Not a single person following covid rules

[ruby4ever]

I kid you not, I know no one in real life that is actually adhering to COVID rules. Everyone on my social media/friends have openly celebrated Xmas yesterday despite majority of them living in tier 4 and mixing up to 8 household in one house. Everyone I know and even those I follow on social media, all got with family and celebrated like any other year. Even today everyone is mixing multiple households. I haven't seen a lot of family members as am scared catching anything and passing it on to my family. I feel like the only people following rules are those on mn!
It's got me annoyed that if everyone else is acting normal and are perfectly fine, not spreading anything then why the hell am I following the rules??? These same people didn't follow the lockdown rules either in March, they still mixed multiple households. There are elderly and vulnerable amongst them and (thankfully) no one has actually caught corona. I myself forget about the virus as I no longer watch the news, except when I go out and see everyone in masks. It's really got me thinking today

Most people i know are following the rules.

I may be being over optimistic but if most people do stick to the rules in addition to not going to work and school then cases should start to fall

Most people I know are following the rules and those that are not are only stretching them slightly (meeting in the garden rather a public area, meeting with more than one person when exercising outdoors etc). Everyone I know had Christmas dinner in their family bubbles. We're in a support bubble but have chosen only to meet with the other family outdoors in the garden.

@VulvaPerson

"377 ppl under 60 with no underlying health conditions have sadly passed away from Covid over the whole of the "pandemic"

Always find this stat 'interesting', because multiple MN posters have claimed they personally know multiple (highest I have seen now is 6..) young fit people who have died from covid.

You can be young and fit but have a 'condition' like mild asthma and therefore your death doesn't count towards the statistic.

I thought they were finding out that asthma didn’t have that much effect?

@ArseInTheCoOpWindow

I thought they were finding out that asthma didn’t have that much effect?

It doesn’t. But don’t let facts get in the way

All of my local friends and neighbours here in tier 4 cancelled plans to go away to family / have family to them. In our little close we had a rather lovely champagne toast on Christmas morning outside our front doors. It genuinely never crossed my mind to go anyway - we were due to go to grandparents in a tier 2 area. It wasn’t just the individual risk to them, more than worry that for Johnson to be seen as the one to cancel Christmas I knew it was serious and genuinely couldn’t have lived with the guilt if I knew I’d been ‘part of the problem’ if parts of the NHS were overwhelmed.

We went further on the rules on Xmas day and didn't mix our normal three households at all, even though the rules said we could do. However we did all go for a walk on Boxing day flouting the rule of 6. I deem an outside walk is safer than sitting indoors even though technically the day was wrong.

Most people I know are substantively following the rules. We are in tier 4 and rates are rising rapidly. I think this wave will be worse than the last.

For instance we are usually 16 on Xmas day, this year I was just with my DD. My father, my sister and two nephews spent Christmas Day alone. The exception being me popping in to see my Dad for an hour on Christmas morning - we are in a support bubble together. We both wore masks. And this is within what's permitted.

However I do know quite a lot of people are breaking the rules in what I regard as minor ways. For instance, going out of their area for a walk - but no contact with other people and staying outdoors. Or going for a walk with 2 or more people not one.

In my area everyone is wearing a mask in the supermarket and often in the queues and streets outside. I do know a few people who have someone in their family with cancer or other serious conditions so they are having to be very careful.

I am well and truly sick of lockdown and the rules and question the government's handling but I also don't want to be responsible for other peoples' deaths.

All my friends are following and have followed rules consistently - tier 3 here. We didn't meet with anyone on Christmas day. However I have technically broken the rules because on Christmas Eve we travelled to go for a distanced walk with my sister's family - she is terminally ill and will be dead next Christmas. We also hosted my brother yesterday in the garden for 2 hours - again distanced - as he'd come over to wave at my mum in her care home.
Technical breaches of rules but morally nothing wrong I don't think. Although I am starting to wonder if it's morally wrong that I haven't hugged my ill sister for a year.....

Being really honest it is 50/50 with people I know.

Some are abiding totally by the rules (including us as we have a child SI until tomorrow). Those who aren't seem to be bending the rules as opposed to blatantly disregarding them (examples I can think of are MIL going to her sister's on Xmas Eve for a few drinks in her garden / my brother and his wife popping in on my dad and sister for a drink - again in garden - on Xmas day. I also know someone who had their parents and inlaws come to them before tier 4 rules were in place but they are now going to have to stay friend has the space, is in a different UK country so travelling back would be difficult and all everyone is retried

I only know one person who has blatantly flouted the rules (multiple households, all indoors for the whole of Xmas day, no SI before etc) but of course most people who did this wouldn't have highlighted that they did this?

I also embarrassingly know a family who went from Tier 4 to Tier 1 for their "holiday break" the very day we were put into tier 4. Selfish fuckers.

I am following the rules as I am on the shielded list, as is my household including two teens, we both WFH, do Click & collect and teens just go to school (and Dd goes for a walk with beat friend) most of my friends are broadly following the rules although some more loosely than others. We are in a tier 2 area.
However, my next door neighbours aren’t they are a couple and have visits from their adult son, grandson and DIL indoors several times a week, neighbours wife's brother and his wife also visit them indoors and they meet up with friends in groups of 6 and 8 walk outdoors in two’s but stop to chat as a group outside our house.
Also my sister does her own thing completely takes my mum out for coffee and scone in the car, lies that they are part of a bubble (mum lives with brother who works in a supermarket), Dsis lives with her partner and my two nieces), elder niece 18 goes out to parties at friends houses, younger niece 11 goes in friends from school’s houses and both my nieces visit my mums indoors several times a week. Sister brags about being a ‘rule breaker’. I am upset as my mum is late 70’s with underlying health issues but sis and bro think I am in the wrong for not visiting my mum. Also my mums brother visited mum and brother indoors on Christmas eve. I think its a 50-50 split up here between rule followers and rule breakers.

I've been sticking to the rules as best I can but am now isolating due to an alert from the app and looking at the timeline, if I HAD picked up Covid I could have spread it on multiple occasions in the 5 days before knowing!

I've been to the office, the doctors, the pharmacy, supermarket, cancelled plans on Xmas day but dropped some food off for a friend which could have passed it on to them. I have no symptoms but It's scared me a little tbh, that I could have spread it.

"It doesn’t. But don’t let facts get in the way"

Still counts as an "underlying condition" though. As does being overweight, having a learning difficulty etc.

Quoting underlying health condition etc often makes people think of heart disease, diabetes etc.

As for sticking to the rules, you won't be getting a jabb in the foreseeable if your under 50 and not on the priority list so I guess people figure get it over with. Catching it always seemed unavoidable for most key workers school kids etc, and it is even more so now that we have this new variant.

i've never followed them

we've been in tier 3 restrictions (or similar) since about September so no chance im doing any of it now. no one I know is

Why @Ginogineli?

Just from what I can see out the window, barely any of our neighbours are following the rules.

Three had guests for Boxing Day, two haven't been back since Christmas Eve and two had guests arrived Christmas Day and some yesterday whose cars are still there so must have stayed overnight.

Makes me wonder why we are bothering if no one else is....

Those who ignore or disregard the rules are 100% selfish. They are the reason our lives will take longer to return to normal and more people die .

Both sides of our family didn't meet up with anyone in other households on Christmas day even though we were allowed. The Monday before we chatted to my parents from their front garden which was against the rules I think.

Agree OP, it’s infuriating. The only people we know who stuck to the rules were us and my parents.

Friends, DH’s family, neighbours - some in tier 4 and some not - not just breaking the rules but then putting it all on Instagram and FB!

I think the majority are following the rules in my area-was tier 4 earlier than boxing day. But gutted to see our 'intellingent' neighbours with a house full, staying since xmas eve. Especially as their visitors are local. Luckily I think they are one of the few. That is the way it works, as long as the majority follow the rules...

Can I ask why too Ginogineli?

Do you not have anyone in your family or friends who is elderly or with an underlying condition? I'd feel terrible if I gave my Dad 91 covid. It would spread like wildfire through his supported housing complex. Or if I gave it to my friend with terminal cancer.

I do have vulnerable people I know who I choose to stay away from

But I stay away on basis I live my life pretty normally otherwise

My mates are all nhs and each one say it’s been hyped up and most who’ve died have died with and not from covid - not all obviously

Whilst I’m not denying it - I’m not a conspiracist- I don’t believe shutting down the country for a virus which most over 90s can beat!

So I live how I want and distance from vulnerable eg I haven’t seen my dad indoors for months dispite the fact I could form a bubble with him

I did have dinner with him Xmas day but we all tested the day before to reduce risk and ta a one off for now

It’s Like bubbles make you think you’re immune?! I don’t get it - most people who worry about covid also are in bubbles. 🤷‍♀️🤷‍♀️

Makes no sense. You don’t suddenly stop infections by being in bubbles

I don’t mix with vulnerables and wear masks if I’m shops etc but equally I mix with my age group indoors, allow kids to do same and dispite tier 3, I’ve eaten out every week including Boxing Day. No one I know has caught covid and as nhs all are tested weekly as am I in work.

If people looked at the data - most cases are transmissed in home - so stop mixing in your bubbles with your family and things would get better than what we are doing now

I don’t get people who worry but then say they are mixing with vulnerable indoors as part of their bubbles - it’s you guys causing the deaths not me

I wonder whether it is a little bit like a phenomenon that i observed around Brexit - that the majority of people will have a social / family group who think / act 'like them', and few will know many who think / act 'in the diametrically opposite way'. Each group then acts as an echo chamber in which it feels as if 'everyone' is dong the same.

So over Brexit, it turns out that I only know Remainers. In real life, on social media etc I only saw the Remain message, except for a couple of people that I knew more remotely from work.

Equally, there were groups of friends / family / acquaintances who only knew Brexiteers.

i think it's the same with Covid rules - each person has a 'micro climate' around them, where depending on where they live, who they know, their own age, socio-economic status etc, everyone is likely to be doing similar things. this is reinforced, and a 'group norm' appears, through the sharing of those views on social media and through RL contact.

Hence the 'everyone I know is doing.....' type posts. It is simultaneously true that everyone YOU know is doing X and that everyone someone else knows is doing Y.

It's very different for me. Everyone in my circles are following it well, small Christmas's, no staying over etc. It must vary a lot from place to place.