Can I meet with a total of 7 people if several live together?

[Dramatica321]

Can I? I am planning on going to a friends for dinner. It will be her plus two other friends, me and my boyfriend (who lives with me). Then her parents will be in (2) but a different part of the house (it’s very big). So in total it will be 7 people but Me and my boyfriend live together, and her parents live together?

Its a gathering. So if the 2 parents aren't part of gathering and don't come near the gathering i think its ok, and is how i'm taking the meaning of gathering. Like another pp said, its not residence

people are ridiculous on here.
If a gathering is in the garden, seperate to the house then it is a seperate gathering.

Sorry OP rule of 6. I’m in Liverpool so reading threads like this is getting my back up. I can’t even have my mum round for a cuppa in my back garden but you’re about to head off for a dinner party with a group of people from different households for a none essential event. Jesus.

I'm Tier 2. It says no mixing of households indoors. So even though there would only be 5 of us at the same table in the restaurant, I thought it wasn't allowed as we would be mixing socially.

We’re a family of 7 so can’t have anyone over or see anyone as a family. It’s a bloody stupid rule- we can’t have MIL around but I could go to a friends house with 4 other people which would be 6 different household mixing germs with one another

the rule is 6, but who doesn't drive slightly quicker than 70 on the motorway from time to time.

"I suspect the loophole is deliberate so Cummings or some other crony can continue doing what they want"

It's so going to a cottage in the grounds of daddy's pile or farm is ok.

But dinner in the shed is not allowed.

If her parents are in a different building so the people eating together are 6 or less go for it. Enjoy!

@CandleWick4

Sorry OP rule of 6. I’m in Liverpool so reading threads like this is getting my back up. I can’t even have my mum round for a cuppa in my back garden but you’re about to head off for a dinner party with a group of people from different households for a none essential event. Jesus.

It's not the OP's fault you live in Liverpool

But it is probably due to people like the OP trying to make more than 6 people actually 6, that Liverpool is in the mess that it is. Even if 6 is ok, mixing households is not a good idea, and yes you are meant to social distance, surely common sense would tell you that.

It's common sense really isn't it?

If 5 of you are downstairs with a downstairs wc available and the parents are upstairs with a different bathroom then I can't see the harm.

The point of the rules is to try to stop the virus spreading. It's not as if the virus would stay away if her parents went next door but would come steaming in if they were in bed upstairs equally far away.

This is another of the rules that Mumsnetters interpret their own way like 'only one hour of exercise allowed', in England.

UK.gov is quite clear "any social gatherings of more than six people will be against the law."

Only on Mumsnet are people in a different place, even if in the same house, completely apart from and having no contact with, the gathering part of said 'social gathering'.

Any cross infection from members of the household who are absent from the 'gathering' will occur between them and the present members before the gathering anyway. But it won't happen at the gathering if they're not there.

So in this instance, the law is not being broken because more than 6 are not gathered together. And the chance of Covid transmission is not increased.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-51506729

No wonder this country is up shit creek with the virus when people still ask these questions

No.
Because 7 comes after 6.
I mean, whut?!
Even my crap Maths tells me that lol

@CandleWick4

And there we have it .... how dare you not have the same rules as me!

It's not the OP's fault you live in the North

Regardless of whether or not it is allowed in my opinion you shouldn't do it. If people stopped mixing so much then we might get the case numbers down and wouldn't need a circuit breaker. Can't you just go for a walk outside with your friends instead? It would be far safer.

How can counting to 6 be so difficult?

Didn’t say it was the OPs fault though did I? The point is if people stuck to the rules instead of trying to bend them to suit their circumstances so they can have a sodding dinner party then people like me wouldn’t have to potentially go the next 6 months without even seeing my parents.

How can counting to 6 be so difficult?
1..2..3..er..er..3...4

no too confusing for me

@Lindy2

How can counting to 6 be so difficult?

Because there will only be five people present!

It’s a rule of 6, it’s not difficult to understand. Count to 6 and there’s your answer.

Have all the sarcastic people replying actually read the legislation? The focus is on gatherings of more than six. Gatherings is the key word. They could easily have outlawed six in a dwelling or home if they had wanted - that's not what they did. This is the one hour of exercise imagined rule all over again.

Oh God make it stop!

Rule of 6 is a middle ground picked because it allows people to have some social contact rather than total lockdown and isolation AND because having a fixed number is much more straightforward than everyone making their own ifs and buts about what's sensible which is absolutely impossible to manage. One person's totally reasonable is another's completely idiotic suggestion. If people stuck to it it might have a chance of actually succeeding.

Rule of 6 is already a compromise because obviously being amongst 6 people and mixing households doesn't offer any actual protection at all. But its a necessary compromise for mental health. Each time you add a person you add a risk. Even if they live together, they will still each have their own lives and therefore their own exposures and resistances.