Have a root around the drawers & cupboards. Chances are there’s a whole range of items she’s not opened from last year that you can re-wrap - job done 
.
Just saying…
Just to clarify, is it still ok to drive to Barnard castle to check your eyesight after today’s announcement?
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And even with your bad eyesight you will still get a £45000 per year pay rise.
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As a frontline worker, who has been in the workplace all year, I like to remind those people that at the end of a chain of events which include them thinking they’ll get away with bending the rules, someone somewhere is lying in intensive care on a ventilator.
I already know of colleagues and friends who dashed out of Tier 4 last night to ‘beat the deadline’, seemingly undeterred to the numerous criminal offences they will commit by doing so.
I guess if they want to play Russian roulette with their parents’ lives, so be it.
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What I don’t get about this is the importance people put on leaving last night.
Cant go on Sunday, that’s breaking the rules = bad
Can go on Saturday, might kill my own family = good
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Assuming they were dashing from a tier 3 (soon to be tier 4) to another tier 3 place, I believe that is not a criminal offence
Personally wouldn’t do it, but can’t say what is criminal and not is very clear
The death rate for coronavirus is 8.9 per 100,000.
The death rate in a traffic accident is 5.7 per 100,000.
Should we stop driving, walking, cycling, getting the train or plane with our families too?
People should follow the gudance and laws set. Full stop. As a keyworker who isn’t allowed to wear PPE as ordered by government, I hope people are doing this so that I don’t get it myself.
Equally, people should not be judged on the decisions they make when a sudden announcement is made in the evening. You don’t know their personal circumstances why they have left London or how they will ensure they have a Covid secure Christmas Day with families.
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Surely the difference is that traffic accidents are not an invisible, transmittable virus, often with no symptoms whilst still being passed on 
If I’m in a traffic accident, it doesn’t kill other people who I visit the following week.
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If you drive, your responsible for the passengers and other road users unless I am mistaken?
Lots of people on the move from London to other places, bringing that new strain with them 
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I have not made any anti-covid statements, you are judging me. I am far from anti-Covid. I have only seen my own mum three times since March, and none of my extended family, because of the setting I work in.
I also clearly stated:
My point is instead of people saying people are killing people by leaving London last night, people shouldn’t prejudge people’s actions and put it in perspective.
Always follow PPE rules, the Covid guidance and make an informed decision. Would I see a 80 year old grandmother this Christmas? No probably not (or through a window). Would I see a 48 year old mum? Yes, in a safe and secure day.
I personally don’t see it that way. If said parents accept the risk that 1 in 1200 of the U.K. population has died with coronavirus within 28 days of a positive test, thats up to them. If I had no underlying health conditions and under the risk age, I would have no problems with my children coming to see me. That’s my choice.
Slating them saying they are playing Russian roulette with their parents life is a tad much.
At the end of the day, people have different risk levels. My grandfather who has a lung condition that he will die of in the next couple of years, almost definitely if he catches Covid, is happy for people to still see him because he hasn’t much time left. I personally have stayed away, but that’s his decision, not the governments.
It’s a respiratory virus that is incredibly easy to spread. You will get it sooner or later unless you lock yourself away completely.
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I’m sorry if my comment offended people as that was not my intention. I don’t believe we should always prejudge people based just on one piece of evidence or actions, just as this thread has done with me.
I will withdraw from the thread for now to help cool things down.
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It’s more important to point out the crises of mental health and undiagnosed illness bubbling under the surface at the behest of this governments repeatedly demonstrated incompetence
At the end of the day, liberal democracy is governed moreso by the vote of the consumer than it is the electorate - and as such, unlike in authoritarian systems in Asia whereby the virus died with many of those originally infected, the Western system has completely fallen apart at the behest of this virus.
Would a mass exodus from an epicentre of infection have been allowed by the Chinese state? No, and this is enforceable due to the size of the state. Here, the health and police services are down the the bone. I have seen the police drive past people congregated on benches during the original lockdown, the resources just aren’t there to enforce the best interests of the publics health.
Capitalism can’t stand still, and the capitalist state can’t allow it to do so - hence the continued failures of the government regarding public health.
In the end, we will all be pitched against each other in terms of who is right and wrong, sensible or less sensible etc when in reality there is a lot of structural socio-economic factors behind why the transmission of this virus has yet to be contained in the majority of Western societies.
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I would argue that if you’re identified as vulnerable you shouldn’t be working. They are unnecessarily exposing themselves to 100’s or 1000’s of people a day knowing they are vulnerable.
But yet it’s my fault they are on a ventilator because I saw my mum over Christmas for 2 days rather than the one day allowed now 
(Not that I am because I live abroad).
My opinion is that to remove people’s right to freedom you have to answer to all the critics and have very good reasoning. Spewing out skewed figures, having pre filtered questions at the press conferences and at other interviews and not describing the effects in the the bigger picture (mental health, people’s livelihoods, other much more deadly diseases) doesn’t quite cut it.
As I said we all have different opinions and accept different levels of risk.
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It’s Southerners spreading festive cheer to Northerners 
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Well, as of 0001 this morning, it’s a criminal offence to stay overnight in anyone else’s home (unless you’re in a support bubble) so there are offences tonight.
Apart from the fact that ethically the Christmas getaway was never intended to begin until the 23rd (and is now in fact one day only), they left an area already in Tier 3, of which the guidance was not to travel to other areas, and not go inside others’ homes, and as has been mentioned, they already have the risk of living in Tier 4, that inherent risk doesn’t just raise the stakes at midnight.
I guess we just found out who the selfish c*nts are, who are happy to see others suffer and perhaps die. 
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Pedantic correction: it’s 0700. They didn’t officially publish the change until 0600, and it can’t be retrospective.
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Pedantry accepted 
I laud pedants.
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What are the chances of things being back to normal by next Christmas?
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