If there was another pandemic in your lifetime...

[GoodChat]

Would you follow all the rules as stringently as you did the first time around?

I was thinking about this today. I was completely law abiding the first time round - followed every single rule and guideline they put in place.

I had a 9 month old at the start of lockdown so it was nice to spend more time with her as I'd just come off maternity leave and then got furloughed. We were basically living in a little bubble and it was lovely.

I was made redundant which was crap, but it also opened up new opportunities for me and now I'm in a completely new industry, with a far better work life balance and better pay for a more relaxed life.

But... I now have an 18 month old and an almost 4 year old. I can't imagine only leaving the house for an hour a day and not being able to take them to parks etc. I don't know how people managed it. I think those who did are incredible. My mental health was battered by the end and I still get wary of groups in enclosed spaces without masks - even though I'm not scared of catching anything.

I also think any kind of lockdown/furlough scheme etc would destroy the economy beyond repair if it were to happen in the next 50 years or so. I imagine more people would die from poverty than die from infection next time.

I don't think id cope with a pandemic being managed as it was last time, and I don't think I could trust the government with the complete mockery they made of us before.

I think I'd approach it the next time with a stiff British upper lip of "keep calm and carry on".

What do you think? What did you do before and what would you do again? Would you be as fearful as you were at the start of covid?

This is a good point. If you were covered in horrendous boils and didn't know what it was you'd be much more likely to stay at home.

With covid many of us were carriers without knowing. At least something physical might make it easier to control and isolate.

*People always chuck this about. If it was a more serious illness people would know they had it and it’d be a lot easier to contain.

I wouldn’t but I suspect most people would lap up the propaganda again just like this time*

Hiw would they know? The Spanish flu killed people in 12 hours. Hardly time to recognise they’re been infected.

Why would it be propoganda? You must have a death wish.

It would depend entirely on the virus. Ebola, hell yes I would! Covid, absolutely not.

Didn't follow the draconian rules first time round let alone follow them again.

Until we had vaccines this sort of behaviour definitely increased infection rates and ultimately death rates. Obviously if you subscribe to it you are less likely to survive the next pandemic.

Hmmm maybe, but one of the most significant aspects of this one is that our pandemic planning went out of the window. Lockdown as a policy was thrown together very quickly. If the rest of Europe were, for the most part, utilising the same response to the next pandemic, it's conceivable that we'd do the same whatever conclusions we might previously have come to about it. Because that's what happened in 2020.

Wasn't the question so do bore off and be a dear.

If it's Ebola or something with virulent oozing pustules - people are going to fucking know they've got it. People didn't bloody know they had Covid when they had a wee bit of a scratchy throat feeling (probably from ramming multiple test sticks up there constantly in the eternal fishing for a positive test).

Second anything gets mildly apocalyptic next time - I'm going on media lockdown (cos so much of what was put about as the horror shows of corpses piling up around the world was later found to be bullshit hoaxes) and surviving on re-runs of Big Bang on Netflix, deleting any social media and cracking on as normal. MN will be number 1 on being blocked cos of fuckwits still trying to enforce people staying at home making sodding banana bed and re-enacting the Hunger Games over bog roll again to this day.

I'd do what they did in number 10 Downing Street through the last one and ignore all restrictions.

Fuck am I doing what they tell me.

I'll caveat this by saying that the people I protected are all either dead now or bedridden waiting for an operation that was urgent in November but keeps being poatponed. In the meantime they have an oxygen sats level of 56 at certain times of the day so will probably be dead soon.

Thanks crap conservative government for your policy of undervaluing the NHS.

If it was any of this Govt in charge I would not believe a word they said. I am raging inside when I think of Hancock at that lectern, mad as hell.

Even the bloody scientist was off shagging in the lockdown and he was the one saying millions were going to die.

If it's Ebola or something with virulent oozing pustules - people are going to fucking know they've got it. People didn't bloody know they had Covid when they had a wee bit of a scratchy throat feeling (probably from ramming multiple test sticks up there constantly in the eternal fishing for a positive test).
ah I see you didn’t have anyone you know die. Sorry reality is boring for you, listening to you I can only think how ridiculously entitled and silly you sound.

Why would it be propoganda? You must have a death wish.

Wow you aren’t very bright are you?

Dead wish from covid oh okay then 🤦🏻‍♀️

ah I see you didn’t have anyone you know die.

People die of things other than Covid. Like my mother did, very prematurely.

The excess deaths are currently through the roof largely because of the government overreaction and lockdown. But they don’t matter to people like you.

I’m not sure how caring about covid deaths negates caring about other deaths?

I’m sorry you list your Mum.

Did you see the post further up of the lady whose teen daughter took her own life during the pandemic because lockdown exacerbated a lot of the struggles she already had.

There were many more like her too. And adults who lost jobs and gave up etc. There's much more to this than protecting people from infection.

I wasn't fearful during the pandemic because it was clear early on that my family were unlikely to be affected. But I stuck to the law because I don't want hassle or confrontation, and that wouldn't change. Most of the reason I complied with things like mask wearing was just to fit in really. And most of the restrictions that affected us were related to venues and activities being closed, and I couldn't make them open whatever my thoughts were, so that wouldn't change. Didn't socialise with family because they didn't want to, well I'm not in contact with them any more so that wouldn't make a difference either.

DH comes from a part of the world where restrictions existed but not as severe as UK, and the lifestyle meant life was less affected (more car culture, more outdoorsy, better weather, less policing of restrictions). I did think at one point we could have been better off going to stay near his family. I think I'd seriously consider moving there at an early stage of another pandemic.

Actually I did break a rule last time. I drove from my county to a neighbouring county where the indoor shopping centre was open which was legal and allowed. Went shopping for the day. Restaurants were open but only locals were allowed in, because obviously we couldn’t catch covid in H&M but we could in Wagamama. Batshit. I enjoyed my pad Thai!

To be honest if I thought it was the end of the world I might be off shagging as well! 😁

If children were dying in significant numbers, their parents would refuse to work out of the home and we'd be facing the breakdown of basic services and serious societal unrest

They would probably try and make the child free do it.

I don't know and it's an interesting question. My first instinct is no, I wouldn't comply like last time as both FIL and my Grandfather died during COVID lockdowns and we'd been following the rules and hadn't visited them (both lived too far away to do it in a day even if we'd wanted to break rules.) I had to watch my Grandfather's funeral over Zoom as it was rule of 6 at the time so my parents and uncles attended. I've struggled to get over that to be honest as the opportunity to speak to them or see them one last time has forever gone, particularly when "partygate" then hit the headlines. So a huge part of me thinks fuck it, I wouldn't limit my life like that again.

But then again, with a new illness the fear comes from the unknown. Most definitely if it badly affected children I'd be staying at home with DDs.

@GoodChat nope but I have direct experience of both kinds of casualties of covid, like many peoples I know. As a result I’m out because this isn’t helpful to anyone.

i cant help noticing that the concern about some of us living in smaller places so couldnt self isolate have not yet developed into a campaign about people being allowed to live in bigger homes where they can self isolate more easily. e,g the bedroom tax still stands. Its funny how certain people didnt/dont want to follow up their faux concern with more room for social housing tenants to self isolate. We could start with a new campaign to end bedroom tax for good. I wonder how many of the middle class who loved lockdown but denigrate SH tenants would put their money where their mouths are for this!!!

Possibly, but even in the unlikely event that all the childfree were willing to be co-opted, that wouldn't be sufficient to maintain basic services. Because lots of those are jobs that require training. People who are normally eg hairdressers or accountants don't become qualified to nurse, manage water supplies etc because there happen not to be any under 18s in their house.

This is why the frequent default in these threads to some variant of 'you'd have to observe restrictions if X bad thing happened' is silly. It assumes that when people are scared, they trust governments and do what they're told. There's really no guarantee of that!

There's no 'right answer' in any of these situations, and it's naïve to think anyone knows enough to be able to navigate something well (I'm not saying the UK government did a good job last time, btw).

I'd love to see a society that was set up ahead of something like this in a way that could more easily care for its most vulnerable in times of emergency.

I think what we do in between emergencies is more important than what we do when something like a pandemic hits.

And that's where we're likely to fall down – everyone slips back into 'life as normal' when we could be equalising power structures so that the elderly, people on minimum wage, etc. have more of a go of things when the shit hits the fan.

Same with climate change, same with so many things... short-sighted thinking makes us all worse off.

I think what we do inbetween emergencies is more important than what we do when something like a pandemic hits.

Agreed. A big part of the reason the UK was structurally vulnerable to this one and inevitably going to come out of it badly is the years of austerity that preceded it. And we had what was generally considered to be decent quality pandemic planning before all this too, which furthers your point that it goes way beyond that.

But I think as things stand, and it's possible this changes with time as memories fade, one of the major things we'd have to work on is public trust. The effects of the gaslighting and deliberate use of manipulative fear tactics are a real problem. It's hard to think of people who'd be believed at the moment.

I actually think if we had another different pandemic in the near future, like a couple of years or so, a not insubstantial number of people would be willing to believe it was in some way connected to the covid vaccine.