I just broke the rules

[OntheWaves40]

I doubt I’m alone. There is definitely a feeling of Do as I say and not as I do defiance going on.
I hadn’t seen my boyfriend in ages, we went for a walk in the park, it’s just not enough. So I went to his house and spent a few hours with him.
The risks are relatively low, as in he works from home etc but after being so diligent with the rules for so long I’m now totally disheartened by people just doing what the hell they like and now I’ve become one of them.

Fucking hell op, you're brave. Yeah I've seen people too, I'm one of the murdering ones who will wipe out small villages with my selfishness

I hope these rule breakers can live with themselves if anything happens, or are they sociopaths to begin with?

I know I wouldn't want it on my conscience.

@Lepetitpiggy I think that sounds a very sensible and safe plan, I'm not sure why that's breaking the rules? Sorry if I've missed it

But I agree with you that too few cared about issues the disabled have to deal with on a daily basis. Including issues many are currently finding hard - and for them it's only temporary. Sadly, after the pandemic I suspect many will forget or no longer care about MH effects of isolation, being housebound, financial difficulties, being away from friends and family, and so on.
Nevertheless some people do and will continue to care.

It appears some people still think The rules were in place to some how eradicate the disease. It was to stop the nhs being overwhelmed. It has been successful.

The op seeing her boyfriend does not have any impact on someone who has had to be in hospital for other reasons.

In fact the likely hood of her even getting it, never mind having any symptoms and needing hospital treatment is incredibly low.

I get folks are angry but remembering what lock down was for no not attacking people is really important.

My father came and sat in the garden last week, after 10 weeks isolated on his own his mental health was suffering. Neither of us had been out for weeks so felt the benefits outweighed the risks, my conscience is clear.

A lot of fans of the C-word on this thread

I haven't personally broken the rules, but the government set the rules. I know old people, including my own grandparents (both former cancer patients) who've broken the rules. I wonder if people on here would call them the C-word too. It's very possible. The rules are there to protect us, but in the next few weeks they could easily change. If they don't change, and mixing households is never allowed, I'm presuming the people on here who are screaming murder will be happy to stick to not seeing anyone (except for work colleagues, strangers on the tube and in the supermarket, and inadvertedly the families your children mix with at school) forever and a day?

If it's acceptable to stand for 20 minutes outside a supermarket with strangers 2 metres apart, I think it's very acceptable to visit your healthy parents in the garden 2 metres apart.

It didn't work for London where the NHS was overwhelmed. Then again that's because lockdown was too late for there.

I wouldn't say it's worked so well for any hospital either. Isn't it hospitals (with care homes) that are currently keeping the R rates up? Nobody will be able to (safely) get non Covid hospital treatment unless and until the government implements the same basic measures other countries have. Or else once lockdown ends, we head straight into a bad second wave. Overwhelmed NHS included.

I don't think it's been a waste of the last few months for people to start behaving differently now. Lockdown was always meant to be a temporary state and it needed to end at some point. That's obviously been happening gradually for a few weeks, and will continue to do so until July/August.

As many of us have reiterated ad nauseam, it was never primarily about preventing people from getting the virus. It was about preventing the NHS from being overwhelmed. It could only be justified on these terms because otherwise it violates too many basic human rights.

It is very sad that people who are vulnerable (my DM also just had surgery for cancer) and have to go home to isolate feel inadequately cared for and protected. Others have died during the pandemic of non-covid illnesses because they were too frightened to call an ambulance, or because they were denied treatment. The whole event has had a huge human cost.

But it's also impossible for one person/ group to mandate that other people in society should make significant sacrifices on their behalf. A person never has the right to expect a stranger to sacrifice something valuable to that person. I felt guilty today when I was approached (much more desperately than usual) by two men in central London begging for money. In reality, giving them a fiver would have improved my life more than it worsened mine. But I didn't want to. I could justify why I didn't want to, but I don't need to. I have a basic right to own the cash in my wallet. And it's the same thing with freedom of movement. People have a fundamental right to go out of their houses and to associate with other people. (We often have the same instincts about animals, although we more regularly deny their rights.) No one can mandate indefinitely that other people stay at home, no matter how great the benefit to them might be.

This is why the lockdown was legally problematic from the beginning. As Boris's repeated invocation of legality to keep Cummings problematically suggested!

@marble2302 your language is unnecessary and you do not know others situations so cannot judge
I have moved into my parents due to mh not strictly allowed in the rules but the alternative was it of benefit to my health , my parents asked me as their my parents and my dad would rather see me well and is less concerned for his health . We have not put any others at risk by doing this as staying in and all of us have been well .
The op going to her parents garden why they stay in house what risk is that to others ?? No different than them going to drop some shopping in the doorstep
I know more people bending the rules than sticking to them now as this has been going on a long time and people are expected to go to work send their dcs to school etc , some relaxation on socialising needs to now happen

To put a bit of perspective on this, I drove through the local high street today, 3 out of 5 pubs doing takeaway drinks and people were outside on chairs drinking away.

Lockdown is over, what is it now , 1 in 1000 transmission? People are happy to take their chances, using common sense along the way.

This is the new normal

@Discobar

Sadly. The rules-don't-apply-to-me arrogance and sheer bloodymindedness of the British (from Cummings to the general public) is why we have the highest death rate in Europe and why a lethal second wave is on its way imminently.

And people on here are brazenly boasting about breaking rules and lockdown.

Shameful.

Also the nhs hospitals have not been overwhelmed that's what this was for to protect the nhs ,eradicating the virus will be very hard to do, waiting for a vaccine that may never come
We will have to come out soon and maybe learn to live with this virus and take account for ourselves and start using our own common sense

compassnorth we're theoretically mixing to households so are - to the letter of the rules!

It didn't work for London where the NHS was overwhelmed

No it wasn’t. At no stage was the nhs breached anywhere.

@Bramblebear92
I've not seen anybody screaming but perhaps I missed that whilst skimming through.

Who wants neverending lockdown? Certainly those chomping at the bit insisting it ends immediately risk prolonging a form of lockdown. Or us facing the economic and psychological disruption of ongoing stop, start, stop, start.

Why not do as other (more sensible and less short-sighted) countries have done?
Take the simple measures required to enable easing lockdown with less risk to the economy and lives?
More PPE for frontline staff, get test, track and trace going properly, early treatment, masks for the public (particularly on transport), border restrictions. Not hard. Others have managed it.

@MadameMarie yet I have read in other stories about Britain having one of the highest percentage for sticking to their rules , how true it is I don't know
But people popping to their parents garden today isn't why we have the highest rate at all ( and per capita we still don't ) these are infections caught weeks ago and up until the last week or so most were complying , its since we had some wishu washy rules people are bending ie can only meet one person in the park but technically you can go 10 times and meet 10 different people ??

@bluntness100 yes I know I keep hearing this on mn lots of false claims being made without any facts to back it up ,

@Bluntness100
To an extent you're right. It wasn't overwhelmed. Because they simply didn't treat people.

It was widely reported at the time. Left and right wing publications. The London Ambulance Service had to temporarily change the threshold for admitting ill patients to hospital. Hence the very high London death rate. Many either died at home or were only admitted at a stage when survival was less likely.

@ToffeeYoghurt I have friends who work in 3 of the major London hospitals as nurses. They had to stop elective surgeries, change working practices and redeploy staff to ITU but they weren’t overwhelmed the way Italy etc were. Not one person who would have qualified for an ITU bed didn’t get one. People have died, it’s a pandemic, but the NHS managed to ensure no additional deaths of people who could have been saved occurred.

@SqidgeBum

The government arent idiots. They know we are going to break under these circumstances, some faster than others. If they didnt want us to break, they would have had different policies, especially as all other countries in Europe have taken way more precautions. We are now each others enemies. We are now blaming each other. Please try not to forget that many people are reacting to the government's policy of 'go back to work, but dont see your mother'.

This!!!

Also, enough about your crap how can people live with themselves. Don’t be a fucking dickhead.

@MadameMarie
if John goes for a beer in his Depressed mates garden once a week because it’s keeping him from topping himself. Wicked.
If Sadie keeps popping in to her Nana with dementia’s every Tuesday and Thursday because she always went and it’s so distressing without that routine. And it stops an agency home carer who has seen thirty other people that day going into the home. Grand.
If a young health and social care worker who lives alone stops in at their parents house after a brutal shift and breaks down in their garden. Has a socially distant cuppa and manages to process it and talk about it, meaning they can return to their next shift and don’t become so overwhelmed they can’t function and end up signed off - wonderful.
If Paul the fireman decides to offer to walk sally who’s suffering from PND’s kids to school, so she can have her weekly telephone contact with the perinatal mental health nurse, he’s a legend not a murderer.

It’s not just self service to break the rules. For many people a sense of unity and community is what gets people through.

Everything is awful right now. And all we’ve got is eachother.
The rules were too little too late, and our government is holding us to account for their failings.
Don’t hate your neighbors- they’re likely doing the best they can

Do what you want within reason, just don’t post it on Mumsnet.

@ToffeeYoghurt maybe you missed all the ones calling people c**ts
We are likely to have in and out of lockdown but there's people screaming those going to beach are breaking rules , they aren't
I've seen plenty in tescos walking too close and mostly those with masks who seem to think it makes them invisible
We aren't that much different to rest of Europe ( excl Germany )as I don't think many of them have track and trace up are all implementing as we are , ppe has been an issue worldwide due to sheer demand
And despite everyone claiming we have the worst death rate in Europe per capita we don't , they aren't good but they are not the worst as everyone claims

NHS managed to ensure no additional deaths of people who could have been saved occurred.
If ever there was a lie, it's that. Tell that to the relatives of care home residents who died were killed after NHS hospitals transferred infectious Covid patients to care homes.

The care home scandal was nationwide. And, like I said, in London the threshold for hospital admittance was temporarily changed. I don't know if it happened elsewhere? People weren't admitted until a late stage. Early treatment is key.