If next Christmas is like this one will you still be following rules?

[elleps]

Miserable pessimistic post alert. Feel free to hide the thread!

Just wondering who would carry on with following on with these rules if we are in the same boat next year?

I can completely see things staying like this for many months to come. People will say otherwise, that there’s a vaccine and that things are going the right way. But then nobody thought in March that we would be sat like this on Christmas Day. So I don’t hold out much hope.

Things can’t carry on like this beyond March surely, even if the virus is still spreading as it is?

@Sophagain

Just through circumstance I have actually followed the rules to the letter. However based on a lack of posts on my social media I am pretty sure the vast majority of people I know have broken the rules one way or another. Strange of them to suddenly stop posting.

Very quiet on FB for the past couple of days. All the usual suspects are very silent...

MiL announced on Christmas Eve she "might" have the vaccine. She has l, out of the blue decided she has an egg allergy as they "make her quite scratchy". I have never seen her refuse anything with egg in it, fresh carbonara, scrambled eggs etc etc. She's in a bubble with us so we have been very careful, far more so than her.
So I think we'll still be following the rules but I won't be bending over backwards for those who won't help themselves.

@BlueCheckedTeatowel

Yes, I have had possibly the best Christmas day of my adult life.

Christmas day we alternate family each year so they change "slot". Last year it went:

10am-12pm - DHs mum and siblings for breakfast
12pm-5pm - my DM and siblings for lunch
6pm-? - my DF and random family/friends for drinks and games

Usually I spend the run up to christmas cleaning and stocking up on 20 different peoples favourite snacks and drinks from far flung shops.Then we have the morning group for late breakfast, hoover and clean up the mess and do the dishes, then in comes the second lot for dinner. My DM is a nightmare and doesnt get on with anyone. She is embarrasing and makes snide comments and remarks to people despite offering me no help or money towards christmas (not expected but then she acts like its her event and likes people to thank her for me inviting them ). She also likes to inform people that if it wasnt for "my blue" they would be alone without food. No they wouldnt, they would probably be at someone elses house or just cook themselves. So DM is told that on "Her years" for dinner she can come at 12pm and see the DC and have dinner but then 5pm is kickout time, before the third group come in the evening. I have 3 siblings she can visit and also she has multiple sisters who welcome her.

5pm-6pm I clean up, put out the snacks and begin cooking evening buffet and throw the hoover around if needed. Then run for a shower while DH welcomes people. The years we have had anyone overlap with my DM she has ruined it and thrown a strop (one year asking BIL to leave because he poured himself a wine and not her). So I dont mind people overlapping with each other as long as its not my DM (she has to leave as its just not fair on anyone else).

This year I got up at 10am with the teens, opened gifts in my pyjamas, played 3 board games, began dinner around 1pm and now they are playing on their xbox downstairs while I consider a bath. I havnt even put the dishwasher on yet. Its been heaven. We have been away for christmas before which was lovely but not as comfortable as this as it wasnt in my own house. I asked how this compared to normal christmas' and they said they were sad family couldnt be here but its been really good and they want to do it again.

That sounds utterly relentless. Why are you hosting EVERYONE? Every year? That's batshit!

I will stop following any rules just as soon as all the vulnerable people close to me are vaccinated. So end of Feb.

^ I mean mixing in private homes. I will continue to social distance outside of my home and wear a mask etc etc

@XmasSkies2020

I will stop following any rules just as soon as all the vulnerable people close to me are vaccinated. So end of Feb.

I'm clinically vulnerable and using the online calculator I won't be eligible for the vaccine til March-April.

In the mean time I will be at work mixing with hundreds of people with no social distancing and few restrictions. I caught covid 12 weeks ago and I'm still struggling daily with it. Since breaking up from work a week ago I've also now come down with a cold and, due to still dealing with covid complications, I'm finding it really hard to bounce back from. I'm breathless, my chest hurts and is so tight, and walking up and downstairs takes it out of me.

I really really wish all these vaccines could be sorted by February.

Sorry @LitPeach but I suspect we will never again see large events like concerts and conferences. Christmas will need to be celebrated via zoom for the foreseeable future. All in order to save lives and keep people safe. ...

is a load of shit. Of course we will. Stop catastrophising. If you so wish, stay behind your computer screen for the rest of your life, but the rest of us won't be doing that.

No I won't

Happy to continue with social distancing and face masks and any other imposed restrictions out of the house. I’ll continue with social distance outside visits with DM and DPIL. But my adult children who live at home both have partners and they need to have some king of normal adult relationships. Sure I miss a hug from the people in my life but I don’t know if I could not touch my DH for a year.

There won't be 'rules' next christmas.
The government has already made it clear. Once the vaccine has been rolled out govt intervention ends and it is back to taking personal responsibility.
The vaccine roll out will take a few months. The situation will be monitored so that they will know if an annual vaccination programme is needed.

Pointless thread. It won't be like this next Christmas.Tomorrow the Oxford vaccine will be approved and it will start being rolled out on a mammoth scale next week. Unless manufacturers and scientists have lied about its efficacy and safety, we will be back to some semblance of normality before the summer.

If things are still like this in april I will be making my own risk assesment in all honesty, some rules make no sense
Im tier 3 i can meet my parents at a crowded beach , but can't sit in their garden sd for an hr with just the 3 of us , so I will adjust rules accordingly if still like this
But I don't believe they will be I think we will see rules/ guidelines relaxed little by little

@abraxan hopefully oxford one can be approved soon and that should speed up the vaccinations
Im lower risk and mine is due june but personally as soon as allowed I will be back to normal as I would rather take the risk
I would be quite happy to still have 2 m rule away from others in shops etc as i like my personal space nut as soon as everyone donned a mask that went out the window anyway

I am quite content to maintain my distance and wear a mask for as long as it takes. Once the vaccines have been rolled out to the majority of ‘at risk’, I believe lighter restrictions will be introduced which will hopefully be the beginning of a return to life pre Covid. But I don’t think this will happen until the middle of 2021.

I would. We had a nice Xmas without PIL.

[quote donewithitalltodayandxmas]@abraxan hopefully oxford one can be approved soon and that should speed up the vaccinations
Im lower risk and mine is due june but personally as soon as allowed I will be back to normal as I would rather take the risk
I would be quite happy to still have 2 m rule away from others in shops etc as i like my personal space nut as soon as everyone donned a mask that went out the window anyway [/quote]
Vaccine minister saying it should be approved on Monday!

So like every winter then.

Rapid discharges have always been a thing, as has trying to find beds. I was last working on a ward 20 years ago and it happened then.

Maternity units often have to close their doors.

The NHS runs above capacity every winter.

Not really like every winter, because of the sheer numbers of covid cases needing treatment that we would have if we stop controlling the spread. The problem is the exponential growth. If you have covid cases in an area doubling every ten days, say, then every ten days you'll get double the number of covid patients arriving at your local hospital. Even with some being discharged, the problem will be that capacity won't be gradually exceeded, but overshot by miles in a really short period of time.

At the point when this overwhelm starts to become obvious in a local area - when it's clear it's not just like a normal winter - yet more doublings of patient numbers will already be unavoidable. The most recently infected people won't reach the hospitalisation stage for another 2-3 weeks, but because they're already out there and infected, some of them needing hospital treatment is already unavoidable.

The proportion of covid patients needing hospitalisation, along with the exponential growth, is what makes it so dangerous to hospital capacity. If people just either died or recovered at home with no intervention, there wouldn't be the same threat to healthcare. But an exponentially growing (doubling fast) number of people needing hospital care, selected from an even larger number they'd be triaged from, would be a huge problem. That why we need to all be behaving as if we don't want to catch the virus, even those if us who've decided our personal risk from the actual disease is low.