Forming a bubble

[ZydecoLaydee]

So with the new rules we can form a bubble with the in-laws. FIL has a brain injury that resulted in both personality and mobility issues, MIL is his carer. She has really struggled on her own and FIL bullies her dreadfully, her health is good and she has asked to form a bubble with us. The problem is DD (age 7) is at school and is mixing, I don’t want to put FIL at risk, but MIL is breaking. I was frontline clinical until August, but now I am working from home, as is DH. I really don’t know what to do for the best...

Forming a bubble would at least allow you to meet right at the end of the school Christmas holidays when your DD will presumably have been out of school for a fortnight. Do you know what Covid rates are like in your area and whether there have been many cases at your DD's school?

As your mother has asked, she needs help. Can you visit whilst your DD is at school and if you are seeing them over Christmas would you consider taking DD out of school a few days early and you all isolate until you see the inlaws.

She would like to see us multiple times a week, I don’t think she would expect us to wait until the end of December and only see us for a few days. Current case incidence in our local authority is 76 per 100,000. 2 cases (siblings) in school in October.

With rates as low as that I would do it, but keep an eye out for infection rate figures in case they start rising rapidly. You could try asking your DD's school whether they could keep you informed about numbers of known cases in school. Schools vary as to how much information they provide. If you wanted to keep things a bit safer, you or your DH could visit your MIL without your DD - not foolproof, but if you stopped meeting up on your DD showing symptoms, that might catch the infection before it passed into your MIL's household.