Covid alert levels and visiting friends

[Guest]

It seems clear (and it is very much common sense) that at this time everybody stays at their own home, and possibly this coincides with the place of habitual residence, and do not travel if it is not really necessary.

But what about visitors? does anybody have a clue on what the guidelines or legal requirements are for students, friends or visitors (for either business purposes or leisure) coming on standard visas from overseas? can they stay in AIRB&B sort of accommodations or houses in multiple occupations for weeks or months in spite of the restrictions to households settings, and may be waiting for their VISA to expire so that then they may ask for extensions because their Countries have closed borders in the meantime?

I refer to people that have no refugee status, do not look for work, are not actually carers even if they may bring some comfort to friends...

Thanks for any further information / source of advice.

[IlonaM]

Re: visa advice - see: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/coronavirus-covid-19-advice-for-uk-visa-applicants-and-temporary-uk-residents [Last updated 12 October 2020]

The BBC has done an updated explainer, 'What does the tier system mean for UK holidays?': https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/explainers-52646738

[Penguin68]

coming on standard visas from overseas

Visa type isn't an issue - if arriving from (most, now) overseas territories (I believe Italy and Eire are still OK) visitors (or UK citizens) must quarantine for 14 days - there are some exemptions (i.e. cabin crew) but not many. The countries on the OK list change regularly - normally on Thursdays.

[IlonaM]

The BBC has a useful local restrictions checker: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-54373904 - you enter your/target area postcode and the current restrictions for that area appear. BTW: London due to go into Tier 2 from Friday midnight.

Also link to Government Travel Corridors webpage: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/coronavirus-covid-19-travel-corridors

[Guest]

Thanks for the useful references to the guidelines and regulations. At first sight, they seemed quite clear for all sorts of visitors. Then again, especially with the prospect of another total lockdown and a tier 3 for London possibly coming up - I have found confusing the lack of precise directions that can apply to my house (HMO).

Perhaps it is difficult to draw a precise line among the status of friends / visitors and other categories such as refugees, carers, students that may need visa extensions to remain in the Country.

I do have sympathy for everybody but as the proverb says - and it is known in many countries - guests and fish smell in three days... Perhaps the guideline should address also the mental health side of the 'visitors' status and preventing problems saying that everybody is welcomed and freedom of international travel is paramount but public health requires to put off some plans of extended visits during the pandemic?

[Penguin68]

Then again, especially with the prospect of another total lockdown and a tier 3 for London possibly coming up

Considering the SE quadrant of Greater London (including Southwark and Lewisham) is still running under the trigger level even for Tier 2 the mayor's demands that London be treated as a whole - and for even more savage lock-downs - is getting very annoying. London has always been a collection of communities which tends to act quite locally - Pre-Covid I spent almost no time North of the River outside the City and Westminster (and very little time there) - none in Ealing or Hounslow (unless in a vehicle passing through) and have no community of interest, friends or family in most of North and North West London. But I have to act as if in the midst of the worst Covid-19 hotspot across Greater London.

[Guest]

Penguin68 I see there is a postcode checker at https://www.gov.uk/coronavirus where there is also access to the guidance

Several local areas included in Lewisham, Lambeth and Southwark are classed as High

Level Alert High means that social distancing measures should be respected at all times and above all it says "You must not meet socially with friends and family indoors in any setting unless you live with them or have formed a support bubble with them. This includes private homes, and any other indoor venues such as pubs and restaurants.

A support bubble is where a household with one adult joins with another household. Households in that support bubble can still visit each other, stay overnight, and visit public places together."

If you are clinically vulnerable and live in a HMO you really do not care where guests and visitors of the other household(s) come from, it might be Camden or Nepal. The point is these people are not in your support bubble, you do not want and you must not meet them indoors.

So all in all I wonder would it be simpler and easier to just say guests and visitors stay at your home, considering how generally overcrowded is the housing situation in London, particularly in South London, shorten your holidays, put off your sabbatical, make video calls, move in a residence or hotel if you can afford it instead of staying with friends, come next year and so on? It is not the end of the world.

[Guest]

I have not had time to catch up on the details of the new rules but it seems confirmed that guests and visitors can meet indoor up to 6 if they belong to the same household or bubble, people cannot be evicted for other six months at least, mortgage holidays also have been extended for other 6 months... In sum, it seems a context in which changes such as moving house or having more people living together are always possible (especially for home owners and students) but are not really possibile for everybody, particularly for tenants on low income, visitors from overseas, lodgers.

My confusion arises from the fact that I am in a de fact house in multiple occupation: we are two single residents in the same house. The live-in landlord has his own bubble(s), circles of relatives and friends (separated ex partners, children from different women, friends coming and going as domestic help, support and companions). The other resident is me, the single tenant with nobody visiting. This is my only home, and I have been living here for over two years, with plenty of access to the whole house (the garden of which I have restored from a state of pretty much abandonment).

Normally, we do not have a social life together and it may pass weeks before we meet each other or we are both in the same space such the hall or the garden. During the first lockdown some solidarity behaviours kicked in and since he seemed struggling to go out because of mental distress and lack of company I often handed some essential shopping or some food on the threshold of his flat. He was also kindly asking if I was well and we organised to access the garden in separate moments so that we could keep staying socially distanced at all times.

Is he allowed to have relatives and other friends visiting at all times up to 6 people at any given moment indoor? It seems to me he is indeed.

Does the allowance of 6 people indoor extend also to his girlfriend and possibly another bubble? Here is where the argument "visitors" becomes particularly annoying, because who is in your bubble potentially affects what you count as visitor or friends also for another household.

Thanks for any practical advice or, if exist, specific point of the official guidance.

[IlonaM]

This is quite a good explainer (not official but based on Government & devolved powers). It will be updated to reflect further changes: https://www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk/explainers/coronavirus-lockdown-rules-four-nations-uk

It has the current Tier 2 regs on meeting people indoors & outside.

[Penguin68]

I have not had time to catch up on the details of the new rules but it seems confirmed that guests and visitors can meet indoor up to 6 if they belong to the same household or bubble,

I don't think this is quite right under new lockdown - Households (of any size, if they all live together) can meet indoors in their own house. They can have NO guests or visitors indoors, and individuals may meet with one person only outdoors.

As an exception a single person living on their own can form a 'bubble' with someone else (and meet them indoors, I think) - but not then with a third party.

Informal childcare arrangements can form a bubble - so an infant grandchild living with a parent or parents could be looked after by its grandparents in their house whilst the parent(s) were working.

[Blah Blah]

Penguin is right. Under the new rules from Thursday, there can be NO household mixing of any kind indoors. The only exception is for people living alone who may visit ONE household as part of a bubble, and it must be only that one household for the period of lockdown.

Outdoors, the rule of six applies for same households, and individuals may meet one person from another household.

Edited to add though that this is going to be a nightmare to Police as people are subject to all sorts of different rules, with schools and workplaces still open. I personally fail to see how this is going to work to reduce infection rates, given that an ONS assessment recently claimed that 70 plus percent of new infections were caught through schools, universities and workplaces.

[DulwichFox]

What is the situation with workmen.

I have my yearly boiler service booked for 20th November.

It is a safety issue. Can that still go ahead. ?

I will have to contact Vaillant to see what they say.

The Boiler is at the back of my kitchen next to double Patio doors to the outside.

It should be OK. Essential work.

My alarm system Was serviced back in July

Foxy

[seenbeen]

IlonaM Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> This is quite a good explainer (not official but

> based on Government & devolved powers). It will be

> updated to reflect further changes:

> https://www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk/explaine

> rs/coronavirus-lockdown-rules-four-nations-uk

>

> It has the current Tier 2 regs on meeting people

> indoors & outside.

I agree- it is a nice table.

As for workmen in your house I think they are carrying on as usual- social distancing applies, washing hands, no symptoms

[Guest]

Thanks. Very clear table and useful considerations.

This afternoon the BBC put online another article on the new rules and how to determine who can be in your bubble.

This instruction perhaps can be used to square the circle of how to deal with visitors if you are in a house in multiple occupation. The article is at https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-52637354

It says:

"And if you are single

- Two single people each living alone could bubble

- Someone in a houseshare could bubble - but their housemates wouldn't be allowed to form their own bubbles with other people"

In practice, if you share a house, you have to find a way to live together in the same house but socially distanced unless you decide that you are in the same bubble with your housemates (this is what many students do) and not, for instance, with your separated wife and children or your live-out housekeeper or girlfriend.

A carer is likely to need to be in your bubble to provide the service, a plumber or a cleaner do not need to even if they enter your house and stay with social distancing measures in place.

So all in all, it seems important to have routines firmly in place, to communicate effectively so that also the regular and occasional visitors that are not in your bubble can adapt and keep their distance at all times.

[IlonaM]

New National Restrictions from 5 November available here:

https://www.gov.uk/guidance/new-national-restrictions-from-5-november

[ianr]

The regulations themselves: https://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2020/1200/contents/made

[JohnL]

Brilliant that's got my MOT question answered too - The Southwark list I was sent isn't as extensive as this.

[bobbsy]

JohnL, are MOT's required currently or are they postponed again?

[ianr]

The regulations granting a conditional 6 month MOT test certificate exemption seems to be still in force for tests needed up till 29 March 2021. This is the most recent version: https://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2020/382/2020-07-31. The Explanatory Note at the end is helpful.

Before seeing that I'd have said that the regulation allowing the fulfillment of a legal obligation would have been the thing to rely on for permitting the journey. But since it's quite _possibly_ not deemed an obligation now, I'm not sure it helps, at least in theory. I'd check with the test centre as to what _seems_ to be permitted, if you're set on trying to get one now; or alternatively to check with them that cancellation of the current date is ok. Perhaps one of the motoring organisations has some online advice. IANAL and do not claim to give sound or reliable opinion or advice. [smiley]

[Guest]

I have just checked and the whole of Southwark and Lambeth postcodes are clearly still in Tier 2, so it does not seem the rules are relaxed as far as Christmas holidays are concerned, aren't they?

I still have in my house the live-in landlord who needs to manage his own friends and relatives bubble(s) (including a visiting friend from overseas that is overstaying with him and seems to have some mental distress issues as well). I am the other resident tenant in the house and in order not to interfere with his complicated menage I am not going to the garden.

I cannot go on holiday and visit my relatives abroad as we are all either vulnerable or extremely vulnerable.

I have tried to see if I can move out but I have not been in any way successful trying to find another place where to live so far and in any case moving out in this pandemic would exposing me to further distress and make me more vulnerable.

So in conclusion I cannot have any company for Christmas after almost one year of total solitude. I have to tolerate a suddenly unfriendly landlord and his lunatic mistress - a month ago they have started not responding if I just say Good morning, they have become inexplicably very unpleasant people to share a house with whilst in 2019 they were pretty cheerful and love my food as well :(

How dreadful is all this?!?! Anybody else in this awkward situation of sharing house with temperamental people?

What can we do but be patient and cheerful?

Any advice or reasonable thought will be appreciated... Perhaps we can move together in a big quite and friendly house for Christmas? Get in touch!

Best wishes to everybody.

[Penguin68]

I have just checked and the whole of Southwark and Lambeth postcodes are clearly still in Tier 2, so it does not seem the rules are relaxed as far as Christmas holidays are concerned, aren't they?

The relaxion of rules over the 5 days of Christmas (3 households, indoors - no 'rule of 6') is generally applicable I believe across Tiers 1-3. Although I doubt London will be separated as regards Tier level, it is worth noting that London boroughs south of the river are generally scoring lower levels of infection - so it is possible that the review on 16th December may acknowledge this. Don't hold your breaths. The Zoe app (which gives the most up-to-date figures) has been shown to be consistent with the other major measures, but more timely - and that is taking a very positive spin on London generally. Its algorithms have been pronounced sound.

[Guest]

Now the Tier 4 seems applying to any London postcode from tomorrow the 20th, reiterating the basic general principle in a wide range of circumstances ("limit how many different people you see socially over any period of time") but the crucial point is "stay at home" that means within your household.

Travelling to other parts of the Country or abroad may be impossible.

Check postcodes https://www.gov.uk/find-coronavirus-local-restrictions

[AylwardS]

The official guidance has been published. Its "stay at home", no relaxation for Christmas and a section on travel.

https://www.gov.uk/guidance/tier-4-stay-at-home

You can only leave / enter tier 4 for very limited purposes.

[Penguin68]

You can only leave / enter tier 4 for very limited purposes.

Considering the extent of Tier 4 - I'd have to drive a bunch to get out of it. Driving East I'd have to be in France before I was, driving West in Oxfordshire!