Grandchildren visits

Obviously the spread will be greater within the home, an enclosed space, close contact, shared facilities and for longer periods. In pubs and restaurants we have socially distanced tables and shorter periods of contact. I accept there are exceptions to the latter such as large groups of drunken covidiots which the rest of us must try to avoid.
Let’s just put up with the new rules, use our common sense and hope it will all be better soon.

Leading on from this, it's just been announced that 2 households can no longer meet in Birmingham, Sandwell and Solihull. We are in one of these areas but our daughter is not, although she is only 5 miles away. Does it mean that we can't visit DD and her family and they can't come here or does it mean we only have to avoid households in the areas mentioned? Does that make sense? I'm confused.

The irony of the new ruling for us is that with our 2 year old Foster child,
who is never out of our sight and has exactly the same chance as us of contact/transmitting the virus, may not meet up with daughter son in law and 2 grandchildren. BUT ,the day after she moves to her adopters next month we can, as we will be a group of 6.

I'm afraid it looks as if you can't go to them and they can't come to you Kate1949 (unless part of a support bubble). I got my information from the video here: www.birminghammail.co.uk/news/midlands-news/birmingham-lockdown-west-midlands-live-18918318

Oh thank you GrandmaKT and thanks for the link.

I imagine that you can visit your daughter but she cannot visit you Kate. It’s one of the difficulties with targeted lockdowns, but the problem with not targeting areas of high transmission means that many people are caught up in national lockdowns even though the area they live in does not have a high rate of transmission. It’s a case of heads you win, tails you lose really. I understand why it’s so difficult for the government. The same problems would occur whoever was in government.

That's where I'm confused maddy. She is not in one of the areas but we are. My DH has a hospital appointment in a week or so. He has been told not to drive. I don't drive and DD is going to take and collect him. I wonder if that would be OK? It's either our daughter or a taxi. We would feel happier with our daughter obviously. Oh dear!

DS and family live in Greater Manchester where they have been under local lockdown since the end of July.
We cannot visit them inside the house or garden or in the park,they cannot visit anyone in any area,so we have not seen them for 6 weeks.
I think these rules will apply to Birmingham.

Just to add we live in the South west in an area with a low rate.

Kate, thinking of the national lockdown, medical appointments and medical needs were exempted, so I imagine it will be fine for your daughter to collect your husband and take him to the hospital. She won’t be able to go into the appointment with him though, unless someone was needed because he was in need of a carer. It doesn’t sound as though that is the case, so go ahead and make the arrangements with your daughter, it will be perfectly acceptable. She’ll have to wait in the car for him though. I don’t imagine that will be a problem though.

therI feel this law has not been properly considered. For a start, who will know if you have more than six people in your house? If you are having a noisy party is one thing, but what if it was just an extra one or two? Who is going to be policing what we are doing?

There is no point in bringing in new laws if they cannot be enforced.

Thank you maddy. Yes the plan is for her to drop him off and collect him when he rings to say he's ready. The hospital is only 5 miles away.

Paperbackwriter

kwest On your holiday you can all eat together if you go to the pub and eat at tables of no more than 6, but not in one house together. Realised last night that I can't have my daughter and her family round to ours in Cornwall as that would be a total of 7. I wish they'd count children as a kind of half-fare, like it used to be on a bus then we could see them all together! Oh well.. no doubt by the time I next visit the area if will have all changed again.

I'm not sure if this is happening everywhere, but my cousin, who manages a restaurant for a smallish chain, has been told not to allow large groups to book two or more adjacent tables. This is because it is very difficult for the staff to stop them mingling, moving seats, talking loudly across the room etc. Of course if different people book separately, there is not much they can do other than sit them apart if they suspect they have colluded.

He is not very happy as he does not want confrontation but he is aware of how many large groups have been meeting in his restaurant this way, potentially spreading the virus.

If we all stayed at home except for essential travel we’d get through this more quickly and safely.
A small sacrifice for the greater good.

JaneRn
There is no point in bringing in new laws if they cannot be enforced
Are you saying that people will only obey laws if they are afraid of being caught/found out?
What a dreadful indictment of morality!
Could we not obey laws because it IS the law?

My son and daughter in law are expecting my first grandchild this month and are currently living with DiLs parents. When the baby arrives I would like to go and visit, which will be ok as long as no-one else is there, but as my daughter is hoping to come to visit me from Scotland soon after the due date we were hoping to go together as it is about 100 miles from my home. I guess we'll now have to kick one of the other gandparents out of their own house if we are to visit them together. Frustrating, but it is what it is! Especially frustrating as they live in a tiny hamlet in an area which has very low numbers, though Daughter and I are in much less safe areas. Now it is no longer guidance but a legal requirement we will have to get it right! But at least we should be able to go somehow, unlike the way things were earlier in the year. If everyone keeps to the rules we stand some chance of getting the numbers down and stopping a huge second wave so we will just have to all do our bit.

LauraNorder

If we all stayed at home except for essential travel we’d get through this more quickly and safely.
A small sacrifice for the greater good.

I am confused how this works LauraNorder. Are you saying that if we all stay at home then the virus will give up and disappear?

Surely, all that happened during lockdown was that we delayed the spread of this virus. Needed then probably to allow hospitals, etc to deal with the large number requiring treatment, but every time an area locks down - it may then reduce the infection numbers, which will then rise again when that lockdown ceases.
Are we really needing to stay in continuing or continuous lockdowns for the next several years???

Interesting that Govermment Spokesman in House of Lords admitted yesterday that the Rule of Six had no scientific backing, was just felt by government to be a simple enough message for us (the simple masses) to understand.

So what do you suggest Franbern? There really is not going to be a vaccine for some time yet and "herd immunity" is not achievable (at least not without many deaths), so what should we do?

And yes, the virus would disappear if everybody stayed at home and/or was absolutely vigilant about hygiene and social distancing, but that's probably unrealistic too.

Polls suggest that only 20% of people who are supposed to self-isolate actually do so. They don't seem to realise that it means not popping out to the shops or taking the dog for a walk - it means isolating oneself. That's not easy for people living in shared/cramped housing. Maybe a priority should be to make sure that those who are potential spreaders do actually stay at home and are financially compensated if they can't work and provided with alternative accommodation, if necessary. Maybe people should stop bending the rules. Maybe the government should stop trying to shame people to go back to work and should accept that schools cannot be "covid-safe".

Some prominent people don't help. Bel Mooney - a journalist I think - writes in the Daily Mail today that she will be having 14 for Christmas Day and she doesn't care what anyone thinks.

Maybe she should stop thinking about what people think (although as a journalist she has a responsibility) and think about the risk to her and the other 13 people ... and all those who come in contact with them.

As the virus is showing signs of getting on top of us again, the govt scientists can only report on what they find. There's no time for law/rule makers to think everything through, so I imagine they try to come up with a one-size fits-all kind of rule.
I think a caveat needs adding that common sense should be applied to different circumstances.
These rules are needed because some idiotic people have thrown common sense out of the window and put us all back at risk by being selfish. If everyone had been sensible we wouldn't need 'rules'.
So which is it Maddy1? (and please don't be offended)
I think its 'kill granny' or go to clubs and pubs.

Exactly growstuff. Many people have had their Christmas plans disrupted, including us, but tough. We have to deal with it.

Unfortunately, in a large number of cases people simply cannot or will not be trusted to use common sense. These are the ones that are likely to ignore any rules that don't fit in with their lifestyles and just do their own thing, to the detriment of other, law abiding peeps.