Rules that make money not positive mental health

[Missmummy88]

I’m getting so annoyed about the new rules that are put in place for money making purposes but positive mental health purposes are on the back burner. I’m not saying we don’t need to reopen the country but rules seem so inconsistent.

For example, if my mother was a teacher next week she could have contact with my 5 yo but she’s not, so she can’t. Somebody of the same age will have contact with him but not his own grandparents. That is forbidden and frowned upon. The risk to my parent and my child is no greater than the risk to his teaching assistant and my child.

If I was in the queue for the non essential shops I could see two people at once, one 2 foot in front and one 2 foot behind but meeting both my parents at the same time at a park is forbidden. The risk no larger for the latter but is forbidden and frowned upon.

The rules cannot be based on risk transmission at this point. So what’s the point in allowing money making risk activities but not positive mental health activities. I understand new rules will be announced later this week but I can see why people are making their own risk assessments because the current rules are so inconsistent.

none of the rules make any sense any more and are clearly not based in science. That is why people should start making their own risk assessments and decisions.

Just use your common sense.

If you want to see your mother go and see her. Highly unlikely anything would happen and everyone would be happier, last winter your child could have given her seasonal flu which could have ended up killing her, did you not see her then? Thought not. There is nothing stopping you from going to see her today, if you want to, do it. People need to stop wanting to be spoon fed and feeling sorry for themselves, they need to make their own decisions using their own judgement.

As others have said, it's getting to the stage where you use your own judgement. Please please continue with the distancing, hygiene regulations especially if seeing older people, out in public. I know two people who've tested positive, one lost his life to it, another still isn't 100% a month on. Three if my work colleagues, have all had something nasty fitting in with Covid symptoms, very high temps, severe coughing and one is still finding it hard to breathe at night. It's really not worth the risk.

Go and see your Mum if you want. Who do you think is stopping you?

I suspect the rate of transmitting the virus is highest amongst family groups living together or spending long periods of time indoors together. It would be good if they'd make that kind of data more explicit though so families can choose to only meet extended family outdoors and keep the time to a minimum. As soon as they announce family groups, or even seeing a relative in a garden, a lot of people are likely to go from zero contact to 'back to normal' levels of contact. This could be mitigated if they'd properly inform the public over where and how most transmissions of the virus take place.

I'm not sure how I will see parents or Inlaws this year as we live 200 miles away. At the moment I'm considering booking a holiday home somewhere between the two so we can manage day trips to spend time outdoors with them. If my kids/DH spend anytime in school next term, I feel it is risky to see our relatives over 70. So even if the government say we can, we won't, except very minimum time outdoors. And we'll have to travel to enable that - which we might be permitted to do by summer.

I'm the first to criticise the government's handling of all this, but the order they're easing things does make sense to me. The virus spreads with prolonged personal contact - there would be a lot more of that through people seeing their families than through the measures that they are allowing. Your queuing example - the risk is only equivalent if the amount of time you'd be seeing your parents is the short amount of time you'd be standing in the queue. Yes, teachers will have more exposure, but the majority of the population are not teachers - if you applied the same level of exposure to (e.g.) grandparents, that's an awful lot more people and for the most part, a lot older and so more at risk.

Also, these are the first steps out of lockdown and there's every chance they'll be backed out again if there's a jump in cases. If that happened with seeing family, there would be an uproar. Whereas people will be a lot less fussed by non-essential shops closing again.

I'm not sure I get why people are upset their children cant hug their Grandparents yet. To me, that's still a risk I wouldnt want to take yet. My kids are older, and we've seen Grandparents in their garden, 2m apart, but no hugging. I get that younger children will see teachers etc, and will get close to them on occasion, but it cant be opened up that suddenly everyone can start hugging.

I think positive mental health purposes needs to wait a while longer.

You are being so unreasonable it’s ridiculous. If the economy doesn’t get going again soon there will be mass redundancies and god only knows what knock on effects for people who are struggling with their tax burden, claiming benefits, using state services like the NHS etc. The mental health implications of that are far worse than not seeing granny for another month.

I realise it must be hard for those who live near their grandchildren but many families are used to going many months between visits - even longer if they live abroad. It's not like they won't ever see their grandparents again. If they infect them, there's more likelihood they won't.

Why don't you just go and see you mother and conduct the meeting either outside or through a window.

This is the risk assessment everyone keeps banging on about: the risk to the nation of the economy plunging lower and lower is greater than the risk to the nation of people's mental health plunging lower and lower.

The risk of a second wave is, in my opinion, greater than both

You can buy a car though! Woop woop.
Although when I bought a car I had a test drive with the sales guy...

I can see the sense in it.

I will be back at school next week with a load of other people’s 5yos, but I can’t see my own nieces and nephews. The difference is that at school, children will be distanced as much as possible, there will be strict routines for hand washing and cleaning shared facilities. Much as I’d love to, I won’t be hugging those children hello, and they won’t expect to sit on my lap. If I had a visit with my nieces and nephews, it would feel very strange to not hug them, none of our houses are big enough to distance, unlike school, we’d likely all eat the same thing so that won’t be individualised like at school, and no one will bother cleaning the toilet fully every time someone goes.

I honestly don’t understand why people can’t see that children being at school and children being with extended family are two completely different things.

Also, this is about children, not the adults who might be missing them. While I’m sure plenty of children are sad not to be able to see their grandparents, there are plenty more children who are being seriously disadvantaged by this long period at home, and bringing them back to school has the potential to save them far more than a little bit of sadness at missing family.