The outcome of the government's terrible messaging re Xmas mixing.

[dangermouselovespeanutbutter]

I read this article this morning. It's really sad. I was so angry at the government's approach to Xmas. Indoor mixing was always going to be a huge risk. There was no way to make it safe. BoJo flipped and flopped anc just confused people.
Unfortunately there are lots of people out there, like the family in this article, who take the view that if the government say it's safe then it must be safe.
It's hard to understand how a family could go from shielding to mixing with several households in one fell swoop. But I do believe that they thought it would be ok because they'd been told that it would be (and it's interesting that his wife said she missed the updates. Not everyone reads / watches the news each day).
So so sad.

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2021/apr/06/james-mcallister-was-a-much-loved-family-man-did-the-christmas-mixing-confusion-cause-his-death?CMP=ShareiOSAppp_Other

@99victoria

We did mix for christmas day as was allowed - 2 households indoors - and none of us got covid

What is your point? I crossed the road yesterday and didn't get run over

Are we simply listing things we've done that can kill you but didn't?

Sad as it is for this family it was made abundantly clear that just because you could mix that didn't mean you should. You can't pick and choose which half of the message you hear especially when you know you're vunerable

I don't think anyone is to blame

They said it was permitted

They should never have said it was permitted. What an incredibly irresponsible thing to do.

I'm not a Tory supporter but this is blatant political point-scoring by The Guardian. I have a lot of sympathy for the woman in the article but unless you were living under a rock, it was made very clear that mixing over Christmas was eventually restricted to the one day.

We took our own responsibility for our plans over Christmas which involved tests beforehand and mixing for a few hours on the 25th. Just because Boris implied it was safe doesn't mean it was - and I don't think he did; many areas were Tier 4 at Christmas.

@longestlurkerever

This is such a bizarre attitude to take. I'm no Boris fan and was livid over the Christmas flip flopping but we can't have "there's been a Covid death, it's the Government's fault for not banning mixing". That way madness lies. Well never be free to take a calculated risk with our own safety ever again

Yes!

I know someone whose parents in their 70s saw a single person on Xmas Day who turned out to have asymptomatic COVID
They were both dead by mid Jan

I have to leave this thread. Maybe it’s easier for people to blame individuals than the government 🤷🏻‍♀️

I think some people were stupid and took foolish decisions but, quite frankly, they were encouraged to by this government.

@Iggly

I’m dismayed at the people letting the government off the hook on this one and talking about “personal responsibility” etc.

The government has absolutely and utterly cocked up the handling of covid and it’s no surprise that people have flouted the rules - because the government themselves and their advisers have openly done the same. It creates a drip drip that it’s ok to mix at Christmas, that it’s ok to travel to test your eyesight etc. This is a classic example of do what I say not what I do.

If our government had been very clear and strong on its covid messaging, then yes let’s blame individuals. But it hasn’t.

And its messaging is not easy to find. I’ve been stunned actually at how hard it has been to wade through the guidance because I don’t watch the press briefings, I don’t trust reading the summaries in newspaper websites, so prefer to find the government guidance itself.

They could have done more to get the guidance out there but haven’t. Where are the leaflets, the info booklets - not everyone has internet access and it’s a known issue for sections of the population.
Why? Because it keeps bloody changing.

When will people wake up and see how much our government has let us down

So by that reckoning if one of the governments advisors jumped off a cliff you would as well? I couldn't give a monkeys what Boris and his advisors do, Boris shook hands in a hospital at the start of the pandemic and look where it got him! I know the risks and outcomes from covid therefore I am not going to say 'oh well because they did that, I am going to do it as well' People have been giving off all year about restrictions, about how the government is controlling our lives and then next thing it seems if they don't spell everything out they are doing wrong as well. We've been in a pandemic for a year, if people can't figure out what that means by now then I'm not sure any amount of spelling out by the government will help. Just because the rules say you can do it, does not mean it safe/risk free to do it.

Politically it is such an interesting period.

The party who wanted to 'take back control' are now pushing a narrative that they have no control at all.

It will be interesting to see how voters feel as
we move through (and hopefully beyond) covid. I am very interested to see whether covid pushes the UK right or left in general.

And there are going to be so many of that's sad stories and each one a tragedy for their family and friends. As many as there are people who have died from covid, or from getting their cancer diagnosed too late, or their treatment stopped, or from partaking in a risky sport and all the myriad of reasons that people die. We have two such stories in our own family from pre-covid times. Things could have been done differently and weren't and all involved will have gone over and over in our minds how if something had been done differently in the chain of events, the outcome may have been different.
Life is like that. We can't even be completely safe of we make our lives as tiny as possible.

So by that reckoning if one of the governments advisors jumped off a cliff you would as well?

Maybe take some time to read all of my posts. Maybe my position is too nuanced for you to understand

I said that this government has a responsibility to everyone in this country - some people will follow what the government says - and really, you should be able to - take the vaccine for example.

And for that reason, the government should 100% be to blame for the mess it has created, the fact it implied it was ok to mix. The fact it has sent kids back to school when cases were rising, the fact it has completely messed up and as a result people have died.

I take issue with people using the phrase personal responsibility because it lets the government off the hook. This government has blood on its hands.

Sad as it is for this family it was made abundantly clear that just because you could mix that didn't mean you should. You can't pick and choose which half of the message you hear especially when you know you're vunerable
I have to say though, some people did only hear half of the message. They heard what they wanted to hear. My MIL wanted to have us and SIL for Xmas, she literally only heard “it’s permitted” and went Yay! So when I said nope, not gonna happen because I’m CEV, she absolutely kicked off and blocked me for ruining her Xmas, and I’m still blocked.

@Iggly

I have to leave this thread. Maybe it’s easier for people to blame individuals than the government 🤷🏻‍♀️

I think some people were stupid and took foolish decisions but, quite frankly, they were encouraged to by this government.

No one was encouraged to do anything! Don't be so ridiculous! These people (and many others like them) would have met over Christmas regardless of whether it was banned or not as they conveniently weren't going to have heard the rule changes anyway.

Everyone knew the risks. And if the didn't by December and could t find the statistics for themselves by December then they should have had family looking out for them. (Thinking those with LD etc).

Boris never actually said it's safe iirc. (And he's said some absolute bollocks through this!)

We've had the same though at school. Parents who say well send children back when Boris says it's safe. They genuinely have no idea or concept that schools are everything we as a nation are banned from doing by law. They genuinely think that as Boris has said it's safe no one will catch covid there

People can and should make personal risk assessments. I'm not suggesting they make them to ignore all the guidance but they can use local data to risk assess.

A prime example for me is I didn't go to shops like B and M or the range despite being open in January when our case numbers were 700/100k. I could see the risk of catching it was high when out and about unnecessarily.

I do use these stores and gardens centres now - and I'll be honest it's often for a browse for items I plan to buy - because we have a case rate of 16/100k and have done for 2 weeks now. All but 3 areas in a 5 mile radius of me have less than 3 cases reported and are white on the map.

I now also LFT twice weekly and not once.

I follow guidelines and don't break them. It's actually part of our school RA we are expected to. But I also use personal thought as to what is worth it within what I can do.

@Iggly Even with the vaccine though, surely you make your own decisions based on personal responsibility not just because Boris says. I spoke to people including my GP before having the vaccine, I didn't just do it because Boris said

Our government does indeed have blood on its hands. They know it themselves tbh, you can hear it in every non-answer at the press conferences - the government absolutely knows it fucked up in many obvious ways.

@Iggly

So by that reckoning if one of the governments advisors jumped off a cliff you would as well?

Maybe take some time to read all of my posts. Maybe my position is too nuanced for you to understand

I said that this government has a responsibility to everyone in this country - some people will follow what the government says - and really, you should be able to - take the vaccine for example.

And for that reason, the government should 100% be to blame for the mess it has created, the fact it implied it was ok to mix. The fact it has sent kids back to school when cases were rising, the fact it has completely messed up and as a result people have died.

I take issue with people using the phrase personal responsibility because it lets the government off the hook. This government has blood on its hands.

People don't have to blindly follow what they say! Schools have been opened since September my own children did not return because it was not safe for our circumstances. Just because Boris said it was safe and children are low risk that is not the case for our family so therefore we did what was right for our family and continued shielding. You can't go blaming the government when you break the rules (which they did) and it goes wrong for them. Would you blame them if the road was icy but you still chose to drive at the speed limit and lost control of the car....shouldn't they have implemented speed limits for icy days and warned everyone!

@beginningoftheend I am a member of the Labour party and can't stand the Conservatives. I still believe in personal responsibility.

[quote Waxonwaxoff0]@beginningoftheend I am a member of the Labour party and can't stand the Conservatives. I still believe in personal responsibility.[/quote]
It's ok, I wasn't canvassing you specifically

A prime example for me is I didn't go to shops like B and M or the range despite being open in January when our case numbers were 700/100k. I could see the risk of catching it was high when out and about unnecessarily

And I was in and out of those and DIY shops and dealing with tradespeople daily out of necessity.
I was lucky. I think we're down to 30 cases per 100,000 here but people will still be unlucky and manage to catch it. Maybe it's less of a gamble now but there will always be a risk to living.

Incredibly sad for the family, however:

1. It seems unlikely that the husband caught COVID on 23rd and was then too ill to get out of bed Xmas morning

1. The family obviously weren’t adhering to the rules anyway. They shouldn’t have travelled to the mums on Xmas day with the husband being ill - they should have isolated and got a test. Likewise, the mother shouldn’t have let them come as she was ill so also should have isolated and got a test

I just didn't want anyone to think I'm a Tory.

I do believe the government have handled things badly. But it is boring now listening to people blaming them for everything. At some point we have to look at personal decisions we make. If Boris had said no mixing over Christmas I bet loads of people would have ignored it anyway.

I spent Christmas day alone. I am 30 and perfectly healthy, but I work in a factory which is high on the list of workplaces that are exposed to Covid. I did not want to potentially pass anything on to my family members.

This makes me so cross, it is very sad but where the hell has personal responsibility gone? Even though the messaging was rubbish, they did say to minimise mixing and it only takes half a braincell between them to work out that to go from shielding to mixing with multiple households was a bad idea.

I am sorry for their loss but I don't see this being the governments fault

Yeah I’m not sure about this either, the rules were clear, and you don’t need to read mumsnet to know them. In addition just because you can doesn’t mean you should. He was shielding, so they should have made different decisions,

My husband has asthma and we didn’t mix over Xmas. We elected not to for precautionary reasons, I cannot imagine if he had been cev we would have taken the decusion they did. They need to take personal responsibility. There are plenty of other things he could have done, from sky diving to skiing and they also would have been unadvisable due to his health.

It’s very sad and I understand they want to blame someone but I don’t think they can blame the government.

@Buzzinwithbez

A prime example for me is I didn't go to shops like B and M or the range despite being open in January when our case numbers were 700/100k. I could see the risk of catching it was high when out and about unnecessarily

And I was in and out of those and DIY shops and dealing with tradespeople daily out of necessity.
I was lucky. I think we're down to 30 cases per 100,000 here but people will still be unlucky and manage to catch it. Maybe it's less of a gamble now but there will always be a risk to living.

I was already in a classroom daily with 10 people so felt that was my limit of risk.

Because I also came across other staff in corridors and transport drivers etc.

So I felt going to shops was not only another risk to me but also I was a higher risk to others because I wasn't just home or out.

@Claymorekick

So, the family somehow knew that mixing at christmas was initially allowed - via the news/internet/social media presumably. But then suddenly stopped looking at these sources of information before Christmas?

I saw a news report a few weeks ago about the family of a man who had attended the Liverpool v Real Madrid match in March 2020 and who sadly contracted covid shortly after and passed away. Again, the family were blaming the government saying they should have cancelled the match (yes they probably should) but because they didn't, his dad assumed it was safe to attend so he did. Bearing in mind this was just when things were really escalating in the UK, I certainly would have thought twice about going to a packed football stadium regardless but, again, where is the personal responsibility/risk assessment?

I remember ready the same story. It was different at the start as the messaging from the government absolutely still gave the impression that it wasn't too much to worry about, big events outside were safe, Boris was shaking hands with Covid patients . No way would I have gone to an event like that, but plenty of people were still mixing as it was allowed.

I agree that there is a huge amount of personal responsibility involved. But many people out there do struggle to understand and look to the government to guide them. How often have we heard "the schools are back so we can all mix again"? Or people on here just not getting that mixing indoors is so much more risky than mixing outdoors?