Christmas needs to be cancelled.

[AlternativePerspective]

So the suggestion to make it possible for the world to go and be super spreaders at Christmas is to stay in lockdown until Christmas, then open up for five days, then go back into lockdown for another 25 days (at least), five days for every day we’re out of lockdown.

Are people really that desperate to have a get together they could have at any other time of the year, maybe in the summer when this pandemic is under control, that they’re willing to spend months in lockdown to achieve it? Really?

My personal opinion is that it is our duty as a society to have a low key Christmas regardless of whether they take this ridiculous measure or not.

I understand that for some they want to see family at Christmas, but these ridiculous suggestions have gone too far.

Just cancel Christmas and give us an extra bank holiday next year to make up for it.

Unfortunately it's clear people are going to gather as families anyway. The government need to mitigate the effects of that while still asking sensible people to keep to their own household OR isolate before Christmas.

It makes far more sense to shut schools a week early. Keep pubs and restaurants shut except for outdoors. Open shops with social distancing measures and as much ventilation as possible. Back into lockdown for New Years, or people will go crazy.

Lockdown in January is inevitable due to the weather conditions and people mixing at Christmas, but we could make some headway by doing the above.

I'm hoping our churches are open with perhaps more services so the church isn't too full.

People will do it anyway.

@Neron

The virus will never be eradicated, look at the flu, TB etc. They are all still around, with vaccines, and those mutate as will this virus. The first lockdown done nothing but delay the spread - and the majority of people did comply. The NHS was on it's knees before this, why didn't anyone give a toss then? The cancers and other diseases haven't gone away, C19 is not the only thing 'killing' people which, if you look at the figures, death rates for C19 are the lowest now, but infections are higher. This also doesn't mean anything because of the false positives, tests are widely available now as well. Over 90% of the population recover from it.

Christmas will go ahead, rules or not. It is about time people thought about more than C19. Suicides, mental health, people losing homes, business, everything. So easy to judge and call people selfish.

All of this.

Maybe we should just do away with it all. Why have a lockdown and cost people jobs when people will ignore anything when it suits them anyway so it will be spiking again. Just fuck it all, open the businesses and let everyone do what they want and workers make their wages.🤷🏻

@SchrodingersImmigrant

Maybe we should just do away with it all. Why have a lockdown and cost people jobs when people will ignore anything when it suits them anyway so it will be spiking again. Just fuck it all, open the businesses and let everyone do what they want and workers make their wages.🤷🏻

yeah those selfish workers, how dare they want to go back to work or reopen their businesses so that they can earn money and keep food on their tables and a roof over their heads. Dont they know Covid is the only thing that matters?

We've already decided to stay home. Just our household. But it doesn't matter if the government announces Christmas is cancelled, no mixing because people will do it regardless. Some of those willing to stay home now won't as well because the government decisions are all over the place.

Don't meet another household for Christmas day but continue mixing your children with 30+ a day and there's now many more working through lockdown mixing with coworkers/the public than last time.

January is going to be a disaster for school and workplace infections. Our local secondary is already full of it.

Christmas can't be cancelled.

But the government can impose lockdown over the Christmas period to prevent people from travelling and from visiting each other constantly.

Christmas celebrations are for a few days at most. At some point they DO need to lift this lockdown a little and so people WIL mix indoors because it's winter and the weather is shit anyway. If they ban all households mixing at Christmas, the virus will still spread again after Christmas.

This 25 day thing is plucked out of the air. It is a worst case scenario and doesn't take into account the reality of what trying to prevent Christmas would do, let alone the fact that such a measure would fail.

People will make their own risk assessments and do what they want anyway. Some will be cautious, some less so.

It is also worth noting that the current lockdown in England is a regulation, not an act of parliament. As such it does not supersede existing legislation such as the Human Rights Act, which enshrines the right to family life in law. Basically, there are lots of legal ways of not following the current lockdown restrictions and if it was continued over Christmas it would not be legally enforceable to keep people away from their families.

You need to get a grip. Yes this virus is twice as dangerous as the average flu, but more effort is being put into controlling the spread of this virus than has ever been put in before. Not just at home, but globally.

@AllsortsofAwkward

My df has terminal cancer id be dammed if I'm spending Christmas away from him and for him to miss out on seeing his grandchildren.

I’m the same @AllsortsofAwkward. Wishing you the best

People will tell the government to get stuffed and do it anyway. This way they look like they're allowing people a nice Christmas rather than looking stupid because the whole country (more or less) ignores them.

@Neron @Royalgiraffe No, the virus won't be eradicated. But we will have vulnerable people vaccinated by spring. A few months. Weeks, even. After that, it's looking likely that any adult who wants the vaccine will get one in 2021. This will massively reduce the community spread and prevent all but very localised outbreaks which won't affect the NHS so much.

The NHS being on its knees is a political choice. Anyone who votes for the Tories (or UKIP) has contributed to this. 90s/2000s Labour were by no means perfect, but look at the difference in waiting times between, say, 2005 and 2019. There's not much an average person can do, except vote for a party that actually wants to fund the NHS.

Royalgiraffe I call people selfish because the more virus circulating, the more people are in hospital with it. If more people are in hospital with it the more other services have to close, the more cancelled operations and chemo there is - not because we don't want people having those things but because we don't have staff to run them. Why don't we have staff to run them? Because the more the virus circulates, the more staff are off sick in both emergency and urgent care facilities (such as iCU) as well as in oncology departments, orthopedics etc. This isn't due to lack of PPE, it's due to more viral circulation in the community. I'm much more likely to pick up COVID from my child at school than I am at work - I'm double gloves, in a hood, cuffs, respirator and booties at work. I can't wear that at home.

When urgent care staff can't come in, staff are drafted in from other areas and non urgent treatments get cancelled.

As I keep saying, it isn't about death rates!

Sigh- I would of course like to see family, but I am worried about the impact and Will follow the rules. What upsets me most though is if we say there is an amnesty on x dates over Christmas then those of us who are key workers working will not get to.see family. I am only working 1 day and I am lucky not to work in health care, but it makes me really angry that those that do and have had the hardest year of their working lives will not get to see family because they are having to work.

I hope any system put in places takes into account that those working over Christmas also deserve to see family.

People have had to sacrifice so much of their lives because of this situation, regardless, they just had to suck it up. I’ve known particularly self employed friends literally get no money and no help as they’ve fallen through the cracks. Peoples lives have been turned upside down because of these lockdowns.

Yet here we are suggesting that ‘well it’s Christmas so fuck the rules and we’ll all have to pay the price later on’

Why should Christmas be any different from the other religions celebrations? How’s that fair?

I love Christmas although I’m atheist, but it’s the family time, the Christmas movies, nostalgia, board games that I love. It has no religious connotations to me whatsoever.

But I think it’s unfair on anyone with different religious beliefs that haven’t been allowed to celebrate their important calendar events.

I'm not missing the opportunity to tell my DM that she's becoming a grandmother for the first time to her face. So no, my Christmas will absolutely not be cancelled.

It doesn't have to be over Christmas, though. Surely you can meet her at other times.
I do hope you are keeping safe otherwise, and not risking her health.

Cancel Christmas leaves my 18 year old step daughter alone for Christmas despite working till 4pm Christmas Eve in a shop. Why shouldn't she be allowed to travel to us one hour away??

If I want Christmas, I'll have it.

This is the attitude that has led to the increasing numbers everywhere.

All because I am focussing on that 1 day at Christmas when I can see my family properly.

Does it have to be at Christmas, and does it have to be all at the same time?

@Lweji

If I want Christmas, I'll have it.

This is the attitude that has led to the increasing numbers everywhere.

When my dd2 was crying with anxiety in September, about school, exams, covid, the one thing that cheered her up was the thought of Christmas. So we'll be having a fabulous Christmas thank you, including going to thw garden centre to see the decs and choose the tree, having all the foods and generally having a lovely, optimistic, happy time.

Society has treated you like shit because you sound like an absolute melt.

@Runningjump you sound absolutely charming

@AlternativePerspective

Just cancel Christmas and give us an extra bank holiday next year to make up for it.
No

schools need to be closed now until the end of January.
No