Christmas Is Near Upon Us

[Secre]

So what are everyone's plans and has the dreaded virus disrupted them too badly?

In the UK our government has announced a period where lockdown measures are lifted for the five days or so around Christmas. Well, providing the scientific advisory groups don't talk them out of it at the last minute. So our current plan is that as we are lucky enough to be able to self-isolate for ten days prior to 23rd December, we will be going down to my parents and foster parents from 23rd-25th December and then heading back on home on 26th to spend some time with my husband's parents before the lockdown comes back into force before New Year.

All our present's are wrapped, so it's all a matter of waiting to see whether the govenment moves the goal posts or not!!

Regardless, I'm looking forward to two weeks off work to just read, play games and eat good food!!

[jellysundae]

I'm really hoping they do move those goalposts to be honest. It's insanity allowing people to mix to the level they've currently set. I saw someone on the news last night saying they were watching to see if figures spiked in the US after Thanksgiving to help with the decision and I was sat there like, "WHAT?!" because they have spiked already! They declined a bit for the few days after Thanksgiving; while people incubated the germs and maybe weren't getting tested over the holiday, then they shot through the roof; that's when the US surpassed 200k cases per day, and has continued to do so.

This from today's New York Times.

  There's that spike you're waiting for...

Someone else on the news was saying about trusting people to behave sensibly... really?! Where have you been for the past nine months, mister? 0_o

Something else that was said, which was very telling; that in a normal year there's a spike in elderly people being hospitalised with pneumonia after Christmas, always... so family gatherings are like Russian Roulette for grandparents any year, but this... *shudders*

Talking to the public on the news about it and they're all "but we've spent all this money on food now!" Which would you prefer? Wasted food or dead parents... tough choice?

The stuff about opening the window to dispel the virus seems like dangerous nonsense to me, too. Who the... *coughs* heck is gonna do that? One window open for a few minutes, maybe... until there's an exclaimation of "sod this for a game of soldiers, I'm cold!". That's not gonna help, you'd basically need all windows and doors open to create proper air flow; while you all sit there, in your coats, and eat you stone-cold dinner... this'd be a farce if it wasn't so scary. T_T

This Christmas bubble thing... I've not seen a single thing about how if you want to form one you'll need to isolate first... you're doing it @Secreis that simply because you realised you'd have to? Or has it been mentioned and I've just missed it? It's so important that it should be mentioned every time the Christmas bubbles are talked about. It's definitely not something to do the " it's commonsense, surely!" kind of thing about and not say anything. Not saying anything lets people think they don't have to then... their cries will be, "well no-one said anything about needing to isolate first!!" after their festive lunch for 15 turns into a super-spreader event that kills 50.

If everyone could be tested and then isolate beforehand things would be 100% fine with this scenario, I feel; that'd be a logistical nightmare but it's the price people would have to pay, the one for not doing that could be far more costly... and I worry that the people who are selfishly insisting on a big get-together are the ones least likely to isolate first. I await the outcome of Christmas with horror to be honest.

As you may have already guessed, I'll not be getting together with family myself. x'D We're gonna wait until the weather's nice enough to sit out in the garden again.

EDIT

*poker face*

[iheartsaku]

On my end....they made the lockdown stricker during the holidays. From December 25th to January 10th, they will be closing all non-essential businesses. However, they are allowing very small get togethers. One member who lives alone is welcome to join in on one family bubble. In my case, my mom lives alone, so she can come over and celebrate with my husband and I. Which is probably what we are going to do. Will be quiet compared to the other years but at least we get to spend some time together for the holidays.

Also, it will be different for me to not be working during the holidays haha. A nice change  

[Secre]

 

15 minutes ago, jellysundae said:

I'm really hoping they do move those goalposts to be honest. It's insanity allowing people to mix to the level they've currently set. I saw someone on the news last night saying they were watching to see if figures spiked in the US after Thanksgiving to help with the decision and I was sat there like, "WHAT?!" because they have spiked already! They declined a bit for the few days after Thanksgiving; while people incubated the germs and maybe weren't getting tested over the holiday, then they shot through the roof; that's when the US surpassed 200k cases per day, and has continued to do so.

This from today's New York Times.

  There's that spike you're waiting for...

Someone else on the news was saying about trusting people to behave sensibly... really?! Where have you been for the past nine months, mister? 0_o

Something else that was said, which was very telling; that in a normal year there's a spike in elderly people being hospitalised with pneumonia after Christmas, always... so family gatherings are like Russian Roulette for grandparents any year, but this... *shudders*

Talking to the public on the news about it and they're all "but we've spent all this money on food now!" Which would you prefer? Wasted food or dead parents... tough choice?

The stuff about opening the window to dispel the virus seems like dangerous nonsense to me, too. Who the... *coughs* heck is gonna do that? One window open for a few minutes, maybe... until there's an exclaimation of "sod this for a game of soldiers, I'm cold!". That's not gonna help, you'd basically need all windows and doors open to create proper air flow; while you all sit there, in your coats, and eat you stone-cold dinner... this'd be a farce if it wasn't so scary. T_T

This Christmas bubble thing... I've not seen a single thing about how if you want to form one you'll need to isolate first... you're doing it @Secreis that simply because you realised you'd have to? Or has it been mentioned and I've just missed it? It's so important that it should be mentioned every time the Christmas bubbles are talked about. It's definitely not something to do the " it's commonsense, surely!" kind of thing about and not say anything. Not saying anything lets people think they don't have to then... their cries will be, "well no-one said anything about needing to isolate first!!" after their festive lunch for 15 turns into a super-spreader event that kills 50.

If everyone could be tested and then isolate beforehand things would be 100% fine with this scenario, I feel; that'd be a logistical nightmare but it's the price people would have to pay, the one for not doing that could be far more costly... and I worry that the people who are selfishly insisting on a big get-together are the ones least likely to isolate first. I await the outcome of Christmas with horror to be honest.

As you may have already guessed, I'll not be getting together with family myself. x'D We're gonna wait until the weather's nice enough to sit out in the garden again.

I think part of the government's problem is that they likely fully recognise that even if they try to tighten up the relaxations now, the majority of the public are just going to ignore them. So it will do little good - and (perhaps most importantly sadly) harm their election chances as a lot of people are already firmly fed up with them!

I don't think there has been any guidance on a Christmas bubbles in terms of isolation - it just seemed the most common sense approach for us. If I'd been commuting for two hours twice a day in the lead up to Christmas, it would be far more risky for me to then see my (relatively) elderly parents. Likewise, my husband works at a university in a student facing role. Thankfully, I've been working from home - I was last in work last Tuesday so won't have been in contact with anyone for 15 days by 23rd December - and my husband has this entire week off work. 

My parents barely go out anyway, so they are a nicely self-isolated bubble even without coronavirus restrictions. My foster parents are a little more tricky but the girls will have been off school for a couple of weeks and my foster father has to get semi-regular tests as he works in the healthcare profession in a patient facing role. 

But yes, I hadn't thought about how many people simply won't have made that connection in their heads and will have been working/shopping as normal and then go and form a three family bubble immediately afterwards... People can usually be trusted to conform to the lowest denominator as a group... 

It's a good job that we have been self-isolating though. There's no way we're keeping the windows open at my parent's. My father has a ... unique... view on heating the house. And it largely involves not doing it!!!

I hadn't realised the USA numbers were so appallingly high. Although, when you consider who they have in charge, it is perhaps not that surprising in honesty... 

8 minutes ago, iheartsaku said:

On my end....they made the lockdown stricker during the holidays. From December 25th to January 10th, they will be closing all non-essential businesses. However, they are allowing very small get togethers. One member who lives alone is welcome to join in on one family bubble. In my case, my mom lives alone, so she can come over and celebrate with my husband and I. Which is probably what we are going to do. Will be quiet compared to the other years but at least we get to spend some time together for the holidays.

Also, it will be different for me to not be working during the holidays haha. A nice change  

In fairness, other than closing non-essential businesses, I'm not sure they could make our lockdown restrictions stricter. Nearly the entire country has been in Tier 3 for months - so no gatherings indoors or outdoors, work from home if at all possible, don't leave the house unless it is for essential purposes (which directly conflicts with non-essential shops being open, but hey ho!), restaurants and bars closed etc. I think worship is currently permitted which is wasn't in the original lockdown, but that seems like a recipe for disaster to me - stick a heap of immuno-compromised elderly parishioners in a group and hope for the best!!

Enjoy your rare Christmas off work though!!

[jellysundae]

2 minutes ago, Secre said:

I think part of the government's problem is that they likely fully recognise that even if they try to tighten up the relaxations now, the majority of the public are just going to ignore them. So it will do little good - and (perhaps most importantly sadly) harm their election chances as a lot of people are already firmly fed up with them!

HA! Yes... but it they tell people not to, and people do it anyway, they're done their due diligence, haven't they. It's the peoples' fault if they choose to ignore what they've been told, not the government's for not enforcing the rule in the first place.

I fully expect demands for a general election after this, gotta say, or for Boris to go join Teresa May on the back-benches at least, I mean what party would want to take on the Covid debt? Is Keir Starmer ready for that?

15 minutes ago, Secre said:

But yes, I hadn't thought about how many people simply won't have made that connection in their heads and will have been working/shopping as normal and then go and form a three family bubble immediately afterwards... People can usually be trusted to conform to the lowest denominator as a group... 

So sadly true. This is why I fear the worst after Christmas, especially in families with students who have come home from Uni.

19 minutes ago, Secre said:

My father has a ... unique... view on heating the house. And it largely involves not doing it!!!

xDDD That's such a generational thing! Learnt from his dad, no doubt? lol. Breeding out in you though? xD Does he have a smart meter? I thought of the typical turn-the-light-off-when-you-leave-the-room Scrooge mentality of some when those came out, aware that they're the worst kind of enablers for that. It does tend to be guys who succumb to it, too.

25 minutes ago, Secre said:

I hadn't realised the USA numbers were so appallingly high. Although, when you consider who they have in charge, it is perhaps not that surprising in honesty... 

Yeah! At least it's plateauing now, but jeez. D:<

 

I think the simple thing here is - and this applies globally - if everyone had been taking care and following guidelines from the start, the world wouldn't be in the mess it is now. Those of us who have been doing so have kept things from being even worse than they currently are, there's a thing to think about! @_@ 

@iheartsaku you have a sensible country! Give it a pat on the head from someone hiding indoors in the UK. xD

[Secre]

39 minutes ago, jellysundae said:

HA! Yes... but it they tell people not to, and people do it anyway, they're done their due diligence, haven't they. It's the peoples' fault if they choose to ignore what they've been told, not the government's for not enforcing the rule in the first place.

I fully expect demands for a general election after this, gotta say, or for Boris to go join Teresa May on the back-benches at least, I mean what party would want to take on the Covid debt? Is Keir Starmer ready for that?

Except it's hardly due diligence when they've spent weeks telling people they can meet up! In fairness, I suspect they knew they'd be roundly ignored from the start and that was a part of the decision making!! But people don't take well to 'flip-flopping', particularly when - as you said - they've now made plans around it. 

I mean between this and Brexit the Tory goverment are up ... creek without a paddle between them. But Starmer hardly fills me with vast confidence in honesty.

39 minutes ago, jellysundae said:

xDDD That's such a generational thing! Learnt from his dad, no doubt? lol. Breeding out in you though? xD Does he have a smart meter? I thought of the typical turn-the-light-off-when-you-leave-the-room Scrooge mentality of some when those came out, aware that they're the worst kind of enablers for that. It does tend to be guys who succumb to it, too.

Most likely!! Admittedly, my husband does try it occasionally, but he gets sick of my whining quickly enough and the heating goes on!! We have a smart meter but my father doesn't - his is a very basic turn the heating on at the boiler... or don't as the case might be. He has a small wood burner in the dining room... that is far too small for the room because the larger ones were expensive!!

I always make sure I take jumpers and coats when we go down to my parents... and not to wear outside!! It's strange as my husband's parents are the opposite - their heating is ALWAYS on, to the point that you actively bake to death!!

45 minutes ago, jellysundae said:

I think the simple thing here is - and this applies globally - if everyone had been taking care and following guidelines from the start, the world wouldn't be in the mess it is now. Those of us who have been doing so have kept things from being even worse than they currently are, there's a thing to think about! @_@ 

But there are too many people with a doctorate from Google who think the virus is a hoax or less dangerous than the flu. Or who don't want to be 'controlled' by the government. Or think that masks reduce oxygen levels despite doctors wearing them all day. Or that their freedom to go to the pub is more important than someone's grandad's life.

There's a whole host of people who won't take the vaccine because they think it's been rushed through, with no understanding of how clinical research normally works. It normally takes us 2-3 years just to get a trial open to recruitment - protocol development, funding applications, regulatory and ethical approvals, data collection tools, site set-up (made more difficult if you are recruiting internationally). It takes forever and most of it is waiting. My unit has three COVID trials set up in the last year that from initialisation to first patient recruited took seven WEEKS. Simply because the funding and the approval red tape has been cut hugely. It isn’t that the testing is rushed, it’s that with the red tape being cut trials are opening in a fraction of the time it normally takes.

[jellysundae]

Don't forget the chips in the vaccine! There's a whole lot of people with very strange ideas out there, isn't there... that's nothing new though, I saw a program about the 1918 flu pandemic, and the reactions and behaviour from people - from the government down - was much the same as it's been this time around. We've just got a really efficient way to spread misinformation now though.

All we can do is try our best to not become a statistic ourselves. There's gonna be a whole lot of people across the planet who are more than happy to have a really good reason to avoid the regular get-together and the accompanying yearly family rows.

[bonnie_morrison]

I'm in Atlantic Canada, so for us, they're having restaurants for take-out only and family gatherings up to 10 people, but our premier did advise people to be as careful as possible and still follow all restrictions. They're keeping the schools closed for an extra week. It's just going to be myself and my parents for Christmas anyway, because our family is scattered all over the province. We had an Atlantic bubble, so the 4 provinces were doing ok until cases spiked again in late November, but it's not as bad as other provinces.

[Duskitty]

I'm going to be finally visiting with my boyfriend from another state for Christmas this year, but only because our covid cases are virtually nil. It's absolutely appalling to see the state of other countries and how transmission of the virus is simply allowed to happen in some locations.

[Secre]

17 hours ago, jellysundae said:

Don't forget the chips in the vaccine! There's a whole lot of people with very strange ideas out there, isn't there... that's nothing new though, I saw a program about the 1918 flu pandemic, and the reactions and behaviour from people - from the government down - was much the same as it's been this time around. We've just got a really efficient way to spread misinformation now though.

All we can do is try our best to not become a statistic ourselves. There's gonna be a whole lot of people across the planet who are more than happy to have a really good reason to avoid the regular get-together and the accompanying yearly family rows.

Oh yeah, I missed that one. And 5G causes it. But seriously, the government has your NI number. With that they can access almost everything about you except your NHS records. And most people post their entire life on Facebook anyway. Who needs chips in a vaccine!??

I recently read 'The Pandemic Century' - I don't recommend it by the way, there are far better books on the subject apparently and the author doesn't frame things well and is higly US centric. But yes, it touched on various pandemics of the last century... and humanity never changes. I particularly liked the chapter on Parrot Fever - not really a pandemic mind you. But this was a disease spread solely by bird droppings and handling disaeased birds. Easy solution? Stop buying the darn birds! But noooooo.... Mrs Bucket down the street really needs a new set of singing bloody birds!!

11 hours ago, bonnie_morrison said:

I'm in Atlantic Canada, so for us, they're having restaurants for take-out only and family gatherings up to 10 people, but our premier did advise people to be as careful as possible and still follow all restrictions. They're keeping the schools closed for an extra week. It's just going to be myself and my parents for Christmas anyway, because our family is scattered all over the province. We had an Atlantic bubble, so the 4 provinces were doing ok until cases spiked again in late November, but it's not as bad as other provinces.

That sounds similar to our Tier 3 restrictions in terms of restaurants. Tier 2 are allowed to be open for sit in. And we are not closing schools again. Nope, definitely not, despite headteachers coming together to say they won't be opening their schools!!

I believe we can have up to three households for Christmas, but there's no 'person' limit.

13 minutes ago, Duskitty said:

I'm going to be finally visiting with my boyfriend from another state for Christmas this year, but only because our covid cases are virtually nil. It's absolutely appalling to see the state of other countries and how transmission of the virus is simply allowed to happen in some locations.

Oh, tell me about it. I'm watching the state of my own country and then become appalled at myself when I think, 'hey, we're not as bad as the USA!' That's very, very slim praise unfortunately.

[MysteryAF]

I live in the US, I don't even want to get together to be honest. Many of my family members are insisting on celebrating Christmas, cause most people here don't take it seriously. My sister came down with covid, and her daughter (my niece) has no immune system, so that's what I'm concerned about. My grandparents are really afraid of going to any gatherings, and I don't blame them. Then my brother and an uncle and aunt are like "nothing's gonna happen lol let's just celebrate it".

[shauns_fiancee]

i live in Canada, and they've tightened measures.  I agree completely and would have isolated anyways, i'm not going to let some government tell me it's ok and then get my family sick anyway.  I'm not going to risk it, it's not worth it, and yes, numbers WILL increase after christmas.  we don't even know the long term effects of this disease yet.

[berriganify]

BC went back into lockdown in November. I'm currently isolating b/c im the primary carer for my mother, who has like, 4 or 5 different risk factors. We knew pretty early that any sort of christmas party wasn't going to happen this year. We're just going to stay in, cook something nice for the two of us, and probably spend the afternoon video calling the family.

We did decorate for the first time in six years, which has definitely cheered my mum up! She loves having the house decorated for christmas, but we've either been in the process of moving, or too busy for the past several years. Luckily quarantine's left me with plenty of time to get the living room in order.

On 12/16/2020 at 10:48 AM, jellysundae said:

Don't forget the chips in the vaccine!

oh god my mum fell for that one. she's always falling for that stuff, and then i have to waste a bunch of time researching and explaining to her Why That's Not A Thing. Just before quarantine it was alkaline water, because some random lady (whose son, totally coincidentally, sells the systems that makes it) told her about it. Didn't bother to look into it herself, and was totally gonna go and spend like $200 on a system to made alkaline water. Which is pointless! Because the stomach wants to be at a very specific acidity no matter what you put into it! And if it somehow gets forced into a different ph you get sick!

On 12/16/2020 at 7:53 AM, Secre said:

Or that their freedom to go to the pub is more important than someone's grandad's life.

Yeah, that's the worst of it. Like sure, one person being a little cavalier with their life is a valid choice...when it's something isolated, like doing a risky sport. But with a pandemic, it's never just themselves that they're putting at risk. And usually it's the people that are already decently healthy and less at-risk that have this mindset. It's just...so self-centered. It's the same level of infuriating as the anti-vaxxers. They just... dont understand the concept of herd immunity, and that living in a community means that their actions have an impact on the people around them.

.... anyway, here's a picture of our christmas tree for some cheeriness. we couldn't find the angel, so instead we turned one of my mum's jester dolls into a capricious tree gremlin. if you try and open your presents before christmas day he will bite off your fingers, making him objectively the best tree topper.

[Duma]

We're in lockdown and all my family lives abroad. So even if I didn't have to work I couldn't celebrate the holidays with them or anyone. I've also had to switch teams at work for the holidays (I don't really like or know these colleagues very well)... Normally spending the holidays at work would have made it a bit better but this year I'll probably be just bored. Let's just hope for a better year next year. I'm really not looking forward to this years holidays.

[AndyCat]

I hope your holiday was a success

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