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What is the meaning of the following sentence:

And I shall carry on with the 40 hour week working with people who are in more bubbles than a bloody aero !!

This is a top up-voted comment from the comment section of this Daily Mail article "No stopping for a chat if you bump into friends, and DON'T sit on park benches: Chris Whitty and ministers warn against 'pushing boundaries' of lockdown with NHS on the brink of disaster - and the rules could get even TOUGHER"

Many describe this comment as "Brilliant", "Love it, so true. Thank you for the chuckle", "This should be top comment haha" ,"Brilliant! Great comment".

I can't get the humor of the comment.

I think the catch is the word "bubble" which may have gained some new meanings lately. Every entry of "bubble" in the dictionary doesn't fit.

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    Your profile doesn't say where you are, but the UK government has coined the word 'bubble' to mean a group of people who may meet together during the pandemic. gov.uk/guidance/making-a-support-bubble-with-another-household
    – Kate Bunting
    Commented Jan 11, 2021 at 14:46
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    Oxford has a better definition a small group of people with whom you are allowed to have physical contact during a period when social distancing is otherwise required. It’s always a good idea to check more than one dictionary. There are some dictionary recommendations on English Language Learners Meta ell.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/4721/…
    – ColleenV
    Commented Jan 11, 2021 at 14:50
  • In the Wikipedia definition, it's No. 15!
    – Kate Bunting
    Commented Jan 11, 2021 at 15:04
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    It's a deliberately "quirky" usage. Not least because it reverses the imagery of people in bubbles by invoking an image of Aeros in bubbles ("Aero" candy bars contain bubbles, not the other way around). Reminds me of Spring is sprung! The grass is riz! I wonder where them birdies is. The little birds is on the wing. Ain't that absurd! The wings is on the little birds! (delivered in a Bronx accent, with boids, absoid, etc.).
    – FumbleFingers
    Commented Jan 11, 2021 at 16:43
  • @FumbleFingersReinstateMonica I think it is more likely that this was a clumsy attempt to link an old trope "more bubbles than an Aero" with the new one, of people "having" "Covid bubbles".
    – MikeB
    Commented Jan 11, 2021 at 18:05

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"Bubble" hasn't gained a new meaning as such, but in the context of the Covid-19 pandemic, the UK Government has started to refer to a small group of people (in some cases) as "a bubble". The basic principle is that if you have two people, who live in different houses, they can 'pretend' that they live in the same household, and therefore isolate from everyone else, with the exception of each other.

In some cases, it seems that certain people redefine their particular bubble very frequently, which is contrary to the original intention, and therefore such a person could be said to belong to 'many bubbles'.

The other part of the allusion, is to a popular chocolate bar, which is marketed largely on containing loads (millions?) of bubbles, which long ago started to lead to numerous comparisons containing the phrase "more bubbles than an Aero".

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