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Original poster

Is anyone actually going to follow the rules from spring?

999 replies

Cloudsurfing · 08/02/2021 22:01

It will have been a year since being allowed to properly see friends and family. Even in summer last year you still had to social distance so seeing family was difficult, and some areas had tighter restrictions throughout. Everyone I know is going to see family and friends from spring, regardless of what restrictions there are. I am too. The government do know that most people won’t stick to it from then, right?

Is anyone on here actually going to not see family at that point? I know Mumsnet seems to be full of people who are happy to isolate for years if need be, but are you actually going to?

OP posts:
TheKeatingFive · 09/02/2021 07:48

I'm also afraid of the emotional fallout of so many deaths etc

What are the vaccines for if not to prevent deaths?

Also if people actually engaged with the long term implications of lockdown, they’d find those pretty terrifying. It’s just that many people are in denial about those.

PracticingPerson · 09/02/2021 07:48

@StealthPolarBear

And accepting some risk? Which seems difficult for lots of people to do when it comes to covid, but other things, such as exposure to flu or driving cars are where the benefits outweigh the risks. Not for covid it seems, nothing is worthwhile.
I think those who are privy to the full.picture i.e. government and scientific advisers consider covid a systemic threat.

People are discussing it on a personal/community level but it's bigger than that.

That is why there are so many deniers too, they are too afraid even to understand the reasoning behind restrictions.

tatutata · 09/02/2021 07:49

I can't. I'd get stopped. Too many threads on this...

PracticingPerson · 09/02/2021 07:50

@TheKeatingFive

I'm also afraid of the emotional fallout of so many deaths etc

What are the vaccines for if not to prevent deaths?

Also if people actually engaged with the long term implications of lockdown, they’d find those pretty terrifying. It’s just that many people are in denial about those.

Well yes quite, which is why preventing vaccine failure is so vital, which is why we won't just go back to normal in a leap.
RedToothBrush · 09/02/2021 07:50

@StealthPolarBear

I am infuriated by the minimising being done about what these restrictions mean. You're being asked to sit on the sofa and watch tv Just do yoga at home Talk to your family on zoom Get some perspective

I am a rule follower and tbh will probably continue to be but I am irritated by the constantly shifting goalposts
Three weeks to flatten the curve
Allow the NHS to cope
By Christmas things will be better
Don't meet for Christmas, plan a family Easter instead
Get all the vulnerable vaccinated
Get all adults vaccinated
Prevent anyone getting covid ever

What are we trying to achieve? I'd assumed once the vulnerable were vaccinated, the NHS would be able to cope and restrictions would be eased while we lived alongside levels of the virus that were manageable.
Seems that's no longer the point.

Of coutse its the point. Byt the vaccination isn't a single dose. Its a long term programme like flu. We need to set up this up. We always knew that this was s strong possibility because coronaviruses are so like flu.

I'm amazed how few people clocked this tbh.

Original poster
Cloudsurfing · 09/02/2021 07:50

@StealthPolarBear

And accepting some risk? Which seems difficult for lots of people to do when it comes to covid, but other things, such as exposure to flu or driving cars are where the benefits outweigh the risks. Not for covid it seems, nothing is worthwhile.
I know it’s strange isn’t it. Like all those screaming you must follow the rules to protect the vulnerable. Did any of those people actually care about people who were vulnerable to other illnesses before covid? Who went to work with a cold because it was only a slight sniffle? When to others it would mean hospitalisation or death.
OP posts:
YanTanTethera123 · 09/02/2021 07:50

@WoodpileHouse

I am not happy to isolate OP. Just because people support the restrictions doesn't mean they enjoy them. Of course I will follow them because I am not a selfish person who puts others lives at risk. Most people who are happy to break the rules see themselves at low risk and don't care about other more vulnerable people. It's such a sad thing, like a eugenics experiment. Only the white, young and fit are worthy of consideration.
^^ totally agree. I have lost a parent without seeing them during lockdown and haven’t seen my mother, who’s in a residential home, since last spring. I still have no intention of bending or breaking the rules.
Dodododahdahdah · 09/02/2021 07:50

“But you said you might struggle to find people who would want to socialise with you, and that suggests you think your friends don't agree with you.”

No because in case you haven’t noticed. 90% of the world are holed up like the good little communists that they are. Including some of my friends.

I have never stopped seeing my sister and my 75 year old Mum. My mum has never stopped seeing her Gran kids. We have never been ill with respiratory disease, we have no history of respiratory diseases and we won’t be getting them anytime soon.
However if my mum did get some Ford of respiratory disease I’d be right there at her bedside helping her get better. You know like we have done since the dawn of time for other respiratory diseases and infectious diseases and viruses.

And if my 90 year old nan was alive, over my dead body would the family have abandoned her. We would have carried Olin as normal.

TimeForLunch · 09/02/2021 07:50

No. Other things are increasingly more important than the small risk of transmitting Covid.

TheKeatingFive · 09/02/2021 07:51

Well yes quite, which is why preventing vaccine failure is so vital, which is why we won't just go back to normal in a leap.

I don’t think anyone’s advocating ‘going back to normal in a leap’

LesLavandes · 09/02/2021 07:52

I listen to what the scientists and experts say and then I follow the rules.
Yes I will carry on following the rules as I want normal life to return when it is safe, not when I decide is the time.

Am shocked at most of your attitudes

StealthPolarBear · 09/02/2021 07:52

Yes, so two jabs this time and then preparation for next winter. I'm not sure what the point is? I get that the programme will need to be like flu, what I don't get is at what stage we'll be allowed to live our lives again. If the answer is probably never then I personally think we as a population need to discuss that and decide what level of risk we're willing to live alongside.

year5teacher · 09/02/2021 07:54

It’s not about being allowed to or not, it’s whether it’s actually safe. I haven’t seen my parents inside since March last year, even when we were allowed to. Mostly their decision but I would rather hold out than give them covid because I’m exposed to loads of people and they’re essentially shielding.

Other friends and family I’ll see if they’re happy with it but realistically most of the people I would see will only be seeing others outside if those are the rules and I’m not going to push them into something else.

Even if I was allowed to go inside at my parents’ and hug them tomorrow, I wouldn’t, because it wouldn’t be safe.

PracticingPerson · 09/02/2021 07:54

@TheKeatingFive

Well yes quite, which is why preventing vaccine failure is so vital, which is why we won't just go back to normal in a leap.

I don’t think anyone’s advocating ‘going back to normal in a leap’

People on this thread are saying quite clearly they will stop following rules when they/their relatives have been vaccinated.
CocoPark · 09/02/2021 07:55

only the white, young and fit are worthy of consideration

What an absurd, irritating comment when the young and fit have spent a year under house arrest for an illness that poses virtually no threat - and who will pick up the tab for the pandemic for years to come.

RosesAndHellebores · 09/02/2021 07:55

We have stuck to the rules and have been incredibly lucky so far in that no close friends or family have had covid. MIL is an elderly widow who lives alone and is in our support bubble so DH visits. I visited my parents within the rules in July and in October.

The rules will relax in 4 to 6 weeks and life will seem better. I expect my DC to go back to uni after Easter and that DH and I will have had our first vaccination by Easter and our parents the second.

RedToothBrush · 09/02/2021 07:55

Also we are not talking years until restrictions start to ease. It will be Easter - latest.

From the way people are talking they make it sound like far longer than that.

It won't be.

speaksofty · 09/02/2021 07:56

ts a long term programme like flu

The average age of mortality is 82.4 years not 50!
Most people under the age of seventy will be completely fine and will recover in full. We have sacrificed many months already to protect those most likely to die from this, and willingly and without a murmur of complaint. However enough is enough. We are not going to sit and wait for every last person to be vaccinated that will statistically will recover anyway! And once they are all vaccinated, a new strain comes along and we have to start again??

You can't actually be serious red

We have to learn to LIVE with this virus, we have to adapt to the new normal of life with covid. We can not carry on fighting for every last person to have all risk removed - it is not even possible! We have to accept some risk. Risk is everywhere, it is part of life.

singsingbluesilver · 09/02/2021 07:56

Yes, because I am not selfish.

StealthPolarBear · 09/02/2021 07:56

Year five teacher have you considered the likely risks of seeing your parents indoors when rates were low vs Eg motorway driving? Or all the mixing we did in previous years when other infectious diseases were at low levels but still present?
The answer may well be yes but it feels to me as though people overestimate the risks of covid and ignore pretty much all other risks.

mootymoo · 09/02/2021 07:57

My parents have been vaccinated, we should get ours by late spring (my gp seems to be trying to put everyone in group 6, they are already onto group 5 here)

Fishingforhappiness · 09/02/2021 07:57

I thought in my ripe old age i was use to death, i work with the sickest people, it was part of life.
Saturday i woke up to an email from my ceo, informing us a colleague had died. Yesterday we all stood outside and held a minutes silence. She was a nurse, a mother, a sister , a wife and a friend and a bloody good one at that. She caught covid at work doing a job she loved. Would i risk losing another friend? I love my friends and family and miss them dearly but no. I will follow restrictions until they are lifted. I feel its not only my duty to protect myself, colleagues and family... but strangers too. I would never forgove myself if i spread covid and it killed. I just think until you lose a loved one and see what weve seen, you have no idea .

year5teacher · 09/02/2021 07:58

@StealthPolarBear

Year five teacher have you considered the likely risks of seeing your parents indoors when rates were low vs Eg motorway driving? Or all the mixing we did in previous years when other infectious diseases were at low levels but still present? The answer may well be yes but it feels to me as though people overestimate the risks of covid and ignore pretty much all other risks.
When risks were low that was my parents decision rather than mine. I’m not worried at all about getting covid myself, but my parents are vulnerable and they were worried. I was happy to go along with it, and felt it would be ok as long as they were safer, but it was hard to see other people socialising properly with their families.
blinkboo · 09/02/2021 08:00

It depends. I haven't seen my family in nearly two years so I'll be going to see them in the spring for a couple of days. And I'll be seeing friends outside in the garden. If those things are in the rules, and I believe strongly they should be, then great. But I'll be doing them either way.

RedToothBrush · 09/02/2021 08:00

But the NHS is never going to turn away your child with meningitis or your friend struggling in labour so they can give oxygen to an 84 year old diabetic with Covid. The whole thing is built on triage and careful, ethical allocation of scarce resources.

Lack of ability to understand the purpose and need for disaster planning doesn't save lives... Including children's lives.

Failure to comprehend the scale of issues and the limitations of the NHS doesn't make people immortal.

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