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

Long Covid has destroyed my life. I can’t be the mother, wife, daughter I need to be. I can’t work, so my family is paying the price.
I was working in retail having customers thinking it’s funny telling me that they’d traveled from lockdown areas for a day out with friends.

They aren't. It's dumb conspiracy theory shite.

The state of Victoria and its capital city Melbourne had long harsh lockdowns caused mostly by leaking quarantine facilities. The premier of Victoria copped a lot of flak for the lockdowns. Public Opinion was divided in Victoria. But I really think it saved a lot of lives. Melbourne, Victoria seemed to have a lot of bad luck.

Because the states and territories were isolated from each other, and because the country as a whole isolated itself from the rest of the world quickly, and because we went into the first lockdown nationally and very early, Australia did pretty well generally speaking. My impression was that most people were compliant. For all Australia’s laid back, ‘she’ll be right mate’ reputation, Australians are generally a very law abiding compliant lot. Lockdown was an imperfect response and some people definitely suffered because of it, but it was all we had at the start.

The state of Western Australia was the place to be. They cut themselves off from the rest of Australia but mostly moved freely within the state. It looked almost like business as usual as far as I could see.

I agree. It was a difficult situation, and it was always going to be a toss up between bad and worse for whoever was in power, but the government of the time made a complete fuck up of everything.

There are thousands of microbiology and public health experts in this country, and they clearly scoffed at the lot of them. It was obvious from December 2019 that there was going to be a big global problem and yet they did fuck all to prepare. Not bothering to turn up for the Cobra meetings in January was astonishing.

Where the fuck was the leadership?They were useless in a crisis. They flip flopped between indecisive and draconian, had weak conflicting and confusing messaging, and showed utter contempt for the public.

Arrogant Twats.

I've not forgotten, I'm still fuming 🤬

ps: it was civil servants and SPADs who partied in 2020 during Lockdowns, not politicians. Johnson had one birthday cake but the boozers were the (mostly young) civil servants.

imho, there's too much historical navel gazing in UK. Also, the atmosphere isn't "Lessons we can learn to do better in future" but rather "who can we be pissed off at" sometimes justified as "Getting angry is the only way things ever change." and then more fury that none of the villified paid a personal price that satisfies the furious. imho, Anger shouldn't make public decisions for everyone.

Agree with PP who said that Lockdown could only get high compliance and acceptance when it was obvious that nothing else would prevent huge harms. I don't think Lockdowns would have been accepted or even worked (fairly) well if imposed much earlier.

2021 was the huge mortality wave. I guess the handling then is geting a nod of approval from Enquiry?

Could not agree more

You just believe most of them.

Conspiracy theory research?

Try doing some basic research first.

I don’t yet believe all the conspiracy theories “2020 was just the warm up, proper lockdown on the way soon”, but I do think that once the government decided lockdown would happen, someone said “let’s seize this opportunity to find out exactly how far we can frighten, bully, coerce and manipulate the peasants public with the power of the media, and fear messaging”, hence the massive campaign of fear, and the absurd rules: it felt as if the government was deliberately testing the limits of what the public would tolerate. And to my dismay, the public tolerated a lot: not only was there not a shred of public resistance to the absurdity at first, but the public pleaded for more, and even the government was surprised by the compliance. This means that they have discovered that frightening the public “works”. The impact might have been lessened by Partygate, but I do think that similar tactics might be used later to frighten the public into obedience about something completely different, such as climate change.

As for the “reprisal” now, I avoid the news so I haven’t heard much, but it wouldn’t surprise me if the BBC and others are keeping the state of fear glowing slightly. And we’re back to the face rags littering the pavements.

Save it.

The present government would undoubtedly make mistakes. They would not shit all over the UK population by exhorting the population to do one thing while doing the opposite themselves. Again and again and again.

Probably with more seriousness than the one at the time.

I think that would depend on mortality rate.

30% death rate? I think people would lock down,

Boris did his best? Partying when everyone else was in lockdown and then not attending Cobra meetings- he was incompetent and responsible.

Can you imagine how the current government would’ve handled that shit show? I fucking shudder to think.

Yeah but mistakes tend to happen more in chaotic disorganised environments when people are trying to ‘battle’ a disease and prove how macho they are. If those in charge go to the appropriate meetings and act on earlier advice from their own experts then some mistakes can be avoided.

the language is fascinating - I teach English Language A level and a couple of students have compared the language of Johnson’s addresses to Jacobs’s Adern’s and it’s striking.

I think the enquiry was a waste of time and money. My belief was that young people were let down and that we should have not had a lock down but the vulnerable should have shielded. I thought that at the time as did many, but when you feel of that you’re in the minority you tend not to speak out as much as you like to. Hindsight is a wonderful thing. I do feel sorry for the government. They didn’t know what was going to happen. I think Boris did the best in many ways and he is naturally optimistic, he’s naturally a libertarian and didn’t like the whole concept lockdown I think without the advice or influence of others the UK would’ve carried on with no lockdown but we are where we are. If there would be another pandemic I don’t think it would be possible to have a lockdown as people would not go along with it so maybe that is the lesson from it and another generation of young people would be saved from isolation and losing their freedom

The ones I'm angry at are the WHO. Why did they just sit and wait and let it spread so far from China. They should have closed off flights etc so much earlier. It was maddening at the time - it was obvious to everyone from day dot that China were lying and the WHO just sat and watched it spread across the world.

I'm so sorry for your loss. I think it's criminal the way Boris, Cummings etc acted, they appeared completely incompetent and actually like they were revelling in their incompetence. All fun and games when you're secretly getting the wine out in no 10 when the great unwashed are following the rules. The reality is people die when leaders are incompetent.

Exactly. I'm so sorry.

I'm finding it depressing because in modern parlance it is 're-traumatising' me. I went into lockdown with everyone else but for various reasons didn't really start to come out until summer of 202.
So I'm avoiding it.

The findings of this report are at odds with many people’s experience of Covid. I, like a lot of people are still WFH now and it’s transformed home and work life balance (and well-being) for many.

I don’t condone the arrogance and behaviour of some in Westminster - it was appalling but generally speaking, the policy decisions were based on very scary and worrying information that was new and emerging. They didn’t know for a while, for example, that covid presented in some children in a full body rash. It was only after doctors were reporting multiple cases - things were changing and evolving all the time.

How could it NOT have been chaotic? How could anyone have predicted the impact on children’s mental health years later? (My dd being one who suffered greatly). Most decent people upheld the rules and listened faithfully to the daily updates on the news. I’m actually amazed that they rolled out that vaccine so quickly and efficiently.

I wonder how many of the critics would’ve handled it? Not locked down when the rest of the world was showing windswept and empty capital cities? Hindsight is indeed a wonderful thing.

Yes, it's astonishing how those 223000 deaths apparently didn't happen and that it was all a lot of fuss over " a bit of a cold".

Oh good lord Chiseltip. If you mean that planning is being done for other future pandemics, well I hope so because they are going to happen.