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.

Actually I understand. I think most of us do.

I'm not saying I'm going to do that.

But I am fed up. The thought of DS's not going back after Easter which is more in the news since yesterday has really got me down.

Plus people are not adhering to the rules : Footballers having New Year's Eve parties and Jewish community community having 400 people weddings has really hacked me off, because here I am doing everything to Obey the rules and sometimes it just gets you down you just think sod this! I'm not saying I would but I'm seriously fed up right now.

And the countries that have not had as high death rates as U.K. locked down hard and everyone adhered to it

I think we're making stuff up now...

@Ilovemypantry

No one is saying there isn't a coronavirus.

It's possible to believe precautions should be taken but to disagree with the efficacy of lockdown procedures and masks.

@mufffintopandheels

People have had enough of this bull shit.

We are nearly one year into this and nothing has changed in terms of restrictions and rules.

The government have failed our country, they do not show good leadership or take ownership of their decisions.

I will wear a mask, wash my hands regularly and keep a distance.
I will not be told I can't see my own mother.

well let's hope she doesn't catch it off you.

There have been many changes in the rules and restrictions in a year.

We had UK holidays in July and Sept.

The brakes are now back on because of the new variant.

You have the nerve to criticise the government, yet you are happy to risk other people's lives with your own behaviour.

Lovely.

This will not be a popular opinion but personally these are two things I believe they ought to do to encourage compliance:

1. use a numbers based approach to lifting restrictions, and actually inform the public what these are rather than being vague about when restrictions will end. They have to be vague because they simply can't predict, but it massively affects public trust and confidence. It would be so much better if they offered straight numbers: I.e. here are what hospitilisation and case numbers must fall to before we can open up X, Y,Z, and here is the maximum they can reach before restrictions must be implemented.

2. allow every household a support bubble rather than just single parents, single people and those with a baby under a year old.

I am sure there are some hairy handed folk on this thread...

@shindiggery

Do you still have both kidneys? SELFISH!

Straw man.

Do you not think that having both kidneys is selfish? Donating a kidney to a stranger would change their life for the better, and you can function on one yourself.

I posit that asking someone to give up their own health by undergoing a lockdown to try and benefit strangers, and calling them selfish if they don't, is similar to calling someone selfish for not giving up their kidney to a stranger.

@Maze76

My point is, if you break the rules and get infected, you cannot complain about it. It’s a choice, I’m responsible for my actions and the consequences of those actions.

I know an awful lot of people who were infected despite following the rules. All most likely whilst working- in fact most of them know this for sure due to the fact that their colleagues got it before them.

Only someone lucky enough to wfh who has forgotten how the real world works would think like that.

@miserableannie

My twins are turning 1 next week. We are having a tea party and every member of our family and our friends are all invited. It's their choice then if they want to break the rules and join us or not. Mostly everyone is coming. I will not be banned from hugging my family for anyone

So how will you feel if a member of your family catches Covid at your tea party and is seriously ill or dies? Many people are asymptomatic so won’t even know that they have it and are passing it on to others. Also, hope your tea party doesn’t consist of more than 15 people as you can get a hefty fine for that. Although having less than 15 people in your house doesn’t guarantee that nobody will pass on/contract the virus. This is just the type of gathering that we are being told not to have. Still, you know best.

If her own mother has been extremely sick with COVID and this still hasn't changed her mind, I very much doubt anything you do/say will make any difference tbh, Op. I sense (and share) your frustration but what can you do?

Plan A : suppress the virus, make it until a point we are all vaccinated later in the year.

Plan B: Fuck suppression, I'm off to see me mum. Let the virus mutate and spread so that current vaccines are ineffective before we even get the first dose out. Kill more people. Have longer restrictions.

Hmm.... which one should we pick? I just don't know... maybe someone with above average intelligence could advise me?

Yes I know you posit it Pappa but it is a ridiculous thing to posit and I can't even be bothered to posit why because I suspect you could work it out if you were so inclined.

@BasiliskEgg

This will not be a popular opinion but personally these are two things I believe they ought to do to encourage compliance:

1. use a numbers based approach to lifting restrictions, and actually inform the public what these are rather than being vague about when restrictions will end. They have to be vague because they simply can't predict, but it massively affects public trust and confidence. It would be so much better if they offered straight numbers: I.e. here are what hospitilisation and case numbers must fall to before we can open up X, Y,Z, and here is the maximum they can reach before restrictions must be implemented.

2. allow every household a support bubble rather than just single parents, single people and those with a baby under a year old.

@BasiliskEgg Every person can already meet 1 person outside to exercise.

Do you understand exponential risk?

If 1 person is infected, they will infect 2 others, those 2 will infect 4, those 4 will infect 8.

That is why we have around 50,000 new cases a day until lately when it's dropped slightly.

Allowing 2 households to mix would be a disaster because a) people would take the piss as they do now and make that 3 households or more (and most people on this thread seem to be mixing or saying they will anyway) b) it will increase numbers to the point where the NHS will collapse. No beds for anything, operations not happening for cancer, people dying .

If you have multiple bubbles, all linked together, that's no longer a bubble. It's a chain.

@Nellodee

Plan A : suppress the virus, make it until a point we are all vaccinated later in the year.

Plan B: Fuck suppression, I'm off to see me mum. Let the virus mutate and spread so that current vaccines are ineffective before we even get the first dose out. Kill more people. Have longer restrictions.

Hmm.... which one should we pick? I just don't know... maybe someone with above average intelligence could advise me?

I don't think there are many people here who can help you with that @Nellodee.

lol @TinyTina!

Do you understand exponential risk?

Yes I do, please don't patronise me. I understand risk, I'm fully supportive of lockdown, and I am not a rule breaker.

But I work in behavioural science and long term compliance is going to be needed. So certain allowances are going to have to be made.

I don't think there are many people here who can help you with that @Nellodee.

Ok good one

Or recognise that we are moving into a difficult time where behaviour may be strained and think about what to do. Not us particularly but no point ignoring it

If you have multiple bubbles, all linked together, that's no longer a bubble. It's a chain.

But you wouldn't. If I bubbled up with my sister, BIL and their 2 DC (for example), that would be my DH, me and my son. A bubble of seven people, none of whom go to school, none of whom visit supermarkets and all of whom work from home.

Yes you will get people who take the piss but those people are already taking the piss. You can tell just by reading MN that the tone since April has completely changed.

Japan didn’t lockdown. It didn’t test either (some of the lowest testing in the world).

The Japanese absorbed infection control into their culture after the Spanish Flu outbreak. It is the cultural norm to wear masks and socially distance etc. if you have symptoms of any illness, including the common cold. Their experience of SARs enforced that further. Mask wearing, social distancing and staying home as far as possible is universal and has been throughout the pandemic . Those who test positive are quarantined in hotels They also asked businesses to close voluntarily and that was widely respected. They also closed their borders whilst Europe holidayed. Nethertheless they have had a rise in cases and now have asked people to avoid five high risk situations, such as drinking with workplace colleagues and in university dorms. This is likely to see a high degree of compliance. They have also increased testing so that anyone with symptoms gets tested, just like here.

Japan's economy has taken a big hit with domestic consumption down 8% in the last quarter with small businesses particularly hit suggesting that like Sweden people have voluntarily locked themselves down.

Please don't try to fit another culture and country that you clearly know nothing about around your deranged thinking.

You do understand that 1% of a very large number is worse than 10% of a very small one? I lived through SARs in Asia but I do understand that though Covid kills a smaller proportion of people it is three times more infectious than flu (more with the new variant) and affects far more people as a result. ......I also there is nothing magically different about Asian people over UK people over than, having been through this before, they don't suffer from western exceptionalism....

Paapa do you have evidence for your assertion that "most would have died in 2020/21*, because I think that is bullshit.

The average age for covid deaths is pretty much bang on the same as the average life expectancy.

“I will wear a mask, wash my hands regularly and keep a distance. I will not be told I can't see my own mother.” Exactly @mufffintopandheels.

I live on my own and feel it’s much easier for families to cope with this dire situation. I’ve had enough and am breaking the “rules” because if I don’t I think I might lose my mind. Let those who have the comfort and security of having their loved ones around them criticise me - you have no idea what this is doing to people who aren’t as fortunate as you and for whom the loneliness can be unbearable.

I reckon the messaging now is part of trying to suppress as much as possible before we get to March or thereabouts

I hope at least a possible change of public mood is being considered

But @BasiliskEggs, what if they want to bubble with a parent? What about parents who have to choose which child to bubble with and can't? Spouses who insist "If we see your parents, we have to see mine too?"