Rule breakers- do you not worry about passing the virus to older relatives?

[Chaotic45]

I see more and more mumsnet posts and comments IRL from people sick of the rules, and saying that they will not be following them.

Lots of people are saying they will visit their parents and grandparents even where this means breaking a rule or law.

I do understand why they feel like this. It's not my approach, but I accept that we do all have the right to make our own choices.

What I don't understand though, is why these people are not afraid of unwittingly passing Covid to their relatives? DH and I are extremely careful, but DS is 14 and in a bubble of 200+ kids in his school year. There is no social distancing within his bubble, so we are effectively in a bubble with 200+ families and completely at the mercy of their choices and their luck or bad luck in catching and passing on the virus.

So if I choose to see relatives, especially indoors I feel I do have a risk of passing Covid onto them and arguably being the cause of them becoming extremely unwell or even dying. I wouldn't be able to forgive myself for this.

Do those breaking the rules not worry about this?

“ If everyone could just shut the fuck up about regulations until they've read and understood them, we'd all be much better off.”

This is certainly true. Though I suspect I would fall foul of both the “follow the rules!” and the “assess your own risks” people. My husband is a secondary school teacher, so according to the people who say each household gets a risk “spend”, I shouldn’t really be seeing anyone at all in order to (a) minimise the risk of passing on a virus brought home by my husband and (b) minimise the risk of my husband taking a virus into school and depriving children of education, parents of livelihoods etc. I can absolutely see that. But I have a small baby and a toddler and the restrictions associated with the first lockdown have left me with PND. If I don’t at least meet friends with toddlers (we have so far always met outside but have not forced toddlers to distance) we as a family will be in real difficulties. I know many on here have been clear that they view this as demonstration of my lack of moral fibre, but there you go

My mum and I were talking about this exact thing this week. She is late 70s, has lost some close friends over the last few years (none Covid related) and is very much of the mindset that life is for living. And good for her. She would rather see us and her GC than not, and I'm not going to deny her that, nor feel guilty for it.

What's the point in all of these measures when they would force so many to live isolated, miserable lives?

We ALL live with and manage risk every day. In our family we have a person who is at greater risk from some VERY common illnesses (covid isn't a bigger risk to them, though) and we are expected to accept and live with this, no special treatment etc. I know a new virus is a bit scary to start with, but now we have decent treatments known, enough understanding of it etc I think we have to start accepting that there is simply a new risk that we carry in our lives and start to live with it. I'm so done with the control and fear that society is living under now.

The important things to remember are:

• you should follow the rules as laid down for your area. Because you don't really know what the wider risks are.
• your older relatives should have the final decision on what risks they are prepared to take. But you should be open about what risks YOU take so they can make a facts-based decision.

I agree with PP who says elderly relatives are adults who can decide for themselves. I'm an only child and very close to both my parents. They're in their late 60s, one has type 2 diabetes, the other high blood pressure but they're otherwise in good health. My mum's response to local lockdown was "well bugger that. Our family is only the three of us and I'm not not seeing you".

People are starting to make their own risk assessments, finally. I work from home, I am conscientious about distancing and mask wearing when out and about and make sure I continue to wash my hands regularly (this pandemic has horrified me at how little some people apparently wash their hands normally). I think my chances of contracting it are very low.

All my grandparents are dead now but if my grandmother, the only grandparent I had in adulthood, was still alive we'd be one of these families springing her from a care home. Mum or I visited every day for the last year of her life and not seeing us would have killed her.

I am the older generation
I only have to touch out my hand and I can touch 70

Please do nothing to protect me.
I have my immune system for that
Go out and live your lives, have fun . Live, love, laugh and be merry.
Don’t wear a mask near me.
I want to see faces
You owe me nothing

Repeat
You owe me nothing

Think my parents are in a minority- they are both in their mid/late 70s. They are basically isolating full time. They have no intentions of visiting me or my siblings or their grandchildren- particularly since my niece and nephews returned to school (my own children are in full time internet school due to us having an 18yr old ds on immunosuppressants). They don't want to catch covid. They both take statins but are otherwise healthy. Ourselves we only do outdoor things or things were social distancing is prioritised.

@RollaCola84
Well said and if my mum was still alive it would be business as usual.

It is illegal for me to go and sit on my parents patio while they stay inside with the patio door open. This must be very low risk surely?
We will have 6 people on Christmas Day and we will isolate beforehand.
So only breaking the rules in a specific, limited way.

The rules are just so arbitrary.

They aren't logical and people responsible for the spread are breaking them on a major scale. Not people seeing their nan from afar. The people completely ignoring the guidance are continuing to, no matter how harsh the punishments.

@LeanishMachine - one exercise a day was never a regulation, you never needed to choose between a run by yourself and a walk with family

@Dumpypumpy

all the shielders who are wanting to carry on as normal and say they want to live the remaining time that they have by seeing grandchildren, etc, that’s very admirable but i do think someone close to them just needs to tactfully explain that if they get covid they may die, they may die on a ward surrounded by strangers in PPE, that they may not get the funeral that they hoped for, and if they still decide to carry on with life, then fair do’s to them, they are braver than me

They know this. My husbands grandparents (87,91) are fully aware that if they catch covid, they could get extremely poorly and die in hospital. They also argue that could catch any virus and die tomorrow. They're elderly, they don't know how much time they have left. The risk to themselves in their opinion is nothing to the upset they'd feel if they got seriously poorly and hasn't had the chance to spend more time with their loved ones due to fear. We have tried talking to them, they want to make their own choices.

I've been sceptical about lockdown from the beginning but have followed all the rules except the rule of six (ignoring children).

But the question about relatives isn't an issue for me. At 41, my only relatives other than very distant ones that I never see are younger than I am. A very sad upside of having parents who died prematurely and no siblings. I know several people of my age in this position. And as you get into the 50s, there are more people who are the oldest in their families.

@Dumpypumpy I think its pretty patronising to suggest that elderly people or people with sufficiently significant health problems to class as clinically extremely vulnerable don't know that a serious respiratory disease could be fatal to them.

This pandemic really has opened my eyes to the number of people who are apparently surprised at their own mortality and that of their nearest and dearest.

It's perfectly possible to break them in a way that poses no risk at all

If everyone thinks like that and goes ahead and breaks the rules in these ingenious ways, you will find that not everyone is as clever as you. And indeed, maybe you will not be as clever as you think. People are more careless. Life, especially with children and vulnerable older people, is more unexpected than this. They have needs that you couldn't have anticipated when thinking strategically about how to break the rules without breaking the important bits.

For all those who want to take their chances and figure they'll die of something anyway... Covid seems a particularly unpleasant way to die and it is a particularly lonely way to die. That should be factored in.

I also think it's a particularly unpleasant thing to put on the doctors and nurses caring for you. They are at risk when caring for a Covid patient in a way they probably wouldn't be if you were dying of common or garden heart failure. They're exhausted-yes, they really are. They don't need to see you in ICU with covid this winter and in some ways, it's asking too much of them to have your nice times of togetherness knowing that this will, if done at a population level, deliver a season of hell for them.

all the shielders who are wanting to carry on as normal and say they want to live the remaining time that they have by seeing grandchildren, etc, that’s very admirable but i do think someone close to them just needs to tactfully explain that if they get covid they may die, they may die on a ward surrounded by strangers in PPE, that they may not get the funeral that they hoped for, and if they still decide to carry on with life, then fair do’s to them, they are braver than me

Do you think shielders and vulnerable people have all lost mental capacity?
My grandmother is 87. She knows full well what the risks are, having worked as an ICU nurse for 35 years. I can just imagine her reaction if she heard anyone suggesting that we ought to ‘tactfully explain that if they get Covid they may die’.
Anyway, at her request we go and visit her. Which, as far as I’m aware, is well within the rules (no more than 6 of us in her house, maintaining distance).

I actually come from a family of (hospital-based) doctors. Every winter is awful in hospitals, I hear their dread every year, and yes this is worse because they didn’t get the “respite” earlier in the year of slightly fewer admissions that they usually do. They and their colleagues are seeing family and friends in small groups just as much as anyone else. Because they also need human contact and to see their grandchildren and have some joy in their lives

“ They're exhausted-yes, they really are. They don't need to see you in ICU with covid this winter and in some ways, it's asking too much of them to have your nice times of togetherness knowing that this will, if done at a population level, deliver a season of hell for them.”

In fact this attitude is seen as kind of insulting - no one gave a shit in previous years, and continued to vote for Tory cuts

Not likely to, DF lives 400 miles away and the rest are dead

My MIL is 80 and still volunteering. She's far more likely to pass the virus onto me

Still, I sit in the garden and they sit in the conservatory.

We have just broken the rules massively but it was for heartbreaking reasons. Life is literally too short in this case.

I also think it's a particularly unpleasant thing to put on the doctors and nurses caring for you.

Yet it's fine for teachers?

Also at a population level, if people have little human contact, the mental health issues will be huge.

DM (92) has lost all her friends over the last couple of years, and not one due to Covid. She only has her family left. She is not going to stop seeing them, if Covid doesn't get her, something else will, she has already had cancer, a heart attack, several strokes, but still going strong. Unfortunately she is currently in a care home keeping her husband (dementia, heart bypass, cancer, 3 x sepsis) company, so gets very, very, upset by the restrictions imposed there.

And in reply to knowing they might die - of course they know. They are both aware, and have advance directives for no invasive treatment or extension of life. They would rather die at home with no treatment. I think lots of elderlies think this way, and is probably why quite a lot have died at home.

[quote RollaCola84]@LeanishMachine - one exercise a day was never a regulation, you never needed to choose between a run by yourself and a walk with family[/quote]
It was. There was never a hour limit but there was definitely guidance re one form of exercise. Not legislation but none of the early rules were law.