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Original poster

Not seeing family until vaccine

107 replies

Covidarsehole · 09/12/2020 10:56

Hello as a family we have decided not to see our respective families until we are vaccinated.
We live in a tier one area separate to family they are tier two they wont adhere to sd and will expect kisses and hugs etc my family have kindly accepted this but my partners parents have really hit the roof.
They are blaming me and calling my partner names. We have three small children and are miles from family and if we were to fall ill we basically have each other so we've made the hard decisions not to see them as we are so close now to this all being over.

Is anyone else choosing to be separate from family this Christmas due to risks?

OP posts:
YukoandHiro · 09/12/2020 15:40

Vaccine will be next autumn for low risk adults under 50. If you're breastfeeding any of your children you won't be able to get it at all.
Surely just wait til any high risk member of the family is vaccinated?

1940s · 09/12/2020 15:44

This is so extra

bumbleymummy · 09/12/2020 15:47

Fair enough if you want to wait for any at risk family members to be vaccinated but I do think you’re being a bit ott waiting to be offered it yourself. If you’re low risk, like your children are, that could be months away - if ever! They may decide to only vaccinate the more vulnerable/older age groups and leave it at that.

RidingMyBike · 09/12/2020 15:47

@TheKeatingFive of course! But it's a much higher risk to expose someone who is already vulnerable to Covid to it, than meet up with a relative just in case they happen to have a car accident or heart attack before you can see them. Maybe I'd think differently if there wasn't a vaccine round the corner, but the CEV people will be vaccinated within the next few months so it seems silly to rush into a meeting just because it's Christmas for the sake of waiting for a few months.

SendHelp30 · 09/12/2020 15:50

Anyone would think unexpected death isn’t a thing. Oh, wait.

RidingMyBike · 09/12/2020 15:55

One of my colleagues lost both parents to Covid. I'm sure she regrets seeing them (multi-generational household so she didn't have much choice) and would love it if they hadn't caught it.

Burnthurst187 · 09/12/2020 15:57

Why do you have to tell everybody op? Just get on with your life

LindaEllen · 09/12/2020 16:05

I understand why you have made that decision, BUT, you need to prepare yourself for the fact that lower risk groups will NEVER be vaccinated. The immunity for high risk groups will have run out - therefore new vaccine needed - before they get round to the lower risk groups.

Msmcc1212 · 09/12/2020 16:07

So the guidance here is that we can see up two other households over Xmas - but also that just because you ‘can’ doesn’t mean you should. The less we see and spend time with other people, the slower the spread.

Seeing family over Christmas might feel so essential to some that they need or want to make use of the temporary rules. Others might feel like they don’t need or want to and can make that sacrifice to help slow the spread. Both positions are understandable and fine. Neither or wrong or right.

Just because someone choses not to make use of the temporary Xmas rules doesn’t mean they are scared or overly risk averse. Every one less contact we have with others is one less chance for it to spread. It’s cumulative.

Let’s be kind to each other and respect each other’s choice. Those that are seeing people and making use of it - enjoy it, savour it and make the most of it! Those not, enjoy the simplicity and quiet and look forward to next year when it will hopefully be different.

trappedsincesundaymorn · 09/12/2020 16:09

It isn't like any of our relatives are potentially at their last Christmas etc

That's what our family thought last year. Both my parents are dead now, one to covid and one to cancer, so you never know...this may be their last.

LostAcre · 09/12/2020 17:12

We’re not doing Christmas with my parents or DH’s parents this year either. We have DC in school, and DH’s job puts him at higher risk of being exposed to Covid, so we felt it would be putting our parents at too much risk.

Both sets of parents are in the top half of the vaccination priority list, so hopefully they’ll get a vaccine before too long. But it’s not going to be before this Christmas.
Once our parents have been vaccinated, we’ll probably feel comfortable with things like Christmas dinner next year.

Davespecifico · 09/12/2020 17:16

Hitting the roof and calling their son names is really horrible. I don’t think I’d want to spend Christmas with people like that, COVID or not.

AnnnaBananna · 09/12/2020 19:52

But where have you got the figure of six months from?
High risk people are already being vaccinated. Super spreaders will be next. Give it another six months and the numbers will be down drastically. That makes it safer for me to go out, even if I haven’t personally been vaccinated yet.

And if you think seeing your family is stupid, unnecessary and makes no difference then obviously that's how you feel, but it's unusual and a bit sad from most people's perspectives.
They’ll still be there in six months time. I’d rather have another ten years with my family than a Christmas visit that results in death so we never see each other again. Six months is not exactly a long time in the grand scale of things. Lots of people emigrate or move to the other end of the country and don’t see their family for six months or even a couple of years.

I mean, you could get run over by a bus before you get a vaccine
Not many buses in my house or garden.

Well I hate to break it to you, but unless you're nhs/care staff you may not be close to getting the vaccine at all.
What you’re failing to understand is that every single person who is vaccinated makes me safer, because it reduces the spread of Covid. Herd immunity to Covid only requires about 60-70% of people to be immune. When half of the country has been vaccinated it’ll be safe to go out even if I haven’t personally been vaccinated yet.

PurpleDaisies · 09/12/2020 19:55

What you’re failing to understand is that every single person who is vaccinated makes me safer, because it reduces the spread of Covid.

Technically we don’t actually know that yet. We know the vaccine reduces individual risk of death or serious disease. We don’t know the effect on transmission yet but we think it will most likely reduce it.

AnnnaBananna · 09/12/2020 20:03

BUT, you need to prepare yourself for the fact that lower risk groups will NEVER be vaccinated. The immunity for high risk groups will have run out - therefore new vaccine needed - before they get round to the lower risk groups.
I imagine at some point you’ll be able to pay for it. Like you can get your kids vaccinated against chickenpox if you can afford to pay. Or you can pay for the flu vaccine if you’re not in a high risk group that gets it for free. At some point you’ll be able to pay for the Covid vaccine and not have to wait for the NHS to provide it.

RidingMyBike · 09/12/2020 20:13

It's just one Christmas. Christmas happens every year. Within a few months the people at higher risk will have been vaccinated and we'll be able to see them. Could even organise a second 'Christmas' in the summer and meet up then?!

It isn't like a vaccine is really uncertain and maybe five years away or something!

TheKeatingFive · 09/12/2020 20:21

Herd immunity to Covid only requires about 60-70% of people to be immune.

It may be a significant time before this is achieved.

Iremembertheelderlykoreanlady · 09/12/2020 20:28

I understand this in principle but not in practice.

If you could freeze time with everyone in the state of health they are now, and then meet up once everyone is vaccinated then great.

But shit happens. My dad is the healthiest man of his age you could wish to meet. He walks/cycles miles every day...and in July we found out he had stage 4 cancer.

Yes he's CEV, yes I'm CV. But I'm not going to hang on till we are all vaccinated to celebrate Christmas.

Live for today and hope for tomorrow

SendHelp30 · 09/12/2020 20:39

@Iremembertheelderlykoreanlady

Live for today and hope for tomorrow

Hear hear!

Remmy123 · 09/12/2020 20:43

Not something I would do. Obviously you are v scared of catching it.

Msmcc1212 · 09/12/2020 21:04

Remmy123

Not something I would do. Obviously you are v scared of catching it.

You have no evidence the OP is scared. It’s not about individual risk or fear for everyone, it’s about doing what we can to slow the spread. It’s fine to make use of the temporary change in rules and it’s fine not too. Let’s not judge each other about it eh?

Carlislemumof4 · 09/12/2020 22:27

I can relate to this and we're doing the same. Not necessarily until vaccinated, I don't really expect me or the DCs will ever be offered it. DH maybe, hopefully my parents will. I'm more looking to the late spring/summer months when hopefully cases locally will be lower and I'll also have got younger 3DCs through most of the school year. Only one period of isolation for Year 6 DD so far so they've got most of this term in but goodness knows what next will be like. And she's got to cope with the move up to secondary in September.

If I see my parents our list of close contacts for test and trace would go from just us to stretching from Scotland to Home Counties to Norfolk, Cornwall, Spain due to all the extended family they've had stay regularly. They have busy social lives local to them as well. Whereas school and three bubbles is enough risk for us, supermarket and the occasional other shop/cafe otherwise.

They are also far more comfortable than us financially and have a lot of neighbourly support. For us, like you, it's just me and DH. He needs to be well to work, I need to be well to care for all the DCs including full time for one, run the household, am the only driver etc. We just manage, it all falls down if something happens to one of us. My extended family just don't have that same perspective.

GalaxyCookieCrumble · 09/12/2020 22:56

Get a grip @Covidarsehole you sound like you are happy about it.

GalaxyCookieCrumble · 09/12/2020 23:04

@SheeshazAZ09

Hope all those relying on a vaccine to give them back their courage realises that no one has any clue how long any vaccine will protect for? And in some people, vaccines don’t ‘take’ so they are not protected at all.
This exactly! I have had the life long Pneumonia vaccination when I started working on the wards in the early 1990s, yet since then had Pneumonia 13 times causing sepsis, and a 8 hour operation to drain the pus out of my lungs! The vaccine clearly did Jack Shit in my case !!!
Billie18 · 09/12/2020 23:45

Fair enough. But what makes you so sure your family will still want to see you if/when you eventually grant them permission?