@Rae1958 That’s ok. I’ve seen that people make their own decisions and do what they want. No one can stop them short of a total lockdown and every business being closed.
I have no issue with public health guidelines at all. Don’t know why you would have responded to me as such. But I have seen with my own eyes and ears that people don’t follow basic state guidelines. Nor have they since the beginning.
Don’t know where you got the assumption that I haven’t read about long-term cases in young adults or even death. I have. Thanks for letting me know. LOL. But again, everyone has their own calculus of how to live their life. Some think it’s worth it to go to parties with 100 people and some haven’t left their house since March.
I have also seen a lot of preachy since March. Initially, I was in the category of being very upset with people who weren’t following the rules. Then I realized that many many people weren’t following the rules. Some weren’t even pretending. I’m now in the category of doing what I think it safe for me and mine and letting others do the same.
Most of the rules in my state have been fair. But a few have put small businesses in a deep hole. Not sure that is a calculus I would have made as a politician. Everyone is just trying to do their best.
Public health guidelines should be based on science, but they are actually often mandated by a public health officer in each county, based on very imperfect info; they are also inconsistent and ever-changing. And they vary between states, counties, and cities, so people cannot rely on those guidelines as some final arbiter of the real truth.
Ask the restaurant owner who paid thousands for a new ventilation system and was shut down again anyway, or paid for plexiglass between the booths, and was shut down anyway. Ask the restaurant who was shut down for even patio dining, whilst there is a tent set up right next door for a movie crew to dine. Ask the people on one beach who can swim, but not lay on the sand and the ones on a different beach who can lay on the sand, but not swim.
Ask the small restaurants who are shut down or the families told not to meet whilst the CA governor goes to a party at the French Laundry, or everyone listening to the mayor of Austin who gives an “all y’all stay home!” speech from his condo in Cabo, or the LA supervisor who gave the impassioned speech about it not being safe for restaurant servers and voted to shut them down, but went straight from that meeting to eat in a restaurant.
I would imagine every single one of us knows a friend/family member who says its a hoax and one who has barely left their home since March, as well as a huge cadre in the middle who tell us how careful they are being, over and over, how careful they are and then they tell you a story about something totally NOT careful that they did and simple don’t realize what they just said or did. I have listened to so many rants from friends complaining about their unsafe family member and then, in the same conversation, noticed them doing something equally unsafe, but they’d not realized it.
Spot on.
@Rae1958 since this is a post and things can be misunderstood on the internet, I wanted to be clear, I am in no way dissing you or what you said. I think we all have seen many people exhibiting heedless behaviors, science is not even required for the other 70-80-90% of us to recognize that the person is being reckless.
I am just trying to convey that the government, left and right, and the scientists don’t actually know enough to guide as expertly. There needs to be common sense, but we all know that common sense is rather, um, uncommon 
And yes, it is scary how invulnerable young people feel, then you read about a healthy young person dying from the after effects or side effects of Covid. Like this girl: https://www.cnn.com/2020/09/22/us/houston-adeline-fagan-covid-19-death/index.html
I have three kids, two are scientists, two have kids of their own. One is overly anxious and has been rigorously cautious, one is middle of the road, and one is not as extreme in the level of caution as the other two. Luckily each has their own home. I am not sure how we would deal with them all in the same place. I have to recognize that the anxious kid is over the top careful, and the high level of concern distracts from potentially being correct about judging sibling behavior. Just because one person is freaked out does not mean everyone else is obligated to indulge the freak out and obey those stress induced rules. But just because one person is freaked out doesn’t mean that some of what they say is not accurate and correct.
But we all, also, need to acknowledge that science is still figuring this out and even when scientists know the truth, that does not mean every government peon in every city/town/county/state is able to interpret it correctly and do what it actually best for we the people, versus CYA politics or power politics. I do believe in science, I do not believe in politicians, even the good ones end up compromising to get things done.
Being in separate households means that any external effects of their choices do not directly affect the others. The OP’s situation where the siblings (and the OP parent) are in the same household is one where the external effects of virus contagiousness require that anyone who asserts their rights necessarily infringes on someone else’s rights if they disagree, guaranteeing conflict.
The kids are at lower risk of dying than are you and the other older adult members of the household, plus I’m assuming that this is YOUR house, not theirs.
Which is more important to you - your child being able to hang out with friends, or being alive for your children a few months from now? I know which is more important to me!
Tell your child who wants to socialize that she needs to move out to live with friends immediately. It’s not a punishment - it’s so that she can have a social life. You will all live to be together again after the vaccine.
There are no guidelines against going to a mall. Easy to socially distance and wear a mask. If there was a guideline against being indoors during the winter, three of the four members of my household would need to quit their jobs, and it would be very difficult to obtain food and other necessities. Getting a food delivery time around here is like buying a lottery ticket.
Speaking of the inconsistency of the guidelines:
I got a summons for jury duty. Luckily, there was an exemption category if one is “over 65 and at high risk for COVID 19”. Confused as to whether I had to be both over 65 AND have a medical condition that put me at high risk, I called the court. (It was just over 65 so why the unnecessary second part of the phrase?)
Anyway, I asked the clerk if I could be exempted if someone in my household was in the high risk population due to a medical condition. He said “NO”. That was not an excuse.
So that makes no sense. A person would go to jury duty with dozens of others, possibly be exposed and then take it home to a vulnerable person. And the courts are wondering why they cannot seat juries because so few people are showing up.
As most have said, if she makes the decision to socialize, then the whole family has made that decision, whether they want to or not.
We are near the vaccine. Taking chances now seems really unwise to me. My D suffers from anxiety too , but she doesn’t use it as a reason to put others at risk.
This, to me, is not a personal dispute. You don’t get to put others at risk for something potentially fatal.
Lots of people (especially younger people) dismiss the risk of fatality. However, would they be as cavalier about the risks if the risk of long term disability were better publicized (some studies have found rates of such varying from 10% to 88%, probably somewhat depending on what counts)? Even the lower end of the risks seems rather significant – imagine living the rest of your life with reduced capability to do any physical activity or exercise and how that will limit what you can do and your health.
I had jury duty on Oct 22. the system here is you call in the night before to find out if you have to show up. On that call, there are many instructions NOT to show up if you have any symptoms, have been exposed, think you’ve been exposed, etc. It’s by far the easiest way to not go to jury duty as all you have to do is say you feel sick or you think you’ve been exposed. In the ‘call’ room (I did have to show up), it was very quiet and there was not any coughing or sniffling or signs anyone had even a cold. Only water allowed in the room, no food. Chairs were 6+ feet apart, you were assigned a number and that’s the chair you sat in. No moving around.
About a week later they shut down all juries so now no one goes.