS frontline staff. I work in pharma, our entire supply chain is essential because we need to keep making medicines (and the entire industry is going crazy at the moment looking for Covid-19 treatments and vaccines). I can WFH but a minority of people are still on site. DH works in finance, he is also a key worker who can WFH but again, he has colleagues who need to go into work at times.

Because people have to work and mix with colleagues is precisely why you shouldn't mix with family, we need to get the overall transmission rate down but we have to acknowledge some people still have to mix with lots of others for work so lots of the rest of us have to mix with noone to balance it all out.

@BigChocFrenzy The question the OP is raising isnt whether its allowed or not by WHY one is allowed and not the other when the risk is similar.

I would add that when filming, its not just two people on a screen sitting on a sofa/eating around a table. There are also technicians, cameraman etc... a lot of other people around that we don't see.
So surely more dangerous than 5 people siting 2 meteres apart in a garden.

So basically it’s all about money. Social distancing can be merrily thrown out of the window if it’s financially expedient but if it’s to improve someone’s mental health it has to be maintained come what may. Speaks volumes about a society that knows the cost of everything and the value of nothing.

Journalism for news IS esential.

Saturday kitchen isnt. They could easily find some previoulsy shown program instead (like they do every christmas)

Agree @Alsohuman

no justification for 50 million more people taking those additional risks for fun

I agree that people shouldn't be taking risks for fun, but I think there's a lot of isolated people on the edge mentally. It's really no fun sitting in the garden with my mum after I've taken her round something, it's quite distressing in fact, she's bereaved, lonely, disabled, frightened and so on. I can see the difference some human face-to-face contact makes to her, the greater harm for me would be leaving her without this.

But it’s either safe, unsafe or not.

Lots of the rules have no logic at all.

Yes. Main one I have been struggling with is the rules about seperated parents. Its absolutely dangerous and not allowed to go between houses, as you could spread. BUT, if your parents are seperated you can go between houses as much as you like..because..?

I get the point abut both houses being the childs home, but if it really was as dangerous as its made out, then surely staying with one paret until its all sorted to some degree meakes more sense?

That rules annoying me currently though so its stuck in my head..kids keep asking me why its allowed for them to travel between houses, but not allowed for them to visit anyone else...and I cannot come up with anything as the rules are contradictory really. Telling them its to stop the spread just results in replies such as 'but we could spread it to mum/siblings if we go there too surely. Which I cannot argue with as..its true!

Because people have to work and mix with colleagues is precisely why you shouldn't mix with family

But sometimes they don't have to be at work. For example the big night in had 5 different presenters in the studio over 3 hours. I understand it was for a good cause, but surely it could have been done with 1 or 2?

Saturday Kitchen is on almost every week of the year and is something many people watch most weeks, they are maintaining normality to the best of their ability. There are normally five or six people, they have reduced it to two, both of whom are chefs who each cook a couple of dishes, no one is just sitting there drinking wine.

Tabbystar: " It's really no fun sitting in the garden with my mum after I've taken her round something, it's quite distressing in fact, she's bereaved, lonely, disabled, frightened and so on. I can see the difference some human face-to-face contact makes to her, the greater harm for me would be leaving her without this"

So sorry and agreed tabby. It's not a great deal of fun for me when I go to my folks to drop off urgent inhalers, steroids etc to my dad who has prostate cancer (which is thankfully under control but he'll never be entirely the same after his chemotherapy in his 70's and with the muscle reduction etc that comes from testosterone blocking) and COPD and realise how massively he has underplayed his breathlessness and exhaustion over the phone because there is no way on god's earth you'd get him to go back to hospital.

The last time I delivered stuff he was feeling better and actually admitted how bloody ill he'd been. We think both of my parents have had the virus and we're incredibly lucky they're alive but I can't imagine how much worse it would be if my father was already passed and my mum was alone. To compare me walking to my parents house and sitting in the garden 2 metres away and having a chat with people driving down to cornwall for a holiday is ridiculous.

We have to do SD and we have to drum the rules in but I am not going to be judging anyone who makes a risk assessment that includes the mental health of elderly relatives and bends the rules a little.

Public service broadcasting is on the government list of essential work. That includes not just news programmes, but also entertainment and education programmes, etc. Individuals might not find a particular programme entertaining, but others will.

You're right OP. The media seem to think their the exception.

why do we need multiple people in a studio when it's possible to use video link.
It makes for shit TV, HIGNFY is a case in point.

That first episode of HIGNFY Has to be one of the most excruciating pieces of television I’ve ever seen