Interpretation of the '6 people rule'

[John Baguley]

I'm curious as to how other clubs are interpreting the Covid19 rule that, if outside, you can only meet with 5 other people from different households? If strictly followed then you could only have a maximum of 6 people on site at any one time.

My interpretation is that you can have several groups of 6 people up to a maximum of 30 people in total.

If you go to the pub, then, if sat outside, you can meet with 5 other people from other households but there is no limit to how many such groups can be outside together in the same area. Our local pubs often have 50 people or more sat outside at separate tables.

Our club has sent a risk assessment to the local council stating that we will have a maximum of 25 people on site at any one time and they are perfectly happy with that. We do have strict rules with regard to social distancing and no public allowed etc.

The 'rules' also state that clubs and groups can meet again in Covid19 secure locations. Perhaps that is the way round it?

John

[wheelwright]

That is about what we are doing at WWSME Westbury Wilts. Club house one way system perspex protection over servery only 8 people can sit and maintain social distancing. No visitors/public. Looking to extend small outside covered area with a Gazebo we use with our portable 5ins track for Fêtes etc. Some people are not good at social distancing, so as not to cause ill feeling just walk away from situation you do not feel happy with, they eventually get the message.

Pete

[JonL]

It seems to be working there in my opinion. As you say, if you don't want to hurt feelings you can just melt away...

[Cro]

We seem to have taken things a bit literally and the club is only allowing 6 members at any time up on designated days for fun running but currently not allowing boiler testing so its a bit pointless as 99% of locos are out of ticket. We submitted a risk assessment to the council and they also imposed a rule we could only run after 5 as to not be showing the public we are running but I can't see the problem with saying 'No, members only due to to the risk'.

[Roger]

These rule are pretty arbitrary, they're just trying to give people a sense of what level of separation we need to maintain to keep R0<1
It totally unrealistic to clearly define any of these restrictions, what's needed is awareness of the dangers and big helping of common sense.

It's easy to pick holes in any of these rules, and criticise the government for making them. They're damned if they do and damned if they don't. Either way, the virus doesn't care. It's still extremely infectious, so the only completely safe meeting is no meeting at all. All we can do is interpret any rules in the light of how likely you would be to pass on any infection if someone at an event had the virus.

I'm afraid that unless you're practicing proper distancing and not touching things that others touch, you're likely to pass it on. You can pick it up from the club toilet, so if you're allowing that to be used, you need to clean it after every use. Staying outside makes sense, but there's no magic force field at two metres even then! Thank goodness that there aren't too many cases in the UK at the moment. Let's keep it that way.