When will this shit end?

[efcfanwirral]

4 minutes ago, DeanoL said:

The bit that is most mental and wrong there is your brother's housemate being forced to go into an office to work.

I do have a lot of sympathy for your situation, but you seem to be able to make the right choices on what is and isn't safe or right for you, you don't need the rules to back you up (especially if you're breaking them anyway - which highlights why changing them now won't help much). 

Ha I agree with that - apparently he being new means he cant work from home, but similarly also means his job is definitely not essential as he's so junior! Old fashioned mentality with all this technology...

No decisions are fully made yet. To be fair my dad will cancel it if the government changes the rules and will just go to my grandad's (been a support bubble though whatever tiers anyway) so he wont be fully on his own. I just dont want to be the bad guy really

And I've been taking it so seriously, my biggest worry is that country wide people will have this "I feel bad" and "fairness" situation with like 8 households which could be a real issue

[Guest]

FYI this is all that Laura Kuenssberg has said on any change to the Christmas rules:

 

[Cammers]

Me and my family certainly don't need the word of Boris Johnson to understand our safety/risk this Christmas. 

We're sticking to our plan:

- No mixing of households, we will see each other separately on walks over the festive period. 
- Gifts dropped off and left by the door
- Australian style Christmas planned for summer 2021

That last bit got me really excited. We're going to put the tree back up, set up the fairly lights outside and have belated Christmas with every single family member over. 

[steviewevie]

29 minutes ago, Fuzzy Afro said:

That’s not really how covid spreads. With other viruses like the flu, the main transmission vector is fomites which work as you describe with a common surface being touched. We initially assumed covid spread like this but later found that not to be the case)
 

Covid is more spread by aerosol transmission (I.e. literally breathing in the air that’s been breathed out by a covid patient). This is why masks are far more important than we initially thought.

 

I’m sure @Toilet Duck would be able to articulate this point better than me but SAGE estimate that opening non-essential retail has very minimal impact on the R number and there’s little reason to think it shouldn’t be open. 

so can I stop washing my hands now?

[squirrelarmy]

This Government saying “seems unlikely” and “no plans” definitely says they are likely to change the proposals. 
 

If the plans are changing then they need to make the announcement sooner than later if they want anyone to listen to them. No one is going to pay any attention to the cancellation if it’s done last minute especially when people have already made travel plans and forked out for entertainment costs such as food any drink. 

[Fuzzy Afro]

1 minute ago, Cammers said:

Me and my family certainly don't need the word of Boris Johnson to understand our safety/risk this Christmas. 

We're sticking to our plan:

- No mixing of households, we will see each other separately on walks over the festive period. 
- Gifts dropped off and left by the door
- Australian style Christmas planned for summer 2021

That last bit got me really excited. We're going to put the tree back up, set up the fairly lights outside and have belated Christmas with every single family member over. 

Is an Australian style Christmas the same idea as an Australian style Brexit deal? 😂

[Guest]

1 minute ago, Cammers said:

Me and my family certainly don't need the word of Boris Johnson to understand our safety/risk this Christmas. 

We're sticking to our plan:

- No mixing of households, we will see each other separately on walks over the festive period. 
- Gifts dropped off and left by the door
- Australian style Christmas planned for summer 2021

That last bit got me really excited. We're going to put the tree back up, set up the fairly lights outside and have belated Christmas with every single family member over. 

Sounds like decent and wise plan. I hope you manage to have a good festival period, I’m sure you will!

Christmas in the summer sounds fun and you are 6 months away from the next one at that point 😛

[Fuzzy Afro]

2 minutes ago, Cammers said:

Me and my family certainly don't need the word of Boris Johnson to understand our safety/risk this Christmas. 

We're sticking to our plan:

- No mixing of households, we will see each other separately on walks over the festive period. 
- Gifts dropped off and left by the door
- Australian style Christmas planned for summer 2021

That last bit got me really excited. We're going to put the tree back up, set up the fairly lights outside and have belated Christmas with every single family member over. 

What if the government still has household mixing bans in place in the summer? I’m genuinely terrified this is going to go on for years 

[efcfanwirral]

2 minutes ago, squirrelarmy said:

This Government saying “seems unlikely” and “no plans” definitely says they are likely to change the proposals. 
 

If the plans are changing then they need to make the announcement sooner than later if they want anyone to listen to them. No one is going to pay any attention to the cancellation if it’s done last minute especially when people have already made travel plans and forked out for entertainment costs such as food any drink. 

I do wonder if that's the plan....the biggest spending of the year is now so unfortunately the economy may not be able to deal with losing that

Obviously some sort of sensible christmas 2.0 would be too good an idea for this government...

Edited December 15, 2020 by efcfanwirral

[Chef]

Does anybody know the incubation time of the virus? i.e. how long does there need to be between contact with an infected person and a test returning positive?

Long story short is my 2 year old daughters nursery contacted us last night and told us she had been in close contact with someone last Friday who has subsequently tested positive for the virus and she must isolate. She then woke up this morning with a cough, which isn't unusual for her, but as a precaution we have taken her for a test this morning. Will the time between Friday and today be conclusive in terms of results?

We will obviously see the isolation through in line with the rules even if its negative but it would be good to understand how much comfort we can take in a negative result at this stage.

 

 

[squirrelarmy]

3 minutes ago, Cammers said:

Australian style Christmas planned for summer 2021

That last bit got me really excited. We're going to put the tree back up, set up the fairly lights outside and have belated Christmas

Christmas in late June next year? I’m sure a few of us will be in the same field at that point. 
 

1 minute ago, efcfanwirral said:

I do wonder if that's the plan....the biggest spending of the year is now so unfortunately the economy may not be able to deal with losing that

Obviously some sort of sensible christmas 2.0 would be too good an idea for this government...

That’s a good point. The government will want everyone to spend like crazy before they cancel everything. 
 

Hopefully a lot of the potential wasted food can go to worthy causes rather than landfill. 

[Guest]

Just now, squirrelarmy said:

Christmas in late June next year? I’m sure a few of us will be in the same field at that point. 
 

That’s a good point. The government will want everyone to spend like crazy before they cancel everything. 
 

Hopefully a lot of the potential wasted food can go to worthy causes rather than landfill. 

A Tory government wouldn’t care about food waste 😂

[zahidf]

6 minutes ago, Fuzzy Afro said:

What if the government still has household mixing bans in place in the summer? I’m genuinely terrified this is going to go on for years 

Not with the vaccines coming through. 

[efcfanwirral]

7 minutes ago, squirrelarmy said:

Christmas in late June next year? I’m sure a few of us will be in the same field at that point. 
 

That’s a good point. The government will want everyone to spend like crazy before they cancel everything. 
 

Hopefully a lot of the potential wasted food can go to worthy causes rather than landfill. 

 

6 minutes ago, Ozanne said:

A Tory government wouldn’t care about food waste 😂

More would have Brexit stockpiles...

[Cammers]

10 minutes ago, Ozanne said:

Sounds like decent and wise plan. I hope you manage to have a good festival period, I’m sure you will!

Christmas in the summer sounds fun and you are 6 months away from the next one at that point 😛

Thanks bud, I hope you do too! 

 

 

10 minutes ago, Fuzzy Afro said:

What if the government still has household mixing bans in place in the summer? I’m genuinely terrified this is going to go on for years 

Remember, summer 2020 we could mix indoors with the rule of 6. 

Combine the fact that we will start the clock (March 2021) in a much better position, basically knowing where the virus is and what it's doing with the fact we now have a vaccine (or three) - I can't see summer 2021 being any problem at all case wise. 

That said, we need to be very careful not to screw this up. I agree that things should slowly phased back in. If the vaccine roll out is too slow and we take the handbrake too quick, we lose control again - see "eat out to help out" 😆 

[Homer]

19 minutes ago, Fuzzy Afro said:

Is an Australian style Christmas the same idea as an Australian style Brexit deal? 😂

They both involve massive delays.

[steviewevie]

25 minutes ago, Fuzzy Afro said:

What if the government still has household mixing bans in place in the summer? I’m genuinely terrified this is going to go on for years 

listen to the experts...most expected a 2nd wave this winter, and most expect life to be pretty much back to normal by next summer.

[zahidf]

 

[Mark E. Spliff]

37 minutes ago, Chef said:

Does anybody know the incubation time of the virus? i.e. how long does there need to be between contact with an infected person and a test returning positive?

Long story short is my 2 year old daughters nursery contacted us last night and told us she had been in close contact with someone last Friday who has subsequently tested positive for the virus and she must isolate. She then woke up this morning with a cough, which isn't unusual for her, but as a precaution we have taken her for a test this morning. Will the time between Friday and today be conclusive in terms of results?

We will obviously see the isolation through in line with the rules even if its negative but it would be good to understand how much comfort we can take in a negative result at this stage.

 

 

I looked this up a few weeks ago as I suspected I'd been exposed at work, but by sheer chance I had a home testing kit for the ONS survey to do.  The data on efficacy of tests is always going to be a bit nebulous as there are so many variables, e.g. who is actually doing the swabbing and how well.  However, the best I could find was that by day 4 after exposure, there was still a 67% chance of a false negative - so that's a rough estimate for the reliability of your daughter's test.  The most reliable time-window for PCR tests is 3 days after the onset of symptoms.  Therefore, as the incubation period can be up to 14 days, this means waiting 17 days should minimise the chance of false negatives - to about 20%.  Obviously, there's a balancing act here between optimising the reliability of the test result and minimising the disruption of self-isolation, so probably best to have a read and decide for yourself:

https://medical.mit.edu/covid-19-updates/2020/07/when-should-i-be-tested

[zahidf]

 

[Guest]

Labour starting to put pressure on the government now about Christmas.

[squirrelarmy]

1 minute ago, Ozanne said:

Labour starting to put pressure on the government now about Christmas

PMAQs will be interesting tomorrow if Starmer calls Boris out on allowing xmas to continue as normal. 

[Guest]

Just now, squirrelarmy said:

PMAQs will be interesting tomorrow if Starmer calls Boris out on allowing xmas to continue as normal. 

It will indeed, I can see pressure being put on him for Christmas especially if figures today are high. 

[philipsteak]

2 hours ago, Homer said:

Credit to Wahaca, we got asked if we lived together, even though it was just the wife and I (to be fair, I am punching above my weight there - I can't believe she married me either).

 

Were they at least professional enough to not do a double take or ask 'really? '

[topmarksbri]

9 minutes ago, zahidf said:

 

Interestingly, this is a theory that also holds true for MPs going against the whip and why going against the whip is bad for governments in a more meta way - once they do then they're more likely to break the whip again.