Did no one know gatherings at home were limited to 2 households?

[Grottyfeet]

So the only permitted Eid celebrations were having one brother and his family round, or one set of GPs, unless you all live together, in which case there's no change anyway?

I haven't had anyone in my house because the weather here has been lovely and we've stuck to outdoor gatherings, where up to six are allowed, but I have been vaguely aware it was only two households allowed to meet indoors. Even in the pub you're only supposed to meet up with one other household.

It does seem to have been a shocking failure of communication though.

Of course but common sense wouldn't suggest you go a spin class but then say no, sorry, far too dangerous to have a coffee after. Common sense would often, now, mean contravening the rules.

Does this break the rules then?

Household 1 - 2 people
Household 2 - 2 people
Household 3 - 2 adults and a child.
Child from household 3 then stays in household 1 for a week.

Households 1 and 2 Sitting 2m apart for approx 4 hours in a private garden. Then joined by household 3 for around half an hour. At various points 2 households went inside the house briefly.

Baffles me that you can have 29 people in a park meeting up, but two more people show up and its dangerous and illegal?

Didn't know the virus could count!

Bring back full lockdown or fuck it off, we cannot have it both ways.

5 cars of people turned up to celebrate at a neighbours house this week. Horrendous!

"Baffles me that you can have 29 people in a park meeting up, but two more people show up and its dangerous and illegal?"

You can't within the guidance though, it's only six unless they're all from 2 households.....but it's all perfectly clear if you just look it up

Few have a clue what the rules are or rather guidance is, a recent poll showed just 14% have a clear idea.

Any rules can be overridden with "instinct" to suit the situation.

As for Hands Face Space??? WTF is that supposed to mean?

We are heading toward a second lockdown, more deaths, more damage to the economy and our PM comes out with a children's rhyme.

Haven’t a clue what the fucking rules are anymore.
Changes to the rules are announced in updates on TV by the Govt.

The Govt website also details the laws and the guidelines.
www.gov.uk/government/publications/coronavirus-outbreak-faqs-what-you-can-and-cant-do

Newspapers are also reasonable source of information as are TV channels.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/explainers-52530518

I think if you keep the people you come into contact with as few as possible so you can track and trace easily.

This one really doess confuse me, so can any of those who have the rules clear help?

Are we still wfh where possibly or are we returning to work to support coffee shops etc? I've looked at the guidance which says:

"3. Help people to work from home

You should take all reasonable steps to help people work from home by:

discussing home working arrangements
ensuring they have the right equipment, for example remote access to work systems
including them in all necessary communications
looking after their physical and mental wellbeing"

But seems to be in direct contradiction with what the PM has been saying?

I don't mind either way. I've enjoyed working from home, but I'm happy to go back once advised to do so, I just don't know if that's now?

It's not rocket science and you don't have to push every law / guideline to the max!
"Meet with small groups of people outdoors" is what I am sticking to. That's not difficult to understand or remember.
If I find myself having to be indoors with someone eg. a meeting with a colleague on the premises, I will make extra sure I stay a good distance from them.
In an indoor situation where more people are involved or I can't be 2m away (eg supermarket, public transport), I would wear a mask.
If I was invited to a social event which I knew would be very large or indoors, I simply wouldn't go. No gathering is more important than my family's health.
People need to take responsibility for their behaviour and minimise their interactions with others, not slavishly follow rules that mean if they can see 29 other people without breaking "the rules", they should do it.
In theory I could go into my parents house if socially distanced, but as the weather has been nice most of the time, I have chosen specifically to see them on days when we could be outside, for their sakes and mine.

I think if you keep the people you come into contact with as few as possible so you can track and trace easily

Yes, that's it @Alex50 - if you'd have to give more than 5 names / locations to Track & Trace, should they come knocking, then you are seeing too many people.

It's all very well implying people are stupid for not understanding the ever-changing guidance or saying its easy to read the guidance on the internet , but what about the many, many people who do not have access to the internet? A large proportion of families at my school do not have internet access and they would struggle to keep up with the new guidance if they relied totally on newspapers or TV for their information. It's probably not so bad for elderly people with no internet, since most of the ones I know are just staying in apart from a lonely wander around the park once a day.
I do wonder how the limits on numbers can be reconciled with the fact that on a few weeks from now I will be back at work in school, where I will be moving between six classes across two year groups. Which means that my 'bubble' will consist of around 190 people, adults and children. And that is without taking into consideration that the people within that bubble will also have family members who are also in 'extended' bubbles.
I can completely understand why some people are now flouting rules/guidance , I don't agree with it, but I understand it.

I can completely understand why some people are now flouting rules/guidance , I don't agree with it, but I understand it.

This is exactly it.

One rule completely contravenes another.

If it’s ok for people people to dine in restaurants without wearing masks, and not wear masks in a pub, then why do masks have to be worn in supermarkets where length of time in there and frequency of close contact is far, far less than restaurants and pubs.

If people can sit in restaurants and pubs with many people they don’t even know, why can’t wedding ceremonies of 30 people go ahead?

The fact that nothing is logical is what makes people not bother. There’s no credibility to it.

If people can sit in restaurants and pubs with many people they don’t even know, why can’t wedding ceremonies of 30 people go ahead?

You've answered your own question. Because the people in restaurants and pubs are strangers. You aren't likely to sit next to them, lean on them, hug them. A party of 30 relatives and close friends will naturally find it much more difficult to stay apart.

You've answered your own question. Because the people in restaurants and pubs are strangers. You aren't likely to sit next to them, lean on them, hug them. A party of 30 relatives and close friends will naturally find it much more difficult to stay apart.

I don’t think they will though. If someone was at a gathering with family and the guidance was not to kiss them and hug them then I’m pretty sure everyone is sensible enough to adhere to it.

Not like in a pub on a Friday/Saturday where people are potentially going to get drunk.

I imagine there’s a lot of drunk people kissing (and more) in pubs.

I think it’s very insulting of the government to infantilise us by making out we need “telling”, by the use of rules, that we can’t kiss or hug our family.

Some people have ignored the rules from the start. The people across the road have had frequent family parties with 10+ cars blocking pavements. Neighbours 3 doors down similarly, except big marquee in the garden and multiple nights of wedding celebrations (definitely still banned). When challenged by another neighbour they claimed they couldn't understand English that well. Oh and it's inside a lockdown area.

with 18-24 year olds who have constantly flouted the rules in our area.

I think the main reason these younger people and teens have become so relaxed is because all they've heard from the start is how they are less likely to be affected, less likely to show signs and symptoms, than symptom free people are much less likely to transmit - basically the media and the government have from the start told them that younger people are a far lower risk in both contracting and transmitting it.

Now the findings are starting to change it appears and it is now really difficult to get those people to follow the new rules.

Dd went on holiday to France with her boyfriend. The rules there are different so they met up inside and out with other friends - there were 6 of them sharing the house. It's only 1m SDing so they kind of followed that to an extent. Dd wasn't SDing from her boyfriend but they had both been careful beforehand (he is vulnerable as it is) to enable this with lower risk. In France you can meet indoors or out with 10 people at a time.

They're now back in England and need to reduce down to 6 people at a time outdoors. We have made a decision to support Dd in seeing her boyfriend now - the first few weeks of no contact was awful for them, especially as dd has suffered from 3 bereavements during this time. We balanced the risks and for her sake decided to let them meet up with no reprisals from us.

Although the guidance is completely clear imo, (if anything it is the media providing interpretations that is confusing - just read the gov website) I think the issues are that there are too many nuances between laws and guidance and too many people giving guidance or rewording it.

I believe we need:

• The UK government to issue the 'rules' for the whole of the UK - we all vote the UK government in for pan-UK matters; and there is no real sense in managing this in a devolved manner. There should be one set of rules for the whole UK - a single message, and then we avoid all the issues when people move between areas.

• The prominent message should be clear about what is the law and what is guidance or advise - the government imo should stick to fundamentally indicating the law whenever they speak, and only afterwards suggest advise - i.e. We require you to not host more than 30 people in your home, including yourselves - but we advise you limit this to either one additional household or a maximum of 6 people.

• No other body should be allowed to provide any conflicting guidance to that provided by the UK government without being extremely clear they are not indicating what the law or the official guidance is.

• Whenever the word rule is mentioned by anyone, it should only be in relation to the law. All media should be forced to remove anything (including MN threads) that confuse the matter with any incorrect statements.

• A simple single page website that everyone can go to for the current law

No, people are aware of the rules and that it doesn't matter what Dominic Cummings does. The reason they are breaking then is because they are complacent, self-entitled idiots who don't care enough about society to act responsibly.

Many people are using the excuse of "I don't understand the rules, they are too confusing" as a convenient way of ignoring them.

@QueenofmyPrinces but many people are meeting with many members of their family and hugging and kissing them. They have said they have done their own risk assessments and it doesn’t impact anyone else, but actually it does. The rise in infections is partly down to households mixing inside and is only going to get worse in the winter months and when schools go back.

I've just checked the Gov website and I disagree that it's clear it's not clear at all. Not an issue for me because I'm not seeing anybody but you really can't blame people for being confused.

I disagree with Boris's message on Friday that the current advice to return to offices should go ahead because they don't believe people are catching it at work is just wrong! My workplace has taken it seriously and we are "Covid secure". We've still had to close our local offices on a few occasions over the last month because it spreads like wildfire despite the stringent safety measures in place.

I think it’s very insulting of the government to infantilise us by making out we need “telling”, by the use of rules, that we can’t kiss or hug our family

You would think so, wouldn't you. But unfortunately people do need to he specifically told this. As you can see from the huge number of posts on mn saying that they 'don't care what anyone says they will hug their family regardless' etc.

It should be patently obvious to everyone now, that meeting in groups indoors or with people you don't live with raises your risk considerably that you will catch/pass on Covid.

If you persist in ignoring this, then you are condemning all of us to a very miserable autumn and winter, and people will die. It isn't rocket science!

One of the problems is that the rule is “6 people, outdoors, socially distanced” and people stopped listening after “6 people”.

So pubs and restaurants accept bookings for up to 6 people, indoors, all close around one table. And everyone thinks it’s fine because there’s only 6 of them, and they’re socially distanced from all the other groups in the pub.