How can it be illegal to see a member of family? Even from 2m+? Even with a mask? What is this world

[Napqueen1234]

High risk area so likely to be tier three. In this modern world how can it be illegal to see any family for months and months on end. It’s cruel and unfair and completely unsustainable.

Toontown visitors are not permitted for my husband’s grandmother, as I said in my post. Do you think we would have left her alone and devastated with no visitors if there had been a way to avoid that?

Also, to add there are exceptions to the rules here, single person households can bubble and visits to the vulnerable are allowed under the guise of providing care etc. I would imagine the tier three restrictions in England might be similar

@MadameMeursault

Do you want to kill your family? If not then suck it up. It’s only for a short time, which will be shorter if everyone complies and longer if they don’t.

Well my mum died in March (covid),and my dad has only a few months or possibly weeks, left (cancer). That "short time" doesn't exist for us. We visit him and hug him and will continue to do so.

@PhilCornwall1

There will be too many sick Covid patients and no capacity to treat anything else.

They bloody aren't treating anything else.

Down here the NHS may as well be renamed to the National Covid Service.

This is not true everywhere. And it’s certainly not true of emergencies. If you have appendicitis you will get your surgery. If you’ve been seriously injured in a RTC you’ll get your ICU bed. Currently, there are critical care beds available for patients who have had major surgery.

If all ICU and HDU beds and theatre recovery rooms are occupied by Covid patients and all staff are already redeployed to those areas - what will happen? What will happen to the injured and critically ill - Covid or otherwise?

@bibbitybobbitycats

I am in S Wales and we have what are essentially tier three restrictions in place - no mixing of households in any indoor setting, can't leave our area.

It is hard, it really is. But as a pp said, what would happen if we had no restrictions and the infection rate starts to run out of control? Yes most people will survive, but it's what happens when you have thousands and thousands of people infected at the same time in a particular area and unable to go to work because they are too ill or because they are having to self-isolate .

Remember the panic buying - what would happen if lots of shops in an area had to shut because of lack of staff, no deliveries available, no click and collect. There would be chaos.

Added to that, if infection rates were high, no-one would go out unless they had to. People wouldn’t be flocking to the pubs etc. That would fuck the economy too.

We have to be realistic, whatever path we take is going to be hard and cause suffering and damage to the economy. The fact that governments all over the world are following similar courses of action suggests that this is the least worst option. But if anyone can set out a better option, I would love to know what that is!

This. It’s a pandemic. It’s a disaster. And the government has let us down very badly.

Thank you @ravensoaponarope

sitt In fact her earlier experiences seem to have made it even more important to her to have her family close. It’s possible to have experienced greater horror and still find the current restrictions cruel and difficult

This is the thing I most loathe about the "suck it up, learn resilience" type posts. The implication that we're all pathetic with no idea of "real" hardship. Actually IME it's those who have been through really difficult times who are finding this particularly devastating. When you've lost everything, when you've had to use you will to survive for so long, a hug from a loved one, knowing you've a community around to feel safe, are rightly recognised as the most precious things in life. Also "resilience" isn't taught by going through shit times and having your support systems removed. That's how you drive someone to breakdown.

@RedDiamond

What makes you think it will be months and months? It could very well be just a few weeks whilst the infection numbers have chance to drop again.

I would much rather have to ring my family members than visit them and give them Covid because I did not realise I was carrying it.

Hahahahhahahahahhaahhahahhaa.

We've been in local lockdown and not allowed to see anyone since the end of July.

Few weeks my fucking arse. No end in sight either.

Another one here is amazed that people actually believe that by following “the rules” the virus is going to go away quicker.

Following the rules hopefully prevents more cases so eases the pressure on the hospital, but that’s all they will do.

I am part of a family of four and yesterday my friend came to see me and bought one her children with her. All I could think as I sat in my living room was realistically, what difference would it have made if she’d bought her other child too?! What real danger would we all have been exposed to if there was another person was in the house?

As someone else said, it’s always the 7th person whose got Covid so must keep them away......

If anything following the rules drags this out longer, doesn't it? Lockdown dragged it out longer. Restrictions are dragging this out longer.

If anything following the rules drags this out longer, doesn't it? Lockdown dragged it out longer. Restrictions are dragging this out longer.

Exactly - give it another month and numbers may be heading back to how it was in March/April - so the last 6 months haven’t achieved anything really in terms of overcoming the virus.

It’s going to be horrendous over the winter and people who think masks and social distancing are going to make a big difference to the numbers are kidding themselves in my opinion.

All I could think as I sat in my living room was realistically, what difference would it have made if she’d bought her other child too?! What real danger would we all have been exposed to if there was another person was in the house?
Would it have been more difficult to social distance from your friend's household if there had been 3 of them not 2?

Would it have been more difficult to social distance from your friend's household if there had been 3 of them not 2?

That insinuates that people with bigger houses can have more people round because it’s easier to socially distance.

My point was that if either my friend or her child had Covid then they’d likely all have it so what’s the problem with bringing both children? It makes no sense.

What if the child she chose to bring with her was asymptomatic or incubating the virus, whereas the one she’d chosen to leave behind was actually in perfect health?!

Why is it safe to bring one child but not the other?

I go to work surrounded by people, my husband goes to work surrounded by people, as does my fried. My eldest child is in school and both her children are in school. Two of our children do contact sports which are currently running.

I just cannot see the logic that it’s fine for all of us to be surrounded by so many people every day yet God forbid both her children come to my house instead of just one.

@QueenofmyPrinces

If anything following the rules drags this out longer, doesn't it? Lockdown dragged it out longer. Restrictions are dragging this out longer.

Exactly - give it another month and numbers may be heading back to how it was in March/April - so the last 6 months haven’t achieved anything really in terms of overcoming the virus.

It’s going to be horrendous over the winter and people who think masks and social distancing are going to make a big difference to the numbers are kidding themselves in my opinion.

Exactly this

Added to that, if infection rates were high, no-one would go out unless they had to. People wouldn’t be flocking to the pubs etc. That would fuck the economy too.

A lot of people seem very keen on this theory. And it's true that restaurants etc saw a significant voluntary drop in footfall just before lockdown started. The evidence for that is quite clear.

But the local lockdown areas provide us with more up to date examples, and I'm not aware of any proof that nobody's going to pubs etc there. Quite the contrary, in fact. I'm in Greater Manchester, with some of the highest rates in the country, and our hospitality venues are not exactly deserted. If you think people are all staying in you're very much mistaken. I quite understand arguments that this behaviour isn't rational, but that isn't the point: it's still happening. Lockdown fatigue? Lack of trust in the government? Both?

Now if enough people are incapacitated, there clearly comes a point when attendance drops and the economy is harmed because of that. But when people talk about what happens before then, they're making assumptions.

I remember watching one BBC article that was discussing the closure of pubs and earlier closing times.

They were basically saying that both of those actions would just encourage more people so socially drink in each other houses so was probably counterproductive.

I feel incredibly bad for the Government because there is no answer to this.

They are trying to kid the public that we can get a handle on this when it’s just not possible and introducing their futile rules and regulations which just turns more people against them.

I think we’d all have a lot more respect for the Government if they just admitted that they’re doing their best but they know the virus is out of their control.

10,000 people die every week in the UK
COVID or no COVID.

If saving lives actually mattered
then the Tories would not have cut funding to the NHS every year for the last ten years

but in December people voted in a government led by a known liar
ho hum

@CrappleUmble

Added to that, if infection rates were high, no-one would go out unless they had to. People wouldn’t be flocking to the pubs etc. That would fuck the economy too.

A lot of people seem very keen on this theory. And it's true that restaurants etc saw a significant voluntary drop in footfall just before lockdown started. The evidence for that is quite clear.

But the local lockdown areas provide us with more up to date examples, and I'm not aware of any proof that nobody's going to pubs etc there. Quite the contrary, in fact. I'm in Greater Manchester, with some of the highest rates in the country, and our hospitality venues are not exactly deserted. If you think people are all staying in you're very much mistaken. I quite understand arguments that this behaviour isn't rational, but that isn't the point: it's still happening. Lockdown fatigue? Lack of trust in the government? Both?

Now if enough people are incapacitated, there clearly comes a point when attendance drops and the economy is harmed because of that. But when people talk about what happens before then, they're making assumptions.

Perhaps I didn't make it clear what I meant. I was talking about the hypothetical scenario where we do what many people seem to want - not have restrictions other than SD, masks and hand washing. If this resulted in the virus running rampant and infection rates getting very high (i.e. much higher than the rates that trigger a tier three lockdown) I don't think people would want to go out.

Mmm, the unfortunate truth is that we entered this situation completely and systemically ill-prepared thanks to what the Tories have spent the last decade doing. So even with good decision making, leadership and consistency, which we have not had anything resembling, we would always have had an uphill battle. Personally I'm not sure it's salvageable now. I do understand why people want to cling to the idea that if we could all just do X and not do Y for Z time period it would go away though.

Perhaps I didn't make it clear what I meant. I was talking about the hypothetical scenario where we do what many people seem to want - not have restrictions other than SD, masks and hand washing. If this resulted in the virus running rampant and infection rates getting very high (i.e. much higher than the rates that trigger a tier three lockdown) I don't think people would want to go out.

Out of interest, how high? And by 'people' do you genuinely mean everyone, ie not those who are at low risk and/or believe they have immunity?

I don't think people would want to go out

I would. I'm at very low risk of getting v sick or dying from this.

I have prev been v sick from glandular fever and have lasting damage - life is for living.

I don't want to sit at home for the next 2 years and die in a dream accident or of cancer or of any other disease that hasn't gone away and look back on wasted time.

I'd like to take my chances, as they are pretty good.

COVID does not kill a high enough percentage to make people change their behaviour.

Aids killed everybody who caught it
so everybody changed their behaviour

Ebola kills around 30% of people who catch it
so everybody changes their behaviour

COVID is killing around 1 in 1000, almost all of them old
so young people see no reason to alter their behaviour

I was in Nottingham yesterday.
The Covid capital.
We couldn’t get a table in the restaurant we wanted. Ended up booking elsewhere.
Later we could t get a seat in a coffee shop.
And Sainsburys was fullish - what you’d expect at 4pm on a Saturday.

I’ve no doubt that if the clubs were open the students and young people would fill them.

listening even with the high death rate with Ebola it was hard to change some practices like body washing.

@HelloMissus

listening even with the high death rate with Ebola it was hard to change some practices like body washing.

Good point. People don't necessarily behave in ways that look rational to observers whose beliefs and context are different.