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?

Difference with someone crashing their car or falling over drunk is that you’re not going to have huge swathes of people doing this at one time are you? Smokers, drinkers, bad drivers - the average numbers of hospital cases are already known and expected, treatment or medication is already defined.

It isn’t comparable to the additional numbers of Covid patients, reaching into the thousands - when treatment and resources may be far more complex or uncertain.

Everyone has a responsibility, this pandemic isn’t normal times.

I already feel responsible for the death of my lovely MIL and I don't think I could cope with the thought that I done it to anyone else. About 3 years ago she came to stay with us, as a relatively healthy 90 year old, for two weeks. On the four hour journey to take her home I started to feel ill. Very sore throat and tight chest, breathing became very painful. Within a couple of days MIL was feeling very ill and she ended up in hospital with a chest infection and eventually pneumonia. This amazing woman fought back but was never the same person again. after that she had one thing after another and died 18 months later. I will never forgive myself for the death of this very special lady.

So, I will be doing everything I can not to catch and pass on Covid.

All the doctors, nurses, HCPs I know (I know lots in my family and I work with HCPs across trusts) are breaking the rules to some degree in some way. They are doing what they and their families need to to keep their heads above water. None of these groups (“rule breakers”, HCPs, vulnerable people, teachers etc) are mutually exclusive. I don’t know anyone who doesn’t fall into more than one category.

Most of my elderly relatives are now dead, but I do wonder what would have happened if this pandemic had occurred 8 years ago. At that point, my dear Dad (only early 70s) had terminal brain & lung cancer. We had enough money for carers, so he could stay at home, but he also wanted company and support - so every weekend for over a year either me, my sister, my brother and occasionally his sister visited him, so he was never alone at the weekend. Sister and aunt were local, brother lived at the other end of the country, I was about a 2 hour drive. We cooked for him, took him shopping (and later on shopped for him), we took him for drives. We sat watching TV with him. We took him to doctors appointments, rushed him to hospital when necessary, and we also made sure his bills were paid and ensured that his carers were turning up when required and were briefed on his condition. He eventually died at home with all of us with him. I like to think that if this had happened then we would have talked to him and asked him what he wanted to do - did he want to be "safe" but alone for the end of his life? Or did he want us with him and risk an earlier death? I think I know what he'd have said.

I worry about my DSis continuing to visit DPs as she firmly believes the virus is a hoax or at worst just a cold.

I was thinking the other day that covid is one of the few illnesses that you seem to get the blame for catching

@RufustheSniggeringReindeer

I was thinking the other day that covid is one of the few illnesses that you seem to get the blame for catching

If you are careless about catching and spreading it then you should be.

Nobody blames those who do what they can.

Only the deniers and rule breakers who make the situation worse for everyone.

@NotAKaren

I worry about my DSis continuing to visit DPs as she firmly believes the virus is a hoax or at worst just a cold.

Same.

The fucking Covid deniers will be the death of us.

If you are careless about catching and spreading it then you should be

Youve missed my point

Some People assume that if youve got covid you must have been careless about catching and spreading it

Alot of people’s go to is you must have done something wrong to catch it...if you’d have followed the rules you’d be ok

Unlike a cold or flu

@Dowser

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

Thank you for this message!

I am younger - 30 - but I too want to see faces, expressions, smiles! I don't want to live in this creepy, alienating world of essentially faceless humans. As a single person, I don't want to have to guess what a person's face might look like behind the mask - to guess whether I might find them attractive! All this is extremely basic.

And I refuse to cover my face like some sort of leper on the grounds of the unfalsifiable and extremely remote possibility that I might have Covid-19 and not know it. If you show no signs or symptoms of illness and you haven't been diagnosed with an illness, then, for all intents and purposes, you're not ill and you shouldn't have to act/be treated as though you were! I might be asymptomatic with anything and not know it! And that's ALWAYS been the case for everybody! I might have asymptomatic cancer, but I'm not about to book myself in for pre-emptive chemo on the off-chance. Rational people operate on the basis of empiricism - or at least reasonable probability.

Some People assume that if youve got covid you must have been careless about catching and spreading it

Alot of people’s go to is you must have done something wrong to catch it...if you’d have followed the rules you’d be ok

This is true. I’ve seen quite a few posters say things on threads about people catching it because they’re selfish and irresponsible. One poster said we should feel disgust at anyone who catches it due to their behaviour.
It’s a virus, they spread. It’s what they do. People have to work in environments where social distancing isn’t possible. Use public transport. Send their children to childcare while they work.

My parents are similar. Generally law abiding, healthy in their mid 70s. They are absolutely clear that they don’t want to waste the last few years of their lives and would prefer to assess their own risk.

At present they can’t come in my house. But I can meet them in a cafe.

They aren’t impressed.

Most older people I know are horrified at the legacy being left for the younger generation and think we now have to live our lives

Alot of people’s go to is you must have done something wrong to catch it...if you’d have followed the rules you’d be ok

Agreed, so many people spout this shit.

How can I avoid catching it as a teacher? You wouldn't blame anyone for getting a cold/noro/flu.

@LeanishMachine

An hour a day wasn't the rule. Once a day absolutely was. This is from the March document:

1. Staying at home

You should only leave or be away from your home for very limited purposes:

shopping for basic necessities, for example food and medicine, which must be as infrequent as possible

one form of exercise a day, for example a run, walk, or cycle - alone or with members of your household

any medical need, including to donate blood, avoid injury or illness, escape risk of harm, or to provide care or to help a vulnerable person

travelling for work purposes, but only where you cannot work from home

It 100% wasn't. What you are quoting from here is not the rules, it's guidance. Rules=legislation.

I work in a nursery, we can't social distance (staff try to distance from each other where possible) we have no additional all PPE and the bubble system is t really happening. Having a child sneeze or cough directly in your face is a regular event.

DD is in a bubble of 30 at school, no social distancing.

DS is in a bubble of over 200, masks worn in communal areas but not in lessons and again no real social distancing.

OH is the 'safest' really just due to the nature of his job.

We are following the rules currently (although did accidentally have 7 people in the house recently and didn't even realise until later.... didn't even cross my mind at the time!) but frankly it seems a bit of a joke at times.

I do see my grandparents/ my Mum who has a lung condition. We wash hands, don't get too close... they know our situation with work and school and still want to see us.

@Chaotic45 - it’s my 80-something parents who are bending the rules, not the rest of us. I worry about passing the virus on to them, because I don’t want to be the one to kill them; they are more worried about dying of old age and isolated from everyone they love.

I don't have any elderly relatives. My parents are in their mid 60s with some health conditions so they're slightly higher risk, but they're extremely careful - they won't come inside my house, just have brief chats on the doorstep. My own grandparents died long ago, so I've never really expected to live much longer than average life expectancy, or my parents to.

I stick to the rules, wear a mask etc but I do go out a lot to indoor venues like museums and use public transport all the time, and DD goes to nursery, toddler classes and soft play. So I wouldn't be surprised if we get it/have had it.

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

Apart from being massively cringeworthy, it fails to mention that elderly people, quite rightly, are entitled to treatment on NHS, especially their later years. If everyone took the advice in this, erm, poem, the NHS would collapse under the weight of covid patients within weeks

If you show no signs or symptoms of illness and you haven't been diagnosed with an illness, then, for all intents and purposes, you're not ill and you shouldn't have to act/be treated as though you were!

I despair

@Flaxmeadow you despair? That healthy people who aren't ill don't want to be treat like they're plague ridden?? How is it so hard to grasp? Yes, yes people can be asymptomatic we know, but at that rate you'd have to test people who don't have symptoms to find out if they're positive, and that's just not going to happen.

[quote WinifredSanderson]@Flaxmeadow you despair? That healthy people who aren't ill don't want to be treat like they're plague ridden?? How is it so hard to grasp? Yes, yes people can be asymptomatic we know, but at that rate you'd have to test people who don't have symptoms to find out if they're positive, and that's just not going to happen. [/quote]
Well that's a shame, because that's how South Korea are still going clubbing and have a healthy economy.

@Flaxmeadow

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

Apart from being massively cringeworthy, it fails to mention that elderly people, quite rightly, are entitled to treatment on NHS, especially their later years. If everyone took the advice in this, erm, poem, the NHS would collapse under the weight of covid patients within weeks

Not so much a "poem" as a suicide note.

I’ve got lots of elderly relatives.
They’ve all (except one) taken the view that they have no intention of preventing others from living their lives and have no intention of spending what might be their final years/months in isolation.

In short, they are pragmatic.

If all the HCPs are breaking the rules then what is the point for the rest of us?

This is all becoming more problematic as we go on.

My issue is I am happy to follow scientific advice - but my elderly parents do not want to do this, they were happy to follow the rules at first but are now sick of it. They have no rational reason for feeling less concerned now really - they have proven risk factors - but I understand why emotionally they have changed.

But I don't agree with them.

It is starting to cause conflict.

They are not breaking any laws but I feel they are pushing their luck.