If you bend the rules people will die

[Miarara]

How is this an advert played on the radio all day???!!!

I'm really concerned about the messages kids are hearing about covid and the long term affect this is going to have on their mental health.

I already have a friend who's 5 year old is showing OCD behaviours - thinks a fork must be washed if it touches the table, wants to wash her hands again if she's touched the table, won't eat food if it's touched her hair, parents fork etc.

The strength of the government messages I think is so inappropriate at times. You don't have the option of shielding kids from it, my friend said this behaviour started when she went back to school after 1st lockdown as they were constantly told about things needing to be clean. I've been listening to smooth fm this afternoon, I don't normally listen to the radio, every 20 minutes a government advert about the covid rules that ends in. If you bend the rules people will die this is allday. Being drummed into people with health anxiety and to kids. Surely this messaging could be really damaging to vulnerable people and is irresponsible. Telling 5 year olds if someone bends the rules people will die seems really inappropriate.

@Baxer

It’s up to us parents to shield our children from it.

I never have the news on or watch any press conferences, I just read up on what’s happening once dd is in bed.

I don’t listen to live music either because again I want to avoid any new or adverts.

Dd is 11 and isn’t allowed to use the internet without me being there either.

Obviously she might hear bits from her friends but because she has been shielded from most of it she quickly brushes it off.

Well that works if we only care about our own children.

I'm worried about the whole generation of children of early years/primary age. I agree there should be a watershed for these ads, and that Asda billboard sounds horrific.

I haven’t seen this apart from once on fb- the hell fire and brimstone “people will die” one. I don’t see the point of them. Joe public are beginning to put themselves first, prioritising random “people” is not on most people’s radar any more.

It has no affect on me whatsoever. If it’s so important that we follow these rules, why put DH in a classroom less than 1m from the front row of 17 year olds with no PPE or covid secure measures? Can’t be that critical then can it 🙄 And why put these notices in Asda? If I avoid shopping and starve, does that help the nhs?

I find it as contradictory and ridiculous as the advice I got from the RAC at the beginning of this. Apparently it’s against the rules to drive alone to keep your car maintained and roadworthy and stop the brakes seizing up. It’s a far better idea to physically push the car up and down the drive. Which with my health would be a fast track route to A&E. How this is protecting the NHS is a complete mystery.

Seems OTT to me, but getting children to be more aware of hygiene & get them dirty little buggers to wash their hands more often is not a bad thing.

I put a CD on n the car now instead of the radio, luckily my kids school and nursery just wash hands on arrival (which is nee since covid) and that seems to be the only change so they are none the wiser. My son asked to stroke someone’s dog who said no because of covid- he didn’t ask what it meant but accepted the no and moved on.

Same, I’ve turned the radio off,
Can’t fucking do anything without being reminded of covid. Me and the kids usually listen/dance to Capital, but can’t be arsed to listen to

YOU WILL DIE messages every bastard ten minutes.

@WalrusWife

Shouting “fuck off” at the adverts is therapeutic!

DH and I have taken to shouting this and other inappropriate things at the adverts, news and any statistics.

Makes us feel slightly better

I feel pretty oblivious to it now, it's like background noise. I'm actually fairly engaged with the data etc and follow the briefings so if I've switched off to this sort of messaging then I suspect a lot of others have too.

I generally do my best to follow the rules but I will drive for half an hour or so to take the DC somewhere we haven't been for a while to keep the constant, monotonous outdoor play a bit more interesting and to be honest if I want to pop into the co op for some chocolate then I will. The vast majority are just trying their best to get through now.

My DC are young and so far seem fairly oblivious, I try and keep it away from them as much as I possibly can but it's not easy, it's everywhere.

The thing is, kids have very little control over risk anyway. They hear or see these terrifying ads, and then their parents send them into school, where they know they're not safe and they know they can't distance. Or they have to go to the supermarket or the hospital. None of it is by their choice, and they're unlikely to feel able to communicate that they're scared to go.

It’s ridiculous op - we need sensible messages, they should not be saying “people will die”

We are heading for a huge mental health crisis in this country.

@WorraLiberty

Telling 5 year olds if someone bends the rules people will die seems really inappropriate.

Smooth FM isn't aimed at 5 year olds though.

If the adverts are distressing, it's the parents responsibility to turn it off.

BBC radio no intense adverts

They are trying to be explicit with the messaging because of people thinking to themselves “if I just bend the rule a little bit, it’s a stupid rule, what’s the harm?” - the harm is that many people are spreading it because they have it and don’t realise, and people are dying as a result. It may sound harsh but the advert is actually pretty factual. The government will have weighed up the harm from people’s anxiety vs the harm from not running a hardline comms campaign and decided the latter is worse.

You can hardly blame the rules for your friend’s child’s behaviour which doesn’t relate to the rules at all

It’s not even true though. If you have covid & you bend the rules & as a result you end up in close enough contact with people to pass on the virus & one of them is unlucky enough to be one of the relatively small proportion of people who become critically ill (&/or one of them infects someone else who falls into that category) & none of the treatments work/there are no beds available then people will die.
If any of those aren’t true then people won’t die and what you’ve done won’t make a difference. I’m not suggesting people therefore shouldn’t follow the rules because of course all those things could happen and will happen in some cases but surely most people hearing it who haven’t been following the rules will just not believe it as their personal experience to date has been that it’s not true.

@WalrusWife

Shouting “fuck off” at the adverts is therapeutic!

Haha i do this, out loud when on my own, in my head if kids are there. It is definitely therapeutic!

I agree that radio stations often aren’t appropriate to be playing in front of children.

Realistically though, if everyone stayed at home and didn’t go out, cases wouldn’t be as high as they are and not as many people would have died. Lockdown fatigue has well and truly settled in and many people are bending the rules (including government members) which is still having a detrimental impact. It sounds like the only thing left is the shock value in the hope it works. I’m guessing it’s the radio advert equivalent of the pictures they put on cigarette packets that show the damage smoking causes. Although I’m not convinced they ever worked for smokers and I don’t think many people who bend the rules think it applies to them or cares about the potential consequences.

I've not heard it but it sounds horrific. I was a bereaved child and because no other children I knew had dead parents, I thought it was my fault. I now know that it's unusual for bereaved children to think like that and I can only imagine the effect such an advert could have on children who have lost someone close.

Radio is a very good way to reach people who aren't widely read and is a great medium to encourage people to follow the rules. But not like this.

Yeah, those hell fire posters are plastered all around our borough! It is a little OTT.

DH is a teacher and queries the point of all the handwashing. As he says, they queue up, wash, and then go and splat their hands all over something germy!

@Baxer and @BonnieDundee I've caught it despite following the rules too. Plenty of people in the places I went (supermarket, hospital) were not wearing masks though. :(

@SnowFields

I agree that radio stations often aren’t appropriate to be playing in front of children.

Realistically though, if everyone stayed at home and didn’t go out, cases wouldn’t be as high as they are and not as many people would have died. Lockdown fatigue has well and truly settled in and many people are bending the rules (including government members) which is still having a detrimental impact. It sounds like the only thing left is the shock value in the hope it works. I’m guessing it’s the radio advert equivalent of the pictures they put on cigarette packets that show the damage smoking causes. Although I’m not convinced they ever worked for smokers and I don’t think many people who bend the rules think it applies to them or cares about the potential consequences.

Both DH and I used to smoke. When they put those icky pictures all over the packs we were both a bit like, "yeurgh, OMG" for about a week. It wore off quite quickly.

I did genuinely hear a bloke once at the checkout counter, having been given the "smoking causes impotence" packet, requesting "would you mind giving me cancer or heart disease instead?"

I used to hate my little kids listening to the radio. I kept asking my oh to turn it off, mostly news tbh.

Basically it's not in a kids best interests to have this stuff on. Mad as it seems to many.

I don't see the problem. It's up to parents to provide age appropriate information to their children.

I've ensured my child knows the importance of following the rules to keep more vulnerable people safe. She isn't scared or overwhelmed.

I’m honestly got no time for the blame game.
People have to go to work, travel on public transport, put their kids in school, care for family and neighbours, go to the doctors ... all of which can kill people.

But that’s not as catchy is it?

You can just turn off the radio, and you aren't meant to be taking kids to Asda (where another pp saw it) anyway. I'm hardly a screen-free saint, but despite my many many hours dicking about online, watching BBC iPlayer, 4oD and Netflix, I'm yet to see or hear this message.

I have never heard those messages and I have the radio on all day.

@PregnantGotCovid

I don't see the problem. It's up to parents to provide age appropriate information to their children.

I've ensured my child knows the importance of following the rules to keep more vulnerable people safe. She isn't scared or overwhelmed.

You can't really stop them from seeing a whopping massive great billboard though?

And actually, I didn't need to "ensured my children know the importance of following the rules to keep more vulnerable people safe". They have enough common sense to figure it out! However, I'd rather that they didn't feel that they were murderers for going outside occasionally and breathing.

I'm used to having the radio on in the background of the car when I'm driving I noticed a real turn in the tone of the adverts very doom gloom and people are dying it made him curl up in a ball im now using Spotify in the car ive just sorted a clean playlist for him (he is only 8) so I will be playing that in future