To find all this COVID chat reprisal in the news so depressing

The glaring omission in the report is the fact that the Chinese disseminated late and incorrect information. Not one mention of that. Even the WHO in the early days were saying it wasn't airborne transmission.

Also no acknowledgement that every other country followed a similar pattern of lockdowns, circuit breakers etc etc and we all pretty much ended up in the same place regardless.

That happened in China, when the protests started in Nov '22, the Party just abruptly stopped all zero covid, closed the mass testing stations, and pulled the barriers aside.

The virus had weakened by then, but withing a week near everyone was flat in their bed with it, hospitals full, and not a paracetamol or anti fever med to be had anywhere.

My DD had a temperature half a degree off the hospital zone, and we were terrified. And there was zero we could do.

The Party stopped reporting data to the WHO, but of course the state media said all ok, everything normal.

So yup, letting covid run free was not a good idea at all.

An irony is that I’m seeing posters saying “nobody should be alone in hospital over the festive season”.

Did someone forget to tell Johnson and his merry men this?

I also saw signs saying “play is important for children” next to the “playground closed” signs.

Well, my Dad had to die alone during Covid and then it killed my DH, so I could cheerfully brain Johnson and co. Their uselessness is beyond satire. But, it’s done and I can’t change a thing.

As for war and shelters, well my family all lived in London during the Blitz etc - trust me, you would go down a shelter. 🙄

I would have encouraged the vulnerable to stay at home and shield and let the rest of society carry on. I think protocols such as limiting physical contact etc etc be adopted but I don’t believe in harsh lockdowns due to the damage they have caused.

What would have been your approach - let Covid run free amongst the population?

@TaurangaI agree totally, there should have been no lockdown. The impact on young people from infants to late teens has been huge, when people about loss it is those lost years that I am concerned about which has stored up issues not just for them personally but which has and will continue to have an enormous impact upon our society.

This always happens with new diseases or strains in a community. When they later trace back to the original infection, they always find it goes back a lot farther than they knew at the time. They've found new evidence of earlier AIDS infections in the US in just the last few years.

There was never any question though that they could keep covid out, or that most people would eventually catch it.

We can learn from what happened and not make the same mistakes next time.

And with no lockdown you’d have been ok with an unlimited number of deaths - including potentially you?

Thing is that COVID really wasn't
very long ago. Especially for people who were directly affected.

Many people died, or lost people, or suffered during lockdown. Some people are still suffering.

The fact you expected it's something people should now only discuss with humour or light suggests you weren't one of them.

Ah but that discounts that fact that their definition includes a fuck ton of people then, in which case it's still a major lockdown with a large impact on the economy. They are still assuming those clinically vulnerable people are not a significant part of the workforce.

I work in public health. I was a microbiologist, then epidemiologist. I'm also disabled and work with disabled groups. There are many people with chronic health conditions working in our economy. A whole lot of those people fall into the category of clinically vulnerable. A lot of them will be working in jobs that are essential during a public health crisis. Is it fewer than those furloughed? No idea, I guess it could be modelled, or we will find out if they try that strategy next time there's a pandemic (there certainly will be a next time, it's just difficult to predict when).

There is always going to be a significant impact on the economy during a major global pandemic.

Don't you think the children you work with would have been even more greatly affected if their relatives had died or if they themselves had caught it and been left with long term after-effects?

Hindsight is always 20-20. I don't really see the point in rehashing it all at so much cost to be honest. We cannot go back and make different decisions, next time there is a pandemic society will be completely different - as different as it was in 2020 from the 1918 flu pandemic.

A lot of navel gazing and hand wringing.

Aren’t you lucky?

You have to weigh that up I suppose against the damage that would have been done to kids losing grandparents etc.

Did you not follow any of the science ?

Hospitals have finite resources. A major reason for the lockdowns was to preserve resources, to have spares ready, to keep medical capacity. Because once all the ventilators are occupied, the death rate shoots up.

Hindsight is a wonderful thing.

It was years ago I have moved on
In did not mind lockdown - saved a fortune
Bored with it now
I have moved on

When I watched bits of the Inquiry, one of the strangest things was how witnesses and evidence would point to things like “we assumed it was a respiratory virus like a flu” or “we didn’t take into account long covid” or “we didn’t acknowledge it was airborne” or “didn’t take into account impact on children” or “should have used hepa filters as a fairly cheap tool to reduce spread” or “ability of NHS to cope” as though those things are openly acknowledged now or been addressed since, with the exception of maybe lockdown measures in children, but not e.g. the impact of long covid on children (latest figures “after covid” 2024, England of 1,000 new long covid cases per week in children), living with vulnerable family members, losing loved ones, becoming young carers etc. There’s still an assumption by some that previously healthy people are spared from health impacts of covid.

Morrison done well in ozz. Without a doubt. Short sharp full lockdowns as I recall.

And I also remember the thing about a pizza guy who ignored the rules and delivered to a quarantine place starting off another outbreak.

There’s video footage and photos of Johnson raising a glass at parties.

Of course they would’ve! 🤣
www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-61271050

The whole government coming out and saying whatever they’re saying about how the government at the time handled it is so pointless, they’re hardly going to say the opposition party did a great job are they.