To ask what we SHOULD have done during the COVID pandemic

Pandemic management is inherently political. Especially in a democracy, as governments know they're going to be accountable to the electorate for what they do sooner or later. Though even in China the population eventually forced the state's hand.

Covid meant some people and interests were going to have to be prioritised at the expense of others. There was never any way round that. The decision about who gets to be protected and who's the collateral is political. Even with the best and most sensible governance in the world, which the clowns in the UK clearly did not provide, that would still be true.

I think that, with the benefit of hindsight, it’s also easy to forget that in the early days we didn’t know much about the virus or how badly healthy people would be affected. It was an unknown entity.

As a teacher I worked in school through both lockdowns. I was teaching ft and expected to produce a full week of online learning and live lessons. What I was teaching in person wasn’t possibly to ask people to do at home. My daughter wasn’t classed as a key workers child until the 2nd lockdown so I had the same issues as every other working parent. All while being told by the media that I was a slacker, waster, shirker etc as schools weren’t open.

I dont know because we all have the benefit of hindsight now which means we all feel very differently than at the time. We also have muddled memories of what happened and when and we all seem to have picked up different messages.

The main message I heard was flatten the curve and protect the nhs

Others heard protect the vulnerable

The main thing I would have changed is the absurdity of bubbles in schools after the big lock down. They were a total nonsense and affected play. The 'open but not open' stage was a pointless nightmare.

Have we mentioned the tiers system yet? That was batshit.

It would also never have been implemented if the areas with highest rates in summer 2020 had been ones where people who are considered important live. There's a reason Leicester, Greater Manchester and Lancashire got to be the guinea pigs for this absolute dickheadedness.

What could be done differently?

Not let politics determine the approach.

In February 2020, the Boris Johnson Government was still in love with Brexit and determined to show British exceptionalism from Europe by doing things differently even in the face of a pandemic.

It saw what was happening in Italy, in Switzerland, Germany, France etc, but instead of thinking “this will be the UK in two weeks” they thought “Righho, excellent opportunity to show Britain is different to Europe and can stand defiant against this pesky virus”.

Also inspired by the approach of their pals in the Trump administration in the US.

So any actions (public health warnings, staffing up, resources to hospitals, making equipment available, getting systems in place - eg coordinating with the regions and local authorities) eventually taken were too late.

Just like paying into a pension, you get a higher return when you start acting earlier.

Never underestimate how much politics and foreign policy played into the UK’s handling of the pandemic. Never mind the death toll if you can sock it to the neighbours. And many countries in the world know it.

Police definitely abused it. Plenty of videos on YouTube and the like of this.Someone else mentioned earlier in the thread about people getting warned because they dared to sit down and take a break when out exercising. I remember speaking to an older lady who just before lockdown 1 had a knee replacement. Following medical advice she was gradually increasing the amount of exercise she did and took a break to sit down on a bench for all of 5 minutes before some berk of a policeman bollocked her. She explained she was post-op from knee surgery but it didn’t make a blind bit of difference.

I’m sad to say though that in Wales the wording of the Covid regulations specifically limited exercising outdoors to once a day, It was unenforceable tripe though.
In England however you are quite right. It was a throwaway comment by one of the Ministers - may even have been Michael Gove.

'Keeping the old and vulnerable at home' is too simplistic.

Who are the vulnerable? Young people died too (in my own family) . And being overweight was classed as a factor increasing risk. In the early days there were a lot more young and more or less healthy people dying.

What you propose might make sense re number of death but not in terms of « what is good for the country as a whole: the « young and healthy » are supposed to pay taxes for decades / work / have children, why would you put them at risk to protect others who (on paper) won’t contribute much to society in these areas??

Personally I found the 1st lockdown good, in line to what most countries were doing, it seemed like the right reaction at the time. However I think they went wrong when they tried to have us boost the economy (eat out to help out) but forbid us to socialise for free (invite people home, see groups of 3-4 friends).

I agree with this @SilverGlitterBaubles
“Being better prepared for starters with adequate supplies of PPE and an actual plan for such events would have helped enormously”

Not being as prepared as possible, or - critically - failing to implement findings of reviews or exercises to test emergency - eg pandemic - planning is pretty inexcusable in my view.

Whilst the government in power is responsible for such major emergency planning, I think that emergency response plans for emergencies of Covid type (unknown virus) should not be partisan but should PLAN for being cross party, for the common good, and politics as such should stay out of it as much as possible.

Findings from the Covid enquiry and stuff on Exercise Cygnus relate to this.

https://news.sky.com/story/amp/bowl-of-spaghetti-uk-pandemic-preparation-to-be-laid-bare-in-covid-inquiry-report-13179534

I am now 77 and disagree with you. The risks should have been clearly explained and everyone, of any age, should have been able to make their own decisions.
I still do not understand why I could travel on a busy bus, shop in a busy supermarket but could not sit in a pub or restaurant.
I do think we all.should have got on with life.

Yes, and I must say I was amazed by the people who didn't see that coming.

We chose to make a public health issue a criminal law one. We gave the police shit tools to utilise in the form of badly written and confusing legislation and guidance. And then what a fucking shock, the state exercised power disproportionately against those with least power and didn't do a very coherent or sensible job a lot of the time.

It wasn’t just the pensioners or CEV getting seriously ill and being admitted to hospital. Before the vaccine rollout started all age groups were affected

I think we should have been more like Sweden. Close indoor venues with lots of people in close proximity (like pubs and clubs) but allow shops to stay open and open air cafes.

Schools should not have been shut. It caused so much damage for not much benefit for the actual kids themselves.

Agree that the vulnerable and elderly should have been advised to stay at home and the rest of the population should have got on with it.

The tiers and rules of 6 and penalising people for meeting in the open air with a coffee was completely ridiculous. I thought so at the time and didn't strictly follow those rules. MN was completely bonkers though - hope some of the more hysterical posters are embarrassed about some of the shit they posted.

Make decisions based on balance of harms to different sections of the population.
For example, senior civil servants were trying to highlight to government that impacts were disproportionately falling on women and children, but it was ignored. The whole response was riven with misogyny. Women were more vulnerable due to the type of work they do, more likely to be locked up with their abusers, and more likely to be trying to both wfh and look after kids.
The problem was, they didn't ask anyone.

Exactly. There was so much expertise that needed to be in the meetings too, and wasn't.

Which is why the whole 'follow the science' nonsense was so insidious. There is no 'the science'. Even if you decide to completely exclude the social science aspects of the issue, which seemed to be implied, you also have to make a value judgement about which aspect of the science you want to prioritise. The epidemiologist is likely to have different views to someone specialising in alcohol abuse, or childhood obesity.

Where did you work during the pandemic?

It's interesting mentioning the one a day walk thing as being a rule, it wasn't you could go out as many times as you liked, this rule didn't exist it was mentioned by a Minister.

The police majorly abused their powers during it, and the excuse was the rules keep changing so we can't keep up, but didn't expect the same by the general public.

I too was astonished at the way so many people just meekly accepted the constant round of useless lockdowns.

@usererror99 what would you have had me do? CEV but with a healthy husband and primary school aged child?

Yes exactly. A much broader definition of vulnerable instead of everything through the prism of covid.

I'm not a fan of the idea that we could ever have protected 'the vulnerable'. It tends to get used as a shorthand for vulnerable to covid, and has been in this thread, but actually there were also people who were vulnerable due to restrictions. The vulnerable weren't a cohesive group with the same interests, and protecting some was going to mean endangering others. Whatever we did. Any discussion has to start from that point.

Make decisions based on balance of harms to different sections of the population.

For example, senior civil servants were trying to highlight to government that impacts were disproportionately falling on women and children, but it was ignored. The whole response was riven with misogyny. Women were more vulnerable due to the type of work they do, more likely to be locked up with their abusers, and more likely to be trying to both wfh and look after kids.

The problem was, they didn't ask anyone.

Kept parks open, and I also contraversially think schools should have been open for almost all of it, maybe on a reduced timetable to allow for CEV teachers not to be in the classroom and with HEPA filters. The long tail of the harms caused to children is insane, and all the handwringing about increased SEND costs could have been somewhat mitigated. Mine actually went to school after the initial period as key workers' children and I'm so pleased they could.

Total lack of appreciation for the conditions a lot of people in the country live in. No idea what it's like to live in an overcrowded flat with no money and no access to green space.

It was pointless to insist on the continuation of work since global supply chains had essentially halted. The government did what it could during that time. Reducing nosocomial transmission was a crucial measure that kept hospitals from becoming overwhelmed. However, a tragic consequence was that vulnerable elderly individuals were effectively confined to other settings, leading to their deaths.
The pandemic was a live trolley dilemma experiment.

The schools shouldn't have closed that had such a huge impact on both children and parents.

I think people should have been allowed at least one visitor per week in nursing homes following a clear test.

They shouldn't have stopped selling clothes in shops as they weren't deemed essential. It is when you have growing children!

Telling people they had to do the grocery shopping alone. What were single parents with no supports supposed to do.

The lack of humanity at times. The doctor who came to pronounce my mother dead shouted at me for hugging my aunt because we didn't live in the same house.

The ten people at a funeral. Our church made us all space out five pews apart.

I think we could safely retire the use of terms like this and also 'selfish' from the discussion, and lose nothing. Some words just make people stop listening.