Parents want me to do and kids to do covid test before visiting

[Needarest22]

AIBU for being a bit put out by this?
My brother is also visiting and he's really cautious about covid so it could be driven by him. There is no talk of them doing one.
AIBU to be a bit miffed?

I can't relate to someone caring so little about their parents' health that they won't spend two minutes doing a Covid test. The numbers are so high atm and the NHS is on its knees. Your DF already has a health issue. And yy DCs pick up everything.
If it's more important to you to pretend Covid doesn't exist any more/pretend doing a 2 minute test is an imposition then don't go to your parents for Christmas.
But as someone who lost a parent during Covid, I don't understand your priorities at all.

Why be miffed?

why be start about it?

your dad has health anxiety and a bad chest?! They should not even have to ask you

what is your issue?! The minor inconvenience of testing???

Clearly some would go for option 2. Maybe they've got an eye on an early inheritance 🙄

With two young kids you are germ vectors!

We literally just did them as we’re heading out to in laws in an hour and they’re both covid-paranoid and totally hypocritical about it. It’s not worth the headache. Easier to just do the bloody thing.

You sound like a petulant teenager having a strop about being asked to take the bin out. In the time it took you to post on this thread, you could have got it done.

It's a minor inconvenience to help your own family!

The issue is, as I see it, that the parents themselves and the brother won't test.

They are considered low risk and aren't testing. If the parents were genuinely so concerned they'd ask everyone to test, and would themselves.

It's the double standard that's the issue, not the testing itself.

OP, hope I have this correct, sorry if not

Have they been out and about to shops, restaurants, theatres, pubs, pretty much anywhere with people in December? If they have, then no as they could catch it at any point.

If they have severe health conditions where Covid could be extremely serious, then thats a different story. If its just because they are older, absolutely no. Presumably they have had the flu/covid vaccine already too?

I'd like to add that my son and I did tests today as we've got headaches and hacking coughs and my mother ia 76 (negative).

We still don't know if OP's parents are elderly. I'm in my 50s and would not expect my kids to test for me.

No double standard.

The parents have been very low exposure. The brother has been quarantined.

Meanwhile OP has little germ collectors running around

In a lot of cases there is a point of being extra careful. People have been out more, in busier places and bigger groups, there are more people around coughing and sneezing and access to doctors/hospital if needed is harder.

My MIL for example usually goes to one group a week, the shops and maybe for a swim. This last week she’s been to four Christmas get-togethers, she’s been shopping more often (more time on buses and trains) as well as her usual activities. She is, understandably, being more cautious around anyone vulnerable because she is more of a risk than usual.

I'd be telling them to get stuffed. I'd rather have Christmas alone frankly than have people acting as though I'm bringing in germs! Done with all that now.
Let's face it covid is only one of many many things that are going round at the moment. Do they want you to test for all of them too!
We need to get out of this hysterical phobia of being unwell. Get on with life.

Your family are unreasonable to put so much stock in an extremely unreliable test. I would refuse to test the little ones. Even my mid range age children absolutely hate them and it's a trauma for them too. No way in hell would I put younger children through that for their whim.

This isn't something my elderly relatives have to ask. I always test before seeing them. I have no reason not to.

We've been asked to do the same thing. 100% fine with it. Perfectly normal request these days for many people.

@LaLuz7 where can you get saliva tests in the uk ?

What about flu and all the other million bugs doing the rounds at the moment?

Personally, I wouldn’t go to a house with people with health anxiety with young children. They catch every germ at school and if your not prepared to accept you might get ill, dont have young children in your house. Its not fair to put your own health anxieties on them.

I write this as in poorly sick and dying from my own germ vector child.

Just do it. You've said your dad got really poorly with his chest.

I get lower respiratory infections secondary to almost every cough cold and sneeze going and even though COVID has been mild for me personally, I'm absolutely floored by whatever it is that has gotten it's mitts on me this time.

Wouldn't want your dad to feel like this, the amount of secondary and viral pneumonia I've had over the years makes me want to wrap up in bubble wrap and never mingle with any one.

Children are germ vectors. Not cos they're dirty but because they also have a developing immune system and are every where all of the time.

I hated swabbing my autistic toddler for COVID but it's brief. It's not personal. Sometimes in life we have to do things we don't like.

This. I have a friend who’s a cancer survivor and lives an extremely careful life. We offered to test before visiting her because her health’s more important than our feelings. We didn’t ask her to test.

Everyone at my husband's work was ill last week and even though they could have WFH they didn't. So now we have COVID and will be missing seeing family for my baby's first Christmas, but I'm still glad we've tested because now I won't be putting my elderly grandparents at risk. We don't test as a matter of course but when ill and/or visiting vulnerable people it just makes sense. I genuinely don't understand people who'd be bothered by this. Though I do agree that your parents and brother should also be testing and potentially providing the tests for you as it's at their request.

@Mariposista would you not test if you were meeting up with someone who was very vulnerable health wise?

YANBU. I wouldn't go.

You can catch Covid anywhere from anyone.

Cool. Tell them to sort tests out and drop them off and you'll take them. Job done.

@WestwardHo1 but the parents don’t appear to be mixing so have little exposure risk normally