Talk Morgan Forums Community The Malvern Arms does anyone understand the covid rules?

Because I dont. Here in England this mornings news is that social gatherings of more than 6 people will be illegal from the 15th. But pubs remain open and no pub is viable on a maximum capacity of 6 people. So does anyone know when being in a pub with other people becomes a "social gathering" as opposed to just being there? Is it when people talk to each other? Is it when they are closer than 2m? Is it simply when they know each other? And if so how well do they need to know each other? We have a planned lunch involving two tables of 4 people. Is that socialising?

I suppose we could move our lunch across the border into Wales where up to 4 households can form an extended household and have lunch together? Avoiding Caerphilly of course, where most things are banned - but then who would want to go there?

OK I am old but I am university educated and reasonably literate. If I cant understand the rules, who can? Why is the communication from the civil service ( I dont for a moment think that ministers write these rules themselves) so apallingly bad?

You've never watched "Yes, Minister"?

A pub can have more than 6 people in it, but they cannot be in groups of more than 6 - so 6 people on one table, for example. Groups must be >2m apart.

So your 2 tables of 4 people can go ahead, but the two tables must be distanced.

It doesn't apply to businesses and offices because the virus understands the importance of these environments to the economy and so has agreed not to spread in these places.

Here is the Welsh Guidelines.
Read about extended households.
Totally confusing!
Also no masks need to be worn in shops
https://gov.wales/coronavirus-regulations-guidance#section-39235

Being a classroom with 32 kids and 2 adults - OK
Sat on a crowded bus/train/tube - OK
Sat in an office for 7+ hours with other people - OK

Meeting with 7 of those colleagues or friends socially - Not OK

I think your frustration is felt by most of us Howard.

1. What Bob said. It was not a light entertainment program at all. It was a advertisement to entice sadists to join the civil service. It took me ages to realise it was a recruiting tactic. After all none of it could possibly be real could it. Actually maybe is was their operating procedures made real? Explains why they have never released a new version and the procedures have yet to see change?

2. I think I understood it but that was on one day about three weeks ago. I was also standing in a different county.

3. I have lost confidence in them so make my own more conservative rules up which include gloves and a face mask pretty much everywhere there is public mingling. This is going to go on for a while yet so the best thing they can do is lower the panic tone on the press and set normal.

Lets face it if someone ever calls their card all they need to do is point at one of the three different contradicting releases made every day and they are home free. This may be a ploy Cummings was testing some time back, it seems to have worked for him as he still has a job despite being a hyena.

Well, right now around 2,500 people a day don't understand the rules enough to avoid getting infected.

Unfortunately there's a massive lack of common sense around, and for that there's no cure either.

Not wearing masks anywhere is popular around here. Car sharing, hanging around in groups drinking and so on.

Let's face it, adults shouldn't need rules, especially if long term ill health or death is the outcome.

Common sense tells me that my school is a petri dish, and spending hours at a time in a confined space with 34 other people, when I have absolutely no idea of their wider social groups and the personal precautions they are taking, is absolutely ludicrous.

Common sense tells me that I should be wearing a hazmat suit at worst, or staying as far away as possible at best.

Government 'rules' tell me that school attendance is mandatory for all children, and the use of PPE is not required (or even allowed) in the classroom.

^^This is why I consider myself so lucky to be retired. Otherwise I would face a daily rail commute, and an office where managers are bereft of common sense. And that's putting it mildly.

Well TBM its good news in some ways, the hazmat suit will fit over the anti-stab vest comfortably