Friend saying she’s ignoring lock down from the end of the month.

[Covidcovid]

She’s always being very anti lockdown, citing mental health issues, etc and has just said from next week that’s it. She will do what she wants and take any fines.

I assume she just means visiting family because it’s not like she can go out for lunch or shopping. 🤷‍♀️

But I don’t understand her, she’s an intelligent person and an ex nurse. Her mum is currently very unwell in hospital with covid but she posted the other day that her mum has turned a corner and should hopefully be home soon. So surely she should see if it wasn’t for lockdown then there’s a risk people like her mum may not have got the treatment they needed because the hospitals would have likely being overwhelmed?

If it was me I’d be thankful there had been a lockdown because it wouldn’t have taken much more the way things were going for hospitals to not be able to,offer the current level of care......and in ICU even that isn’t optimal care with stretched ratios.

I stick to rules but it seems harder and harder and we can only now meet one person for exercise , I found it easier when could go meet mum and dad or couple people and I must admit if it stays as it is until mid march Im worried.
I thought yesterday when I dropped something of to my parents I hadn't seen my dad for weeks and anything could happen and I have lost all this time.
I see others with whole families shopping , single friends and others with childcare bubbles meeting up with others and pushing the bubbles and seems unfair .
I no its for the greater good but feel be easier of we at least had a date when we could meet up outdoors again , anything really.
Plus my dh has to go to work in peoples home so we can be at risk then but I can't take those same precautions and visit my parents

@Thewinterofdiscontent schools - for the majority of pupils- have not been open for most of this. We're in Scotland and DS14 has had one term in school since last March, and ai believe that's the same for most DCs of non key workers. He's unlikely to be back this term, so off 2 out of 3 terms.

Look I don't disobey the rules - although I'd be surprised if teen DS was genuinely only meeting one pal outside- but this minimisation of the impact on our DCs is insulting.

Me following the rules will not make a blind bit of difference to schools reopening. It requires a collective effort that I have no control over.

Hard of thinking.

'Me following the rules will not make a blind bit of difference to schools reopening. It requires a collective effort that I have no control over.'

'Pehaps consider, that if nobody made that excuse it would make a difference. As you say it requires a collective response and if you are one of the people reducing the response you are part of the problem.'

It's astonishing isn't it. As if it were just one hapless person not 'following the rules', but no, this thread and others are full of them. They just cannot see that their 'collective effort ' is keeping us in this shite situation.

Stay at home unless you're in a support bubble or for essential stuff. Not easy no, but life often isn't so do step up fgs.

@Thewiseoneincognito

JovialNickname

If I did die of Covid (which is vanishingly unlikely as I'm a healthy 40-something) my overwhelming regret and horror would be "and I spent the last year of my life like THIS?" If I'm going to die at least let me have lived first.

@JovialNickname off you go to bars pubs restaurants theatres cinemas shopping centres. Enjoy yourself. Live you life! Oh wait...🤭

Why do you think me wanting to live means partying, going to bars and shopping? That's not what I mean.... what I want is human connection with people. To go to my life-saving AA meetings (they can be accessed online but it doesn't work for me) To feel like my life has a purpose. That's what I'm saying. How shallow you are if you think that wanting more than an existence means wanting to go to a party.

I do want to party, and go to bars and restaurants and galleries and gigs and cities and football matches and festivals.

And I’m quite old.

And I want us and our children to live life, not vainly live just trying to not die.

@GetOffYourHighHorse in Scotland we're allowed to meet one other person outside for exercise- not sure about England - so I'll be meeting my neighbour for a socially distanced walk, regardless of your instructions.
This has been going on for a very long time now, you feel free to follow your own diktat, but meeting a friend outside lifts my spirits immeasurably and carries only a tiny risk of transmission.

Everyone is fed up and feeling at the end of our tethers.

The decent people dig deep and do the best for society and keep sticking to being sensible, the selfish people with no common decency will put us at risk for even more prolonged lockdowns and restrictions, prolonging the disaster and devastation to our economy.

Seems your friend may he wavering.

@JovialNickname your initial post did not allude to wanting to LIVE in the sense of physically attending AA meetings.

I apologise. I hope you can stay sober with the online help.

There’s a very wise saying that goes along the lines that living isn’t just not being dead. More and more people are recognising the truth of that now.

@TinyTinaTriesAgain

But the thing is we've been told for almost a year now if we follow the rules then we'll be out of this mess quicker. But that doesn't seem to be the case - Boris intimated just last week that these restrictions could go on until the summer. People are fed up of this government's incompetence and lies so I don't blame people for having enough.

@CeibaTree Has the idea that people NOT following the rules being the reason not come into your head?

I usually keep of this part of MN as it annoys the hell out of me.

I am totally sick of posters saying they ARE breaking the rules (as shown here today) OR they are going to, OR they know people who are.

Then folks like you come along and ask why lockdown isn't working.

It's not working because too many selfish people are ignoring the rules.

I don't care if those people who break the rules die.

I do care about people like me who have followed the rules to the letter and who have elderly parents who I can't see, and won't see in case I am asymptomatic and they die because of my actions.

I do care about people dying from cancer because they can't get operations as the drs are looking after people with Covid or there are now beds.

I do despair that people can't dig dep enough into their own emotional resources to stick to the rules and protect the rest of society.

I've been following the rules if you must know I was just discussing why people are fed up - it's called empathy. So please get off your high horse, no one needs to hear your vitriol, why would they?

@Paapa

You know that currently ICU have 28,30 year olds on life support with no previous medical conditions and healthy right?

People are really bad at numbers. This seems 'big' to most people, so seems and like it justifies everything.

That number is big for the people going through it, and their families, or course.
Statistically though, it's tiny. And no, saying that does not make me heartless, no matter how much of your uncontrolled emotion you want to project onto me.

I'm sure that it's a big deal for the 6000 people per year who are injured badly enough to make the statistics for injuries that occurred by putting on trousers....

^
exactly.

[quote MrsBennettsSecretSon]@SoupDragon calling people with anxiety, panic attacks and depression “selfish whiners” is unkind and cruel

When did your empathy evaporate like this? Why kick people when they are down?

Does it make you feel better to be unkind?[/quote]
Soup Dragon has been here nigh twenty years, she has never been any different, a pandemic will not change her behaviour.

'in Scotland we're allowed to meet one other person outside for exercise- not sure about England - so I'll be meeting my neighbour for a socially distanced walk, regardless of your instructions'

Same here I'll meet my neighbour for a dog walk. It isn't my instructions people need to follow it's the Government's as there is a public health crisis y'see. HTH.

@WouldBeGood

I do want to party, and go to bars and restaurants and galleries and gigs and cities and football matches and festivals.

And I’m quite old.

And I want us and our children to live life, not vainly live just trying to not die.

Well said.

@JovialNickname, are there no real life meetings near you? Someone I know is still managing one a week. I really hope you’re getting some of the support you need. And hats off to you for staying sober throughout this. It’s bloody tough. 💐

Just report her if she starts ignoring the rules.

[quote rookiemere]@Thewinterofdiscontent schools - for the majority of pupils- have not been open for most of this. We're in Scotland and DS14 has had one term in school since last March, and ai believe that's the same for most DCs of non key workers. He's unlikely to be back this term, so off 2 out of 3 terms.

Look I don't disobey the rules - although I'd be surprised if teen DS was genuinely only meeting one pal outside- but this minimisation of the impact on our DCs is insulting. [/quote]
It's is indeed insulting. And the statement that lockdown was greatly eased in the summer is not true for us (Leicester).

As is the statement that it is the parents' fault if a young person hasn't socialised much this years. Do the parents of 16yo organise their social life?

I'm glad the adults responsible for caring for and educating my DC have a decent and compassionate understanding of the issues they are facing and don't blindly blame them on parents, dysfunctional families or deprivation.

@GetOffYourHighHorse

'I'm sick and fucking tired about selfish selfish selfish. People are selfish. It's human nature. It's unnatural to care about strangers more than your own kids. '

Oh so all your family and friends are magically immune!! Wtf. You do realise anyone of them could get it and require critical care but as resources are ridiculously stretched your loved ones may well not get the care they need because of selfish arseholes. Yep that inconvenient word selfish again. If the cap fits and all that..

Erm, what?

I don’t know how you can give a cut off date . I mean today I’m fine but tomorrow I may not be .
Also to break lockdown that means mixing with households and to do that she’ll have to get others to break lockdown. So unless they have also said the same I’m not sure how ? .

Apart from socialising with other people, what other rules can anyone break? I can’t send my kid to school even if I wanted to, I can’t work, my employer is banned from
trading, I can’t go out shopping except to a supermarket, can’t go out to eat, can’t go to a pub, can’t go in to any sort of leisure activity, can’t go on holiday, can’t get a hair cut. 🤷‍♀️

Once people’s family have been vaccinated/recovered from a bout of covid and therefore they can assume decent immunity, they will not care.

@Paddingtonthebear

Apart from socialising with other people, what other rules can anyone break? I can’t send my kid to school even if I wanted to, I can’t work, my employer is banned from trading, I can’t go out shopping except to a supermarket, can’t go out to eat, can’t go to a pub, can’t go in to any sort of leisure activity, can’t go on holiday, can’t get a hair cut. 🤷‍♀️

That's a pretty massive 'apart from'!

So now her family has had it and is alright she's ok with passing it on to everyone else?

@Thewinterofdiscontent

Actually for many areas lockdown wasn’t lifted. I think where I live we’ve had a total of 4 weeks without lockdown or additional measures that banned mixing, since last March.

Funnily enough where I live is also a highly diverse and socioeconomically disadvantaged part of the country.

Let me tell you- the kids will NOT automatically be alright.

My four year old- who is at private forest school/ nursery 4 days a week, and sees his grandmother weekly, as she’s our bubble- cried for an hour this morning over a series of trivial things. His socks weren’t comfy. His black t shirt was in the wash. The sun hasn’t come out today. I “hurt his feelings” by asking him to go and brush his teeth properly.

I was irritated, increasingly so, and slightly snappily asked “what’s going on? What’s really upsetting you?”

You know what he said?

“ I want everything how it used to be”. And then he listed all the ways he was hacked off- and guess what? They were no different to the things all of the adults on this thread listed, at their heart. He misses seeing his wider family. He’s sick of the same walks. He hates the mask I ask him to wear in busy shops. He wants to go to the seaside, or to his cousins house. He wants to go swimming. He’s bored. He misses the library. And gymnastics class. And seeing his aunties dogs.

They sound minimal, like first world problems - but for a kid, with small worlds and limited life experience? These are WHOLE world problems.

My DS is a kid who has been shielded from the news, who is socialising at nursery, has enough to eat and a warm home, toys and books and daily country walks at weekends... and HE is absolutely at the end of his tether.

I dread to think how the many many less fortunate kids than mine are doing. The sort of kids that me and my sister were 30 years ago... so I can well imagine, but try hard not to.

Your blasé attitude shows nothing but your relative privilege.