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?

The China videos were videos of different types of events. This was said at the time, but fake news was spreading like wildfire at the time.

@GoodChat yes I do. I think public compliance with any kind of lockdown would perhaps be slower in the even of a new pandemic but if we saw and experienced huge loss of life again then I think people would comply.

@x2boys I hope your ds is ok now, that must have been really scary.

It totally depends on what type of disease it is

Im.not saying there were not headlines about children but I don't remember them ,I do remember the footage coming out of Italy and how scary that was ,as always people assume the " vulnerable " were all.80+ waiting to die,many were young or middle aged adults who.had underlying health issues but could be expected to.live a normal,lifespan ,but they were othered,as " only the vulnerable "

I don’t know. But there was a programme about the Black Death. And how the structures of society fell apart because so many people died. That would be quite scary on top of the threat of disease.

I think it killed 30-50 percent of the European population.

The way the global economy works, and the way poverty is allowed to persist, both here and in the Majority World, it's only a matter of time before another virus comes round to bite us on the arse. As for the UK economy, Truss completely tanked that anyway. And yes, I will be following the rules. Hashtag social responsibility. 😬

I’d comply where I thought I had to, but certainly not to the extent I did during covid. I certainly wouldn’t be wearing a pointless mask, for one.

Obviously depends what it was. Even if it was a truly novel disease or a captain tripps style super flu, I don't think we would have a chance of containing it. Nature would take its course whatever we did to prolong the outcome, unless we could come up with an actually effective vaccine or treatment almost immediately.

This! ⬆️

I was quite suspicious that it was ok for Amazon, Tesco, etc. to pretty much carry on as normal, serving people but it was very dangerous for people not doing these jobs to leave the house, obviously it wasn't very dangerous as Downing St. were partying

Life for me didn’t really change bar wfh. I had to go to the horse daily and take out the dogs daily. My DH is an emergency worker so his routine stayed the same.

So what about Supermarket workers and Amazon, I guess it would be ok for them to serve us

It did. And I think if we had anything like that now, it'd be curtains, because the difference between us and them is that we'd be able to see it happening everywhere. The one saving grace in the 14th century is that it was so much harder for people to know what was going on outside their immediate area. We, on the other hand, would be watching it on the 24 hour news channels and twitter.

Oh but they were essential parties because they worked hard

Only those with children, believe it or not, not everyone has a child and would worry about this

My teen DC took her own life in the covid pandemic.

Yes she obviously had other issues issues, but lockdown massively impacted her and exacerbated her sense of isolation and depression.

The government and the world can fuck right off if they think I'm going along with any of their crap; preaching compliance while they party on.

I caught Covid straight away, and was ill for 14 months.

I wouldn't panic, or follow measures like killing my pets, but I would stick to home and distance as much as possible whilst scientists were working things out. I could do with out worrying that the brain fog would never get better, that I'd never regain my fitness etc. I thought I might be losing my mind, to be honest.

It would be rational to be cautious.

keep a close eye on bird flu. If that changes so it transmits from human to human then we will be in a far worse situation that we were with COVID. at the moment it transmits between birds with the occasional transition to humans but not yet between.

I am so, so sorry. That's horrific.

Yeah, nobody really seems to be thinking about what would happen if they didn't. There need to be a lot of things in place and still functioning for a lockdown to happen in a large population like ours, supermarket and Amazon workers being willing to serve us obviously being one of them. There's no guarantee at all that this labour would continue, in a future pandemic.

When Amazon stops delivering and the supermarkets have to close because it's too dangerous for the workers, that is the time to believe it is serious.

Turned my life upside down made redundant and struggling to get a job. It's definitely harder mid 50s.i would abide by some rules the common sense ones, the stupid ones nope. What dismayed me most about lockdowns was people's greed and stupidity in supermarkets, the buying of 72 loo roll etc. My wife told me an elderly customer who only wanted one but there none left in the supermarket she works in.

I do think the pandemic showed us both the best and worst of humankind

How do we know who is "truly vulnerable" based on about 3 months of data? How do we know what the long term impacts are?

The whole thing was farcical, general public couldn't sit on benches in case virus went up your arse but Boris et al could sit on garden chairs en masse at Downing Street. I won't forget that in a hurry. Then there was the farce of if you sat down in a cafe it was fine but you had to put a mask on if you stood up, Sit down, stand up, no sit down. I doubt I will be complying next time...