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Deaths everywhere, yet we are still going to work this morning. Why?

532 replies

TwirpingBird · 21/01/2021 06:56

I am sitting here watching BBC breakfast with another harrowing video of ITU nurses at breaking point, ambulances lined up outside, 1800 dead yesterday, and headlines of 'lockdown isnt working', 'people arent complying' blah blah blah. Its all 'you need to follow the rules, you need to stay at home. I am seething.

My husband is leaving for work in an hour where he will enter 5 houses today to do completely non essential work because the government deem him a 'key worker'. My best friend will go to work in her office in a interior design company because she is a 'key worker'. Her husband will go to work giving quotes for kitchens in people's houses because his boss deems him a 'key worker'. None of my friends are on furlough. We are all seeing nobody outside of work. We are all sticking to the 'rules'. But how could we possibly expect the rules to work when everyone is still getting in their cars this morning?

I am raging angry. I am SICK and TIRED of being told 'follow the rules'. WE ARE!!! The rules make no bloody sense. And people are still dropping like flies, and experts are saying the lockdown isnt working, and the public are still being tarred as 'lacking empathy' because we are killing people. We are going to work! Kids are still in school! And then we come home and we do what we can but its never going to be enough. I am starting to wonder why I am bothering to hide myself away, managing a 2 year old and a newborn alone 5 days a week, naively thinking I am helping to manage transmission, when in reality its not helping at all because people are still at work.

OP posts:
PinkSparklyPussyCat · 21/01/2021 20:40

Other countries have done it. The UK never will as everyone is so entitled

There's nothing 'entitled' about wanting to keep a roof over your head FFS!

I really don't understand why people are apparently missing their mortgage payments to put money in a pot, surely they are risking their own homes. I'm lucky, I don't have a mortgage (and no, I'm not paying someone else's 'for the greater good'!) but if I did that would be paid first and if I could spare anything after then I would donate.

AmoElCafe · 21/01/2021 20:41

If wanting to feed my kids makes me ‘entitled’ then damn right I’m entitled.

MarshaBradyo · 21/01/2021 20:42

Other countries have done it. The UK never will as everyone is so entitled

Ridiculous
Completely over people talking about ‘entitled’ U.K.

Angrymum22 · 21/01/2021 20:56

Much easier to get people to stay at home when there’s an early summer and heat wave Apr-Jun. Nothing to stay at home for in cold miserable Jan-Feb.
I’m frontline healthcare and I can’t believe how many people, particularly elderly and vulnerable are attending non essential appointments at the moment. We are having to cancel many in order to deal with urgent and routine treatment that needs to be done.
It demonstrates how bad people are at self risk assessment. I was checking a patients notes this morning to see why they had cancelled an appointment for treatment, I was delighted to see that their son had contacted us to say he didn’t want her to attend while infection rates were so high.
If more people were tougher with elderly parents we wouldn’t be seeing such high death rates.

PinkSparklyPussyCat · 21/01/2021 20:58

If more people were tougher with elderly parents we wouldn’t be seeing such high death rates.

Elderly people can make their own decisions without people being 'tougher' with them. My uncle is 85, good luck to anyone trying to tell him what to do!

rowmaccerd · 21/01/2021 21:08

@PinkSparklyPussyCat

If more people were tougher with elderly parents we wouldn’t be seeing such high death rates.

Elderly people can make their own decisions without people being 'tougher' with them. My uncle is 85, good luck to anyone trying to tell him what to do!

And there is the issue.

People who wont be told what to do are dragging this out for everyone else

TheKeatingFive · 21/01/2021 21:12

If more people were tougher with elderly parents we wouldn’t be seeing such high death rates.

What does this even mean?

They aren’t children. In what sense should we be ‘tougher’?

PinkSparklyPussyCat · 21/01/2021 21:15

People who wont be told what to do are dragging this out for everyone else

Elderly people aren't children who have to be told what to do. Maybe we should lock those pesky pensioners in their homes so they don't 'drag this out' any longer Confused

rowmaccerd · 21/01/2021 21:16

@TheKeatingFive

If more people were tougher with elderly parents we wouldn’t be seeing such high death rates.

What does this even mean?

They aren’t children. In what sense should we be ‘tougher’?

Noone in their 80s has any real.reason to leave rhebhoise more than once a week. Same as anyone who isnt a key worker.

More people at home, less virus, less people ill, less people in hospital, less time this goes on for.

PinkSparklyPussyCat · 21/01/2021 21:19

Have you ever thought that maybe some over 80s are still doing their own shopping, that maybe it does them good to go for a walk rather than sitting indoors all the time. Probably not.

Vintagevixen · 21/01/2021 21:21

My parents who are in their 80's are out every day going to the supermarket, walking in the park and yes have been to a few hospital appointments.

Having already lived through swine flu, the flu epidemics of the 1960's, the flu seasons of 2000 and 2018, high TB levels, polio and so much more I think they have more perspective and I applaud them for keeping a sense of proportion.

My dad is 86 - he doesn't want to spend the last years of his life locked up in his house and I don't blame him.

AmoElCafe · 21/01/2021 21:22

My 88 year old grandmother leaves her house every day for a walk. If she didn’t, she’d lose what mobility she has left. And once you lose it at that age, you don’t get it back.

AmoElCafe · 21/01/2021 21:26

And I wouldn’t even try to ‘tell her’ what to do, just as I wouldn’t tell my husband what to do, or one or my friends. She’s an adult.

TheKeatingFive · 21/01/2021 21:27

Noone in their 80s has any real.reason to leave rhebhoise more than once a week. Same as anyone who isnt a key worker.

But those who aren’t in their 80s get to make their own decisions according to you? The infantilising of this age group is appalling.

My elderly parents know they don’t have a huge amount of time left. They don’t want to spend that limited time basically under house arrest. Who could blame them?

MiniTheMinx · 21/01/2021 21:28

@Angrymum22

Much easier to get people to stay at home when there’s an early summer and heat wave Apr-Jun. Nothing to stay at home for in cold miserable Jan-Feb. I’m frontline healthcare and I can’t believe how many people, particularly elderly and vulnerable are attending non essential appointments at the moment. We are having to cancel many in order to deal with urgent and routine treatment that needs to be done. It demonstrates how bad people are at self risk assessment. I was checking a patients notes this morning to see why they had cancelled an appointment for treatment, I was delighted to see that their son had contacted us to say he didn’t want her to attend while infection rates were so high. If more people were tougher with elderly parents we wouldn’t be seeing such high death rates.
They are also bored. I can well believe it.

But how exactly should we get tougher with elderly people?

nether · 21/01/2021 21:28

Even the shielded are permitted daily outdoors exercise this lockdown

So no reason why age (not a criterion for shielding) should be a bar

rowmaccerd · 21/01/2021 21:30

Fair enough. I am an advocate of short sharp lockdowns. We just had one here.

My mum is 84, she lives on her own, and so by the law of the land here she hasn't been allowed out or anyone else into her house for nearly 3 weeks. She is normally out multiple times a day.

She didn't like it but she did it.

Our lockdown ends in just over a week and we are completely back to normal.

I like the way we do it. You all.like being able to wander about and having the virus run wild and kill thousands of people.

Fair enough

AmoElCafe · 21/01/2021 21:31

I was delighted to see that their son had contacted us to say he didn’t want her to attend while infection rates were so high

Surely people aren’t allowed to cancel medical appointment for other people because they don’t want them to attend?? My grandmother, an ex nurse of 40 years, would hit the roof if someone cancelled a medical appointment on her behalf. Is it even legal?

MiniTheMinx · 21/01/2021 21:33

My elderly parents know they don’t have a huge amount of time left. They don’t want to spend that limited time basically under house arrest. Who could blame them? I don't want my children to spend time under house arrest, I don't want to either. None of us do, and yet here we are trying to protect the elderly and vulnerable and many of in exactly that position......or at least virtually under house arrest because we are heeding the message "Stay home and save lives" but its not our lives we are protecting. The elderly too have a moral obligation to society and to do the right thing, and if they are slow to assimilate this, or need it spelt out then, yes maybe it needs spelling out? That is not infantilising, that is quite the opposite and treating them the same as any other adult member of society.

TheKeatingFive · 21/01/2021 21:33

My mum is 84, she lives on her own, and so by the law of the land here she hasn't been allowed out or anyone else into her house for nearly 3 weeks

Well there’s your answer. Lots of people in the U.K. have been under restrictions for a lot of the last 10 and a half months. How would your mother feel about staying in her house, seeing no one, for that kind of timeframe?

AmoElCafe · 21/01/2021 21:34

Over 80’s can lose mobility very quickly. My grandmothers daily walks allow her to retain her mobility, with very minimal risk.

PinkSparklyPussyCat · 21/01/2021 21:35

But some of the elderly have no choice but to go out shopping or to appointments! And why shouldn't they go for a walk? Far better to do that than lose their mobility.

TheKeatingFive · 21/01/2021 21:36

The elderly too have a moral obligation to society and to do the right thing, and if they are slow to assimilate this, or need it spelt out then, yes maybe it needs spelling out?

How? Shall we get the welders in?

You miss the point that many in this age group do not actually want society to be locked down to ‘protect’ them.

Prolonging an isolated, joyless, lonely existence for the sake of it isn’t worth it in their eyes.

Redrivershore · 21/01/2021 21:37

@rowmaccerd

Fair enough. I am an advocate of short sharp lockdowns. We just had one here.

My mum is 84, she lives on her own, and so by the law of the land here she hasn't been allowed out or anyone else into her house for nearly 3 weeks. She is normally out multiple times a day.

She didn't like it but she did it.

Our lockdown ends in just over a week and we are completely back to normal.

I like the way we do it. You all.like being able to wander about and having the virus run wild and kill thousands of people.

Fair enough

Since you are happy with your lockdown and not in the UK anyway, I can't understand why you are on this thread, just trot off and enjoy your way of doing things
AmoElCafe · 21/01/2021 21:38

Since you are happy with your lockdown and not in the UK anyway, I can't understand why you are on this thread, just trot off and enjoy your way of doing things

She can’t, she needs to tell us how entitled we are.