Chris Whitty in The Times today - don't meet friends and family unnecessarily

[MrsMiaWallis]

"Emergency patients will be turned away from hospitals, causing “avoidable deaths”, unless the public starts obeying the lockdown, England’s chief medical officer warns today.
In a stark intervention designed to shock, Professor Chris Whitty warns that everyone who meets friends and family unnecessarily is a “link in a chain” that threatens the lives of vulnerable people"

Worth noting. I had to pick up a prescription from my local town and was surprised to see so many people - mainly middle aged women, some of whom I know and had always seemed like rational intelligent people - walking around town and chatting on the pavements, unmasked, no social distancing.

Apologies I don't know how to do share tokens.

I don't like the "telling offs" they like to give out now and again

I am also sick of the nannying from my local council too. They're utterly rubbish anyway and then they have the cheek to go on at local people telling them to stay at home and half the time they don't even understand the rules themselves, or the difference between law and guidance.

And people are calling for tighter restrictions because the current ones aren’t working!

46 000 staff off sick with Covid in the NHS. So even if people are prepared to ‘take their chances’, the way the virus is moving is creating havoc. You might not be worried by Covid but if hospitals collapse under the strain that is a huge problem for everyone.

@Balhammomnot "....*
an unacceptable toll on those too stupid or selfish to realise they need to follow some proportionate and sensible rules."*

depends on your definition of proprtionate/acceptable though doesn't it

How many people are having to go into work because the government refuse to clarify the steps they expect employers to take to enable home working?

How many people are having to send children into school because they only have a right to request furlough for childcare reasons, but not to actually get it?

The vast, vast majority of people are complying with the law but the fact is the government don't want to finance the extra costs that would be required to get enough workers, parents and children staying at home. And I say that as someone with no kids who has been wfh since March.

@AaronPurr

Or is it because they want the guidance to be strict, but the law to be less so, so that when an MP is caught they can probably find a loophole to show that they didn’t break the law.

I think you hit the nail on the head here.

You meant the Labour MP who travelled on a train and back to Scotland when she had a positive test? And who refuses to resign.

He’s not talking about people going for a one to one walk outside is he? It’s all the people in multiple bubbles or just ignoring the rules altogether.

@MadameBlobby

This culture of the government imposing law which is less onerous than the guidance and then criticising people who are doing things they are allowed to do is really toxic.

Yes this. I find it very sinister. “Just because you can do something doesn’t mean you should” well tell people they CAN’T do it then.

^^ This too.

@JinglingHellsBells She was an SNP MP, not Labour.

@JinglingHellsBells And she’s been arrested, so it wasn’t a very good loophole.

@5zeds

I also fail to see why talking to someone at a distance outside is any risk whatsoever to anyone. if you can smell someone’s perfume you are at risk

Dh and I were out on a walk in the summer and following at least 100 yards, maybe more, behind a young couple and her perfume was UP MY NOSE the whole time. I suddenly realised just how unsafe even outdoor can be (and we changed our route). Same with smokers or vapers. Scary.

The behaviour you describe is perfectly legal and was in the first lockdown as well. The differences now are nurseries being open, a huge additional number of employers refusing to allow WFH and the meet one person for exercise rule. All of these can be managed by the government

Not socially distancing is not in the rules.

And I remember the last lockdown - noone spoke to each other in the supermarket, we did that funny little eye brow thing and a sort of nod and wave. Now everyone chats.

@Balhammom

I do not accept that the current restrictions are taking an unacceptable toll on normal people.

The situation is taking an unacceptable toll on medical staff. It is taking an unacceptable toll on those who are fighting for their lives and dying.

It is not taking anything like an unacceptable toll on those too stupid or selfish to realise they need to follow some proportionate and sensible rules.

Agreed.

Please just cut down all interpersonal contact as much as you can both for your own sake and to cut the transmission chains. The quicker we do this, the sooner this lockdown can be relaxed and (to be blunt) the fewer people will die. I recognise support bubbles are beneficial for people living alone but if you don’t live alone is it really necessary to meet a friend outside for exercise even though it is within the rules?

For all those saying “it’s safe to meet outside” or “we can’t go on living like this” or “stop scaremongering” it is very transmissible and case levels are very high now so very likely that some of those you are interacting will have it.

For context a very dear and close family member who was being super careful, getting all shopping delivered and only going out for solo walks caught Covid a few weeks ago. This can only have been on a delivery or from a single trip to the post office, masked and socially distanced. They do not deserve what they have gone through. They are on their third week in hospital and if like us you were phoned to come in as fast as we could for an end of life visit and saw the distress that this person was in, desperately gasping for each breath even on max oxygen, terrified and not ready to die, you would be less blasé. Fortunately they pulled through that crisis but they are still very ill. Maybe the odds are in your favour if you fall ill but some fraction of each age group will still die and your interaction may pass it to others. And even from a selfish perspective the more you cut unnecessary contacts the sooner you can get back to the normal life you crave.

I think media melodrama fatigue has set in - we’ve been hearing “doom” from the press since March.
This is spades.

And not just since March - for years and decades. The press are always trying to scare us some "misery" or other: remember how we were all going to die from using our mobile phones? The more the government and the media tell us "it's real, it's scary, people will die", the more they sound like the boy who cried wolf. The government and the media have totally painted themselves into a corner where they just don't have credibility any more, because of constant scaremongering and doommongering.

It's abhorrent because I'm waiting on a much needed bed and can't get one - because............ covid.

And he's blaming it on us? I haven't seen anyone in 10 fucking months. Telling me that I'm just going to die because.............. people, is abhorrent.

How about he campaigns for a better bloody health system. Cheek of him.

The idea that 90% of people complying still means that 6 Million people aren't and if they are infected they will probably infect 2 people each.

I think they ought to close takeaway coffee shops as too many people are abusing this.

You are allowed to meet 1 person outside for exercise.
Exercise is not talking and lifting a coffee cup to your mouth.

There is also gross ignorance as shown here about risk of infection outside.

The 2 mtr guide is a rough guide.

In other parts of the world they have shown the virus can spread much further if someone coughs or sneezes.

And masks, unless full, clinical PPE do not help that much- a figure of 3% less risk was quoted months back. Your average mask especially f worn under the nose as people seem to do, is useless.

@BuggerBognor

I think media melodrama fatigue has set in - we’ve been hearing “doom” from the press since March. Psychologically humans are not built for sustained peril. Many are now just thinking “whatever”. Even my DM, who would have been the first to shop a neighbor for exercising twice in LD1 , has said she thinks she’d rather pop her clogs now than live like this for much longer. I concur.

The key is it's not going to be much longer. Vaccines are being rolled out. This is a perfect storm of mid winter, hospitals heading for crisis and the new variant. The government's terrible handling is why it's as bad as it is but we need to bunker down for probably a month or two until we start to come out the other side.

[quote QuantumQuality]@JinglingHellsBells She was an SNP MP, not Labour.[/quote]
aren't the police finally investigating her? but yes agree gov stance of telling us off without taking responsibility to help people out who
could/should stay at home is ridiculous.

I can’t smell breath I can’t smell perfume I can’t smell odour. Because I am 2m apart. Because of SD rules.

It’s not hard.

It’s not a fucking police state. Yet. People should follow the rules abd stop berating those who ARE.

Where I live looks like the summer solstice at stonehenge. Nobody gives a shit about the lockdown. I could weep.

@wanderings

I think media melodrama fatigue has set in - we’ve been hearing “doom” from the press since March. This is spades.

And not just since March - for years and decades. The press are always trying to scare us some "misery" or other: remember how we were all going to die from using our mobile phones? The more the government and the media tell us "it's real, it's scary, people will die", the more they sound like the boy who cried wolf. The government and the media have totally painted themselves into a corner where they just don't have credibility any more, because of constant scaremongering and doommongering.

Is it melodrama that 80K people have died and 1K a day recently?

A good friend of mine caught it. No kids, lives alone. She'd been having shopping delivered but had gone to the supermarket a few times in the fortnight before. She absolutely MUST havr caught in in the shops despite masks.

The quicker we do this, the sooner this lockdown can be relaxed
I'll believe that when it happens, not before. I don't trust the power-hungry government to say "lockdown is working, so we must keep it going".

@MajorBumsore It’s interesting that it’s in the times because it means they probably have information suggesting the times reader demographic contains a significant proportion of rule breakers.

@MrsMiaWallis

I don't think meeting one person outside is having an impact on the infection rates

Why? Because it's something that you want to do?

For some people meeting one person outside may be their only human interaction and necessary for their mental health.

The government message is completely conflicted. On one hand they're saying "only leave the house for essential reasons" but lots of 'non essential' shops are open for click and collect. How on earth are you supposed to collect non essentials without leaving home? And some people will be getting on public transport to do that.

The situation is critical, but the government messaging is farcical.