Meet the Other Phone. Only the apps you allow.

Meet the Other Phone.
Only the apps you allow.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Covid

Mumsnet doesn't verify the qualifications of users. If you have medical concerns, please consult a healthcare professional.

Friends don't / won't test

165 replies

Chewbecca · 31/12/2021 16:34

Before we go out this evening.

I just think that is a little rude of them! It's for our benefit, not their own so it just seems polite to do it for the people you're seeing.

WWYD? If anything.

OP posts:
Emilyontmoor · 01/01/2022 13:09

Emma What have I just read? Darwinism in action?

EmmaOvary · 01/01/2022 13:14

@Emilyontmoor this poster was on other threads saying they would be pissed off if someone they knew gave T and T their details. I despair.

Emilyontmoor · 01/01/2022 13:30

IIjkk Key difference is that none of those are required for any employment, travel, attending night clubs, using public transport, escaping quarantine, etc. They are still voluntary.

None of the conditions they are testing for are so contagious that they are affecting 1 in 15 people in London, bringing our hospitals into a state of emergency, closing down rail lines, closing businesses and doing huge damage to our economy, as well as causing serious illness for some people probably largely as a result of their genetic vulnerability, something you can’t know as an individual.

We give up freedoms for all sorts of measures to reduce much smaller threats to society, seat belts, smoking etc. but this is a pandemic, hopefully one that will fizzle out, but at the moment it is a huge threat to all those places you mention and so testing is a way we can all reduce that threat. If you don’t want to do that one small thing then you take the consequences just as if you chose not to wear a seat belt.

The funny thing about those libertarian politicians that are against these “loss of freedoms” is they would be quite happy to vote to deprive large minorities of the population from other freedoms like the freedom to marry someone of the same sex or a woman’s right to chose to have an abortion.

And actually of course they did actually vote for those passports on the basis that the unvaccinated would do LFTs so even they understand their role for society at this point in the pandemic.

SalveVagina · 01/01/2022 14:34

@Covidworries If it were someone who was vulnerable, I would say I can't afford to test positive so am not testing at all. The people who I know who are test-obsessed are not vulnerable, just paranoid, and have swallowed the hysteria wholesale.

Covidworries · 01/01/2022 17:21

You can not know how covid would inpact any individual through @salvevagina.
If yiu stand by not testing why decieve the people who have asked you to test. Be honest.

Imagine if you had something you d8dnt eat for moral reasons, religious reasons or health reasons or because you had allergies how would you feelmif you asked and was told it wasnt in the meal because the person thought it was a silly thing to not eat. How would you feel to be decieved like this? And what if you had an allergy and their deception made you ill?

Just be honest

LessTime · 01/01/2022 17:31

@Chewbecca

I'm not going to cancel because I don't want to ruin a friendship which I enjoy a lot.

I do think it is impolite of them.

I think they should test but I guess it’s up to them. You can now choose whether to go or not. If you go and then end up with COVID then it’s because you choose to go. At least they have been honest.

I understand why people don’t want to test though 🙁 Ten days isolation feels like forever.

If I were you I would have asked if they could test rather than been vague about it.

SheikhMaraca · 01/01/2022 17:39

I can understand why they won’t.

The environmental damage caused by the manufacture, shipping, and instant disposal of so much single use plastic is far more of a threat to humanity in the long term than covid (see also patio heaters when we all had to socialise outdoors to #StaySafe - absolute madness)

Furthermore, the normalisation of testing promulgates the idea that Covid is an actual threat, something we should be afraid of, when this notion is no longer supported by the most up to date evidence. We need to move away from this idea, and obsessive testing/pandering to the health anxious is a bad idea that does nobody any favours.

Personally, I won’t be testing again, on a population level, there is very little upside and a great deal of downside.

SheikhMaraca · 01/01/2022 17:45

@lljkk

If you're comparing LFTs & PCRs to other unpleasant health screening or diagnostic testing, could talk about colon cancer screening, GTT, mammography, lumbar puncture....

Key difference is that none of those are required for any employment, travel, attending night clubs, using public transport, escaping quarantine, etc. They are still voluntary.

This is precisely my concern though.

None of these things are compulsory at present but the more we accept the notion that our civil liberties depend on us having submitted to medical tests, the closer we move to a point where they are.

It naive in the extreme to think that this obsession with testing will stop at Covid. Before long, any form of medical/life insurance will require far more in the way of testing in order to be accepted, or determine your premium.

Given the fact that the NHS is almost certainly going to cease to exist as we know it after the pandemic has receded, with privatisation taking its place, I surely can’t be the only one to be really concerned by this ready acceptance of what amounts to health apartheid?

BertieBotts · 01/01/2022 17:49

We don't plan to sounds like - they don't think it's necessary (I agree) but they may well be open to testing if you would like them to. Which you have not.

If you want them to, why don't you just ask? There isn't any need for passive aggressive questions and then sulking when you don't like the response Confused

It sounds to me like what you actually should have said was "Just to let you know, we will be testing in advance of our meeting, I would appreciate it if you would do the same."

Bluebluemoon · 01/01/2022 17:55

SheikhMaraca

Excellent posts. You are the voice of reason on a thread where I cannot even begin to explain to these types of people (ie those with chronic health anxiety) why they are so very wrong to expect or even demand that people test for a statistically very mild virus before meeting up with them.

How can you reason with such people? (As I said before, I know no one like this in real life - these people only seem to exist on the MN covid board!)

Watapalava · 01/01/2022 18:31

Bluemoon and sheik

I completely agree!

EmmaOvary · 01/01/2022 19:00

Apparently it's 'chronic health anxiety' to test during a pandemic that's killed 5 million people worldwide, rather than responsible and a way to contribute towards an end to all of this. I've really read it all now.

SheikhMaraca · 01/01/2022 19:15

The CFR for the under 65s is 0.15%.

Surely you can see that destroying the planet for all future generations in order to test for such a mild virus just isn’t in any way proportional? Especially when people who are afraid of it have the option to just stay at home.

Ebola, Smallpox, MERS, even Mumps, and you might have a point. Covid? No.

Wizzbangfizz · 01/01/2022 19:37

100% agree @SheikhMaraca

CraftyGin · 01/01/2022 19:38

@Chewbecca

Before we go out this evening.

I just think that is a little rude of them! It's for our benefit, not their own so it just seems polite to do it for the people you're seeing.

WWYD? If anything.

I wouldn't go.
Wizzbangfizz · 01/01/2022 19:43

In fact I think that tests from now on should be paid for by those that want them (LFT) - it totally unsustainable and unnecessary for the government to be distributing them for free.

EmmaOvary · 01/01/2022 19:45

@SheikhMaraca not this ablist crap AGAIN. Who do you think the CV and CEV are? They're doctors, nurses, bus drivers, firefighters. They're refuse collectors, delivery drivers, you name it.

A world where the clinically vulnerable 'just stay in' indefinitely would bot function FOR YOU.

user1496146479 · 01/01/2022 19:46

@Potatodrivers

Isn't this new variant not picked up as much as the previous ones?

Either way, I really wouldn't think too much about it considering you're going out for a meal. It would be more understandable if you were just going to be with them in one of your homes, but not when you're willingly going to be surrounded by strangers.
Different tables makes no difference what so ever. You're all in the same airspace.

This variant is more transmissible!!
friedeggandsauce · 01/01/2022 19:47

I don't get how I'm wrong to test before meeting up with my elderly vulnerable uncle 🤷🏼‍♀️.

Potatodrivers · 01/01/2022 19:50

@user1496146479 I was meaning isn't it not picked up on the tests as much as previous variants, sorry for not making that more clear. I can see how it can be picked up in other ways.

Wizzbangfizz · 01/01/2022 19:59

I don't think it's wrong to test, and pre vaccines I would have even said it was necessary. Now, not so much - are you going to do it forevermore? If they answer to that is yes do it at your own expense.

SheikhMaraca · 01/01/2022 20:28

[quote EmmaOvary]@SheikhMaraca not this ablist crap AGAIN. Who do you think the CV and CEV are? They're doctors, nurses, bus drivers, firefighters. They're refuse collectors, delivery drivers, you name it.

A world where the clinically vulnerable 'just stay in' indefinitely would bot function FOR YOU. [/quote]
There are around a million people who are both CEV and of working age (ONS data)

It’s reasonable to assume that a substantial proportion of those million people are so incapacitated by their health concerns that they are not actually in in regular employment.

Again, this narrative that vast swathes of the workforce are CEV simply isn’t borne out by the facts.

Siennabear · 01/01/2022 20:33

Wow. The worlds gone mad. Either meet or don’t. You can’t tell others what to do.

EmmaOvary · 01/01/2022 21:03

I said CV and CEV. And you don't provide a source for your data and then talk about 'it's reasonable to assume' so I'm not massively convinced by your 'facts.'

Also, it's worth noting that there are kids who fit into these categories, but fuck 'em, eh?

SheikhMaraca · 01/01/2022 21:19

What are CV? I’ve never seen this designation being used by the ONS. What is your source for this? What are the official numbers?

My figures are from the ONS, as I stated, and only broken down the figures by ‘working age’, not how many were actually working.

Wha5 proportion of CEV of working age do you think it would be reasonable to assume were actually in work? I’d say somewhere between a quarter to a half?

So even if we assumed that half of all CEV are actually working, that number represents a tiny, tiny minority of the workforce. The narrative that society would grind to a halt if all these individuals isolated themselves just doesn’t hold any water when you really examine it.

DC were originally included in the CEV figures, but as we learnt more about the virus, it was decided that the it posed no threat to them and they were all removed from the CEV category in Aug. (This info is from the RCPCH btw)

Hence, there are no DC who are CEV Covid.

Swipe left for the next trending thread