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?

But it’s either safe, unsafe or not.

Lots of the rules have no logic at all.

The rules are about minimising, not eliminating contact, and therefore minimising but not eliminating risks to the population as a whole, not just to individuals. So mixing households where there are children moving between separated households, even though it possibly doubles the contacts and doubles the risk to those households, it increases the number of contacts only slightly at a population level.

It’s a compromise, and it’s inequitable, but I’m not sure whether there’s a better option.

What I really struggle with is you can go to work if your job can't be done from home. That just gives permission to irresponsible employers to force people to go to work or be sacked.

The fact that we're saying non essential workers can catch public transport and go into offices undermines SD efforts imo. And of course it makes people say hang on a minute, I can't sit in my elderly depressed mother's garden for a ten minute visit but someone can catch a bus and go to work for a non essential job makes sense how?

Terrible English in that last post, sorry.

Unfortunately guidelines and rules have to play to the lowest common denominator. A large bulk of the population could be relied on to assess risk sensibly. But unfortunately we've all seen the selfish or stupid idiots piling into seaside resorts, travelling to holiday homes etc.
It's because of those people that lockdown rules have to be so inflexible.

@QuestionMArkNow I explained WHY
It is because one risk is beneficial for the economy
and one is not

people may sneer at money
but we need as many people as possible to be earning, not just those in essential services, but to pay for it all

The effect on MH & physical health is a different matter

imo, People should be allowed to go out on their own or with their household without neighbours or the police harassing them and being bullying arses

• provided they keep a 2m distance at all times from others

So that includes driving, sun-bathing, sitting, a picnic, walking / cycling etc as many times as they wish, because that doesn't involve others

It should also be OK to have 1-2 minute - not ½ hour - chats regularly at 2m distance with family members or friends you are not living with

There's nothing to stop you going to a friends garden and social distancing though is there. If that's what you want to do then bloody do it! Fgs!

These " rules" are an attempt to stop a massive Pandemic overwhelming the capacity of the NHS. People interpret them as they wish

I thought it wasn't OK to go to someone's house and sit in their garden?

If it is, it just develops. So you have your friends round and you all sit apart from each other and you have a BBQ and someone jumps up to turn the sausages or pour another drink and you are not 2m from each other at all.

Personally, I'm trying to keep even further distance than that from anyone.

But it’s either safe, unsafe or not

No that is not the way risk works. The problem is, that a lot (most) people don't understand how risk works in a medical/scientific context (as your post demonstrates).

It's about trying to assess the balance of risk - but as most people aren't good at risk assessing for themselves, let alone for other people, the lockdown was established through a minimum of simple rules, so that even the most hard of understanding could follow them.

Problem is, as we can see all over MN, a lot of people decide that they are exceptions. Now they may be very good at risk assessing. But how much are they - or anyone - thinking of other people, and the risk their behaviour poses for others.

Thus simple rules any idiot can follow. Because logic is sometimes complex.

The media seem to think their the exception.
They are an exception - which is why they are on the essential workers list.

I do understand risk, Yoga, in fact I work in an environment where I have to help formally and informally risk assess psychiatric patients who are on a section.

However, in my opinion, it’s not hard to weigh up that the family on the BBC news who were berated by the police for driving 16 miles to walk on the beach pose very little risk, objectively.

It’s not hard to work out that standing on your driveway talking to a friend is the same as standing in the back garden.

Mitigating the risk seems to be the bit people struggle with, as well as controlling themselves and not bending rules, as you say.

The problem is, the hard of understanding will always be such. And for those who are quite capable of weighing up likely risk, being asked to adhere to broad sweeping and occasionally illogical rules may feel increasingly frustrating when they are well able to think for themselves.

On 'This Morning', Holly and Phil are social distancing and they have all guests on via video link.

it’s not hard to weigh up that the family on the BBC news who were berated by the police for driving 16 miles to walk on the beach pose very little risk, objectively.....

On their own, no. However if people see Family A doing "whatever", they will think "why not...?" and soon enough everyone is bending the rules. Then people think "if X is ok, how about Y...?"

We have got a communal garden or residents in the local area and police have said it is Ok to use this 2 at a time well spaced or one family group.

So it seems to be Ok for this garden

I’ve just watched two people I know walk past my house with their dogs. They are both dads of kids who were in my daughters year at school, they live about a mile away. They were obviously walking together, but 2 metres apart.

And no, they don’t live together.

I don’t think for a minute that they’ll catch covid from each other walking their dogs. I’d like to walk with a friend who was recently widowed and is living alone but I can’t. I can honestly see why people do this.

Well we have one person who visits once a week. They come in through the garden and sit outside 2/3 metres away and then leave through the garden. We have no neighbours so we are not setting a bad example to anyone and it hasn't 'developed' into anything else as people say. My partner also visited his mum on mother's day by sitting in garden away from her. When we drop shopping off he goes in the back garden and has a convo with her 2 metres away. I don't think there's anything wrong with that. The problem is that most people aren't very good at using their common sense and that is why the guidelines are in place. But I think there's nothing wrong in risk assessing and practising social distancing in order to see the people you want.

I agree. But it’s not ‘the rules’