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.

I would go out. Like others have said above , im extremely low risk and desperate for my life back. In fact even if I was a slightly higher risk I'd still go out because I'm hating life with restrictions.

Judging by all the pics of the city centers on final weekends before curfews/lockdowns etc it looks as though many people feel the same.

Students are more at risk from crossing the road while drunk
than they are from COVID

but they are being locked in their rooms and charged £20 a day for Haribo and crisps

its insane

My nan has died during all of this. She wasn’t in a care home before she died she lived alone as was fully able to. She was old (in her 90s) but ok and we hadn’t seen her since before March lockdown. I’ll never be able to change that. I wish I had gone to see her anyway but I followed the rules and risks her being so old thinking I would see her when it’s over. She didn’t have Covid.

It’s changed my opinions on being forced to stay away from family with no say in it

@yawnsvillex

I don't know anyone complying anymore .....

That says a lot about the selfishness of the people who choose to hang around with (or you are exaggerating).

That says a lot about the selfishness of the people who choose to hang around with (or you are exaggerating).

Oh stop with this whole "selfishness" nonsense, for people just wanting to behave like people in a massively unnatural situation with no end in sight.

@allgoodthings84

My nan has died during all of this. She wasn’t in a care home before she died she lived alone as was fully able to. She was old (in her 90s) but ok and we hadn’t seen her since before March lockdown. I’ll never be able to change that. I wish I had gone to see her anyway but I followed the rules and risks her being so old thinking I would see her when it’s over. She didn’t have Covid.

It’s changed my opinions on being forced to stay away from family with no say in it

So sorry to hear this. My nanna died on Friday under the same circumstances. She was desperate to meet my new daughter i had in may so I agreed to take her over before my older boys went back to school. I'm so glad I did. She was talking like I wouldn't see her again and she was right. I think she knew she didn't have long left and I think she was holding on to meet the baby. I too have completely changed my opinion on seeing family now

Yes OP 100% with you. It's cruel and shite and Draconian. People should be able to make their own risk assessment when it comes to seeing family.

You're right that it will be months and months - it's already been months and months and the people waiting for a vaccine are being unrealistic. We have to accept that this is how our lives are and get on with it.

Really sorry about your nan allgoodthings

I'm astounded by the selfishness and short sightedness of some many people on this thread. No one is enjoying this. I miss my normal life, and seeing my friends and family regularly. But I understand the importance of keeping numbers low as possible so that public services aren't overwhelmed.

Those saying we should be doing our own personal risk assessment are not understing how the virus spreads. We can't make a decision about our own personal risks in isolation.

And jrobhatch it’s so bloody tough. Glad she saw your new D.C. What a comfort.

@AntiHop

I'm astounded by the selfishness and short sightedness of some many people on this thread. No one is enjoying this. I miss my normal life, and seeing my friends and family regularly. But I understand the importance of keeping numbers low as possible so that public services aren't overwhelmed.

Those saying we should be doing our own personal risk assessment are not understing how the virus spreads. We can't make a decision about our own personal risks in isolation.

Weird because afaik I can't Coronavirus to someone who doesn't come near me??

allgoodthings84 and Jrobhatch29 I'm very sorry for your losses.

But I understand the importance of keeping numbers low as possible so that public services aren't overwhelmed.

The NHS is overwhelmed every winter because the Tory Government underfund it.
The NHS is overwhelmed because it has 80,000 vacancies due to the Brexit vote
Covid was the icing on an already huge cake.
The UK government is wasting billions on HS2 and Trident and Sizewell C
But chose to defund councils and care and the NHS

And now they have taken your civil liberties away
with no clear plans to hand them back

Those saying we should be doing our own personal risk assessment are not understing how the virus spreads.

I think you'll find people do, it's not rocket science. But what's being decided for us is bloody ridiculous.

You want to follow it, fill your boots.

I have not seen another person in two months, I hate it

@StarCat2020 I’m sorry that must be awful

If another full lockdown happens (and we are in a low risk area) I WILL go and sit at the bottom of my sister's garden, 2 metres away from her. And I might well go and sit indoors, at one end of her sitting room. She lives on her own, works from home. I've got a partner but we both work from home. None of us have kids or elderly parents we can either catch it from or pass it on to. We're as low risk as you can get. I know that she found the first lockdown incredibly hard, so despite being the most law-abiding person you can possibly imagine, no, I won't not see her for months on end. I don't think that's dangerous to anyone. And millions of people will be making the same decision.

@SleeplessGeordie

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.

Totally agree with this - My MIL lost her husband in November last year to really nasty viral pneumonia (viral because he did not respond to any ab he was given) It was a hospital acquired infection too, to add insult to injury. Anyway he was her carer as she has dementia (not too bad, yet) and it became apparent she needed more care than she was receiving at home - she didn't like people coming into her house so she decided that she would move into sheltered accomodation within a home type setup. So she did in January

In March they "locked" down. We were unable to see her until July where we could make visits and sit in the garden. In August we were permitted to take her out for a meal - a week after we did that she was "locked" down again. We shout through a window at her - that's no quality of interaction at all. She said to my husband this morning that she's totally fed up with her 4 walls. I feel for her

My father (82) lives in South Wales. My sister and I visited him regularly and he visited us - so on average he saw a family member every 6 weeks. We last saw him in November last year as he wasn't able to travel at Christmas like planned due to flooding and poor rail services as a result, he planned to come in February instead - and there we are - we've been prevented from travelling into Wales.

I've decided that I am going to visit him next month. I'm going to make a welfare check on him. Because I think that expecting an 82 year old widower to live on his own for 8 months so far this year with no social interaction with his family is cruel beyond belief.

@PhilCornwall1

Those saying we should be doing our own personal risk assessment are not understing how the virus spreads.

I think you'll find people do, it's not rocket science. But what's being decided for us is bloody ridiculous.

You want to follow it, fill your boots.

Your post makes no sense. Any risks you take will affect all the people who you come in contact with. All the families of the people in your child's bubble, if you have a school age child. The people in the supermarket with you. Any health care professional you may come into contact with. Any risks you take will impact others. That is what it is like being in a pandemic.

So if you you're "own personal risk assessment" and decide to is worth the risk visiting your extended family. I'm not saying you shouldn't. I'm saying that the decision to take that risk will affect all the people that you and your family then come into contact with.

I was on the bus earlier. As always, several young people got on without masks. They made their "own personal risk assessment" that they don't need masks. But as I'm sharing the space with them, that decision affects me and my daughter. If those people on the bus have given me covid, then there is the chance that it could get passed on to my child's school bubble. Then the bubbles of all the siblings. And so on.

@AntiHop

I'm astounded by the selfishness and short sightedness of some many people on this thread. No one is enjoying this. I miss my normal life, and seeing my friends and family regularly. But I understand the importance of keeping numbers low as possible so that public services aren't overwhelmed.

Those saying we should be doing our own personal risk assessment are not understing how the virus spreads. We can't make a decision about our own personal risks in isolation.

I agree. As someone who works for the NHS it pisses me off that so many of you are unable to see that you being willing to take your own risks is likely to increase the risk to us. I have friends who had this in the first wave, some are still struggling with after effects even now yet that doesn't matter to you. Selfish doesn't begin to cover it

Any risks you take will affect all the people who you come in contact with.

This is theoretical because I live so quietly that I obey the rules by default, but I just don't care any more.
My whole raison d'etre is not to worry about ever-fucking covid.

Personal risk assessment
COVID is a disease where 75% of cases are totally asymptomatic (as per the ONS)
where the risk of death among those under 60 is miniscule
where the risk of needing medical treatment among those under 30 is miniscule

and week in, week out
thousands of British people are dying of cancer and old age and heart disease and random other things
while the country is trashed for COVID

The point that seems to be getting missed here but that it looked to me like PhilCornwall1 was making is that some of the things we are being told not to do are not actually risks. It isn't risky at all for me to sit in my sister's spacious back garden, more than two metres away from her, but it is illegal. It became illegal at a time when I was being encouraged to travel into work in person rather than stay remote, which in my case would be via public transport. One of those things was not going to lead to anyone catching covid, the other could well have done, and yet the law did not reflect that. Hence, individual risk assessment.

Aside from all the rules and regulations and what’s legal and what’s not- when do people think people will just stop complying? As in wide scale continuous flouting of rules by more significant numbers of people due to distrust in government/distress at not seeing family/not believing it will end. Do people think there will be civil unrest? More and more people are becoming increasingly unhappy whether people think this is right or wrong.

@Napqueen1234

Aside from all the rules and regulations and what’s legal and what’s not- when do people think people will just stop complying? As in wide scale continuous flouting of rules by more significant numbers of people due to distrust in government/distress at not seeing family/not believing it will end. Do people think there will be civil unrest? More and more people are becoming increasingly unhappy whether people think this is right or wrong.

Already happening. I'm in GM and of all the people whose behaviour and feelings I'm aware of, not one is sticking to the socialising rules because they're the rules. Everyone is making a decision based on what they feel comfortable with, and many also illegally used informal childcare in private homes over the summer because they had to.

Most aren't observing the regulations. There are a few who aren't seeing people at all, but they do that because of their own fears and feelings, and also didn't do it for the few weeks in summer that we were allowed to.