Was interesting what @ronxo mentioned this week, that there’s a challenge with student’s home addresses and there have been occurrences of a county going red because students who are studying elsewhere get a positive test?
Hopefully everyone had a great Christmas today, despite covid 19!
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Ours was just the two of us and the dog. Still did a big turkey roast though, and lots of video calls and photo sharing all over the world with family. Stricter lockdown in force from today 
Got a few books now to keep me busy though 
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As someone who doesn’t celebrate the holiday that falls on December 25th, my day was fine. Got some work done. Binged some TV. Got some takeout Chinese food.
My annual gripe about having a day off of work but unable to take advantage of it because the world is closed.
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Seems like an appropriate thread to bump for this post.
Obviously 2020 being a year like no other and many doing it very tough; I feel extremely lucky compared to many others. While here in Perth, Australia we are lucky enough to have fairly normal lives; watching my wife’s video calls with her mum, who is in Northern UK and just gone under level 4 lockdown again, reminds me of the mental and physical toll this is taking on many of the world.
I am very thankful that only my father-in-law and stepmum-in-law have been sick with COVID and both were able to recover within 2-3 weeks. I remain increasingly concerned for my UK family during this new wave however.
My main reason for writing this post is to reach out to all of you here in the community and wish you all a safe and much improved 2021.
For those needing to talk to someone but don’t want to post something publicly in one of the threads; I’m more than happy for you to DM me here or on Twitter (@andrewmelder). While I may not be able to respond immediately or provide usable advice to help with your situation; at the very least I can be an open ear to listen and support where I can.
As someone who has dealt with mental health personally since my late teens, I know sometimes all you need is someone to share your despair and frustration with; even if it’s only to clear some mental space in your head in order to try and let some more positive thoughts in.
Finally, as I and others have mentioned in other threads here, thank you to all in this awesome TWiT Community. Personally this has been a great space to connect and communicate with a group that can converse and challenge each other without the usual disrespect you usually encounter in the larger social networks.
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In all this there is some positive:
My wife is a police officer and contacted COVID at work. She was put out of work, tested positive right before Christmas. Her, myself and my 2 kids have had a wild but nice Christmas. It was wild because while everyone was with families we where at home. It was nice because my family brought over gifts and food since we missed the gathering and we just spent the last 3 weeks spending time with each other. My wife had mild symptoms and so far my kids are okay and I only have mild symptoms.
When her test results come back it sucked because I honestly thought Christmas was ruined. It actually turned out very nice.
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Glad to hear ya found the positive in all that
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just knowing you are willing to listen means the world
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Do you mean she is currently on sick leave, or they sacked her, because she had COVID?
The latter would be absolutely reprehensible. Thankfully we have good employment laws, here, and you can’t sack someone for being ill, you can’t sack them while they are ill and if they became ill through work, they have to be paid compensation.
I wish Mrs. @Parker4381 a speedy recovery and I hope the rest of you remain sympton free.
We had a very quiet Christmas, my wife was rushed to hospital on 23rd and had emergency surgery (not COVID related). “Luckily”, the hospital allowed one visitor for one hour per day over Christmas (24 - 26). But the rest of the time, she was there alone, no visitors allowed. I spent a relatively quite Christmas, my 2 daughters and their partners came over on the 24th to help cook the meat we had bought and thawed out for the Christmas meal, they then took food parcels to the other relatives, as planned.
I spent the rest of the time alone.
New Year was me taking care of my wife. The only high point was that there was a firework ban this year, so, instead of everyone banging away for hours on end during the day and then escalating at midnight, there were just a few idiots in the street at midnight, so the dog wasn’t totally stressed out the whole day. I don’t think I could have coped with a “normal” New Year’s Eve yesterday.
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Thanks for you comments and well wishes.
No, she was just put on a mandatory 14 day paid sick leave. She actually went back tonight.
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I hope your wife a speedy recovery.
I wish we had a firework ban. My daughter and I brought in the new year on Animal Crossing while we all watched the ball drop. Then the fireworks started and did not stop until 5am.
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Spent the New Years “Hoopla” in blissful sleep.
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I hope your wife is recovering well, @big_D
I’m losing my mind a bit over the craaaazy (delete swear words) UK government. I’m in France, where the government has confirmed it will use the vaccines as directed, even if it’s being a bit slow in rolling them out. But my elderly parents and other relatives are in the UK. My Dad has lung problems and so he has been counting down to a vaccine … and now the (even more extreme swear words) are saying, oh, we’ll give everyone half the vaccine, and then a bit later. And maybe even mix the vaccines! What the actual f.
Aaargh! I could honestly stab someone every time I think of it.
Deep breaths…
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Apologies, this isn’t really the place for my rant - but yep, feeling the stress 
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If you read some of the epidemiologist’s commentary on the Imperial pre-print report on strain B.1.1.7 you’ll get some insight into why the sudden switch to getting as much of the population some level of immunity as quickly as possible. Maybe not if stressed out though 
Like others have mentioned, hoping for a speedy recovery.
Actually, I think this is the right thread to have a rant in frustration. As @Jamze has mentioned though, I think there is some medical reasoning behind the switch in delivery.
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Yes, I have read several explanations. And I appreciate why it’s important to get as much of the population done - but they need to do it right, and they need to quell people’s fears. Giving everyone what feels like half a vaccination (with the manufacturers saying that they don’t know if it’ll even work, done like that) just leaves people in terror.
It smacks of ‘we need to get the numbers down’ without any care for individual people. I’ll bet you everything I own that Tony Blair et al get the full vaccination, three weeks apart - while saying the country overall just needs the first one. Because they’re just numbers.
And it reflects everything the UK government has done from the start, which is why it’s in the panicked mess it’s in now. To carry on half-arsing things doesn’t seem to be a good strategy.
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That said, I’m clearly too angry to be rational about this - you’ve given me pause, a little, so maybe I’ll try to calm down
Thanks everyone for the well wishes.
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Christmas did not happen for us as we planned to get together with the kids on the 26th and rules changed so we were not allowed to meet that day due to the Covid restrictions changing. The grandchildren also ended up isolating due to Covid at their school.
I was only off work for 25th and 26th as I am still at Amazon. I was due to leave Amazon by Christmas day due to having worked the max 39 weeks allowed through the agency. The agency offered me a job though in late November for 6 weeks to help with the peak workload, which I accepted. I still work in the same Amazon warehouse but now liaising between Amazon and the agency, solving any issues etc and general HR of the staff.
My experience and relationships from working on the Amazon side definitely help as my colleagues have never worked on the floor for Amazon. It is not very enjoyable for anyone atm as we are “releasing” the addition employees taken on for the November / December peak and there are not many jobs atm for them to move on to 
The agency extended my role for the foreseeable future. Plus my 8 weeks away from working for Amazon will pass soon too. This means I will have the option to go back to the Amazon side, which I enjoyed more.
We hoped to get a late Christmas with the family but as we move back into further restrictions in the UK and now it’s looking like a new lock down is coming it won’t be any time soon… It’s good that we have video calling options to keep in touch with friends and family.
On the plus side the house the is looking nice as each time the Government closes our business the wife prepares supplies to redecorate and upgrade various rooms. We also just filled a skip with all the junk from the lofts that we have been talking about doing for years. The extra spare time Covid gives us can have its advantages. The dogs are also enjoying all the extra walks too!
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