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

I do agree that the government behaved very irresponsibly over Christmas, and I'm very sorry if that contributed to this poor family's loss.

However, I was surprised that so many people decided to mix when it so obviously wasn't safe, and I really can't understand how a shielding family could have reached that conclusion that it was sensible. We were very clear as a family that it wasn't worth the risk, whatever the government did or didn't say, and we had separate Christmases for the first time in decades.

I can only assume that people were so eager to see their families and have a bit of normality over Christmas that they chose to believe the government advice even when common sense very clearly dictated otherwise. It's very sad that so many people lost loved ones as a result.

I also tend to listen to the medical/scientists at the press briefings rather than Boris’ waffle. They made it clear that household mixing was risky, not risk free.

@Paquerette no the Christmas bubble plan was not announced as early as October the 3 household, 5 day indoor mixing plan was announced on 25th November - when the country was still in national lockdown (albeit with schools open!) which makes it all the more reckless as official policy!

www.google.co.uk/amp/s/www.bbc.com/news/amp/uk-55064962

And Wales & Scotland acted faster to change the Christmas mixing plans in light of the worsening situation:
news.sky.com/story/covid-19-wales-to-move-to-alert-level-4-smaller-christmas-is-a-safer-christmas-12164168

@AlexaShutUp

I do agree that the government behaved very irresponsibly over Christmas, and I'm very sorry if that contributed to this poor family's loss.

However, I was surprised that so many people decided to mix when it so obviously wasn't safe, and I really can't understand how a shielding family could have reached that conclusion that it was sensible. We were very clear as a family that it wasn't worth the risk, whatever the government did or didn't say, and we had separate Christmases for the first time in decades.

I can only assume that people were so eager to see their families and have a bit of normality over Christmas that they chose to believe the government advice even when common sense very clearly dictated otherwise. It's very sad that so many people lost loved ones as a result.

I'm not in the UK, but just to say, we did similar. Risk assessed, was it sensible to visit (in our case) elderly parents who had been cocooning. And decided it wasn't worth the risk to their health, after being careful all year.

Yes, it made for an unusual Christmas all around, but it was the correct decision, for us, regardless of guidelines/ advice from our government.

We mixed 2 households and possibly would have regardless as we knew it was my DMs last Christmas. She died 10 days later. No one got COVID as we had all been being really careful. My DMs cancer had returned and due to covid hadn't had her check up so it was missed until it was too late.

What has pissed me off more than anything is that there is (apparently) no other illnesses or diseases other than covid. At what point will it stop being the first item on the news and the 3 min spiel you have to listen to when trying to get through to your GP or 111?

@Waxonwaxoff0

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.

I have marked you on my sheet (joking) as 'not a tory'

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.

When I read this I think though that the PM should have taken his share of personal responsibility for leading and simply told the truth, not say what he thinks the tabloids want to hear. The government say 'don't smoke' but we can still exercise personal responsibility to ignore. With covid, the fact our PM is a lying idiot has made things much more problematic for ordinary people.

I'm drained with trying to interpret their bullshit. They change direction all the time. They swing from over confidence to panic. It is so wearing!

We could perhaps begin to think of forgiving the Prime Minister if that had been the only instance of late or mistaken decisions. But other than the vaccine procurement and the Nightingale hospitals, every other decision by the Prime Minister has been late or wrong. I still maintain my view that had another one of those who stood for leadership of the Tories been chosen (Michael Gove, Jeremy Hunt as examples), even without avoidable deaths at Christmas, over 10,000 fewer people in the UK would have died from the virus.

My DMs cancer had returned and due to covid hadn't had her check up so it was missed until it was too late

That is absolutely shocking. So sorry for your loss

@fizbosshoes

It’s very sad, but are we going to gloss over the fact that when they met and started dating she was 16 and he was 29. I couldn’t read anymore after that.

I couldnt see why that was included tbh, it had no relevance to the story.

Bit like the Times report about that two week old baby who was killed by the drunk driver who mounted the pavement. The parents were 18. Was their age relevant?

People's ages are often included in newspaper stories as random and irrelevant asides. I have no idea why. It's parodied in Hot Fuzz.

From front page of the Sun, today.

"Richard's heartbroken mum Evidence Joel, 39, told Sky News she feels "completely hollow and devastated and empty"."

I despair! Allowing Christmas mixing didn't mean you wouldn't catch Covid over Christmas because they were special days- it mean the government had calculated that they could cope with the knock on effect of the amount of people who would be hospitalised and die. Not allowing anybody to mix over Christmas would cv

I think if you don’t know or understand the rules then the onus is on you to find out.

Agree.

When you buy a car you have to find out the information required of you yourself. Using gov.uk website etc.

You can't buy a car and then claim you didn't know you were meant to wear seatbelts, insure it, pay tax, get an MOT etc because you didn't see Boris announce it on TV or you were too busy to have time to look it up.

There is personal responsibility in everyday life. Personal risk assessment involved in everyday life.

Just because the past year has required the government to put some unusual to society laws in place it doesn't mean personal responsibility was been eradicated.

No allowing anybody to mix over Christmas at all would have probably resulted in some becoming lockdown weary sooner, which is why the government chose to allow Christmas mixing.

We chose not to see family over Christmas. It was allowed but we didn't want to risk it. We made our own decisions. Just because something is legal doesn't mean it's safe or moral.

Of course many people met up over Christmas and didn't get Covid. Some people mixed and did catch it, and have recovered well. But those who haven't done well can't blame the government. Everyday statistics have been published. If you chose to think Christmas Day equals immunity to Covid then you are a massive fool.

Just because Boris said we could do something didn’t mean we should and more people should have realised that. He was being spineless and didn’t want to go down in history as the politician who stole Christmas after always saying everything would be fine by then.

Absolutely this. He's a terrible statesman who basically makes up policy on the hoof and is far too concerned with damning headlines. No leadership at all.

I do feel for anyone who has lost family members to COVID. It's been a dreadful business. But we all saw the winter spike was coming prior to Christmas. If people choose to mix at this time, they have to accept some level of risk. We stayed home, isolated from all my wider family. (I haven't seen my brother face to face for 12 months.) It sucks but I wasn't willing to take the risk at Christmas.

@CovidCorvid

Some people don’t have the IQ to weigh up the evidence though. I’m not bashing such people at all. They will genuinely believe it must be safe if the govt said it was ok. The govt have failed such people.

But these peoooe didn’t even need to weigh up the evidence, they simply had to comply with the rules. If they had done so he would have shielded and they would not have spent Xmas with the parents, and if they had followed all the isolation rules etc then whatever caused him to catch it several days before Xmas would have been mitigated.

I don’t know what else the government could habe realistically done to make them aware of the rules, it’s on the website, there was daily briefings, it was on every news channel and media source, and apparantly not one of them, kids, grandkids, them ever saw it or knew.

At that stage there has to be a personal responsibility to check.

I actually don’t believe they didn’t know. I think they decided to risk it. And that’s fine, but it stops being fine when you did that then say it’s the governments fault.

It's slightly hard to believe that they didn't know the up to date rules/ guidance. Even if one didn't watch the news, for example, it would have been all over social media.

I do feel for all who have lost family members in the past year, whether through illness, accidents or suicide.

@CrazyHorse if there had been a prompt response to the September 21st SAGE recommendations, then it would have been an October restiction not November, more time for Christmas shopping and to be honest, warmer weather and school half term. Easier to cope with restricted Christmas visits if you have had six or seven weeks of many things being open, not two or three.

@BarbaraofSeville

So what would people have preferred?

Early to mid December cases were rising, the new variant had just been detected that was obviously more transmittable. People were starting to ask 'what can we do at Christmas' and the Christmas bubbles plan was announced.

Would they have preferred the government to do what they probably should have done in mid December, which was to go back into full lockdown right then, cancelled everyone's in person Christmas shopping, brought shielding back at that point and told people then it was no household mixing over Christmas?

That's what should have happened, but there would have been uproar and many would not have complied anyway.

They absolutely should have done this. And for large parts of the country that were put in tier 4 they did. We went from tier 2 to tier 4 in less than 24 hours, it was a pain but there was no point in wailing and stamping feet

Everybody had the choice to mix or not to and really you should keep up to date with all the news at this time especially if you have vulnerable family members.

We did get together with my parents and my sisters family as per the rules. My parents and BIL had previously had Covid, everyone else was WFH and we took the kids out of school to isolate 10 days before Xmas day.

It is incredibly sad that her DH died but there will have been many families that did exactly the same and were fine.

Like so many pps, I find it hard to believe that a family where someone has been shielding, would not have seen or heard what was going on in the days leading up to Christmas. Especially a family with dcs the ages these dcs were - it would be a rare family indeed where noone has access to TV, radio, newspapers or internet these days. DH and I are CV. We had originally planned to see our dcs on Christmas Day. That was ruled out for us when BJ announced the update to Christmas arrangements on 19th December. Yes, it was heartbreaking - especially as we hadn't seen dc1 for several months already. But as a family we had already had to make difficult choices around who we would see or not see, and even if the decision had not been made for us, I suspect we would have decided not to go ahead with our plans based on the numbers that were being reported on a daily basis.
I do understand how they would want to blame someone, anyone, for the death of their dh/df, but, ultimately, it was their poor choice to visit her parents on 23rd.

The man clearly didn't catch it from the family gathering on the 23rd if he was too sick to get out of bed on the 25th - the timeline doesn't add up. So blaming this man's sad death on mixed advice from the government is a bit of a red herring as it seems like he must have caught it elsewhere anyway.

@Constance11 I find that the incubation time between the infection and symptoms changes to suit the agenda at the time
Here its obvious the agenda was to blame the public over Christmas. Unless they moved Christmas to an earlier date or discovered a hidden Tardis somewhere and used it. I take it as the time between infection and symptoms is now two days i take it i wont see any of the same names blaming ppl who went to the Clapham Common vigil if anyone who went there got sick now being as it was four weeks ago.