The next person who tells me we all need to move on...

[Youknowaboutthepaint]

Is likely to get both barrels.

So many people still seem convinced that "the other lot" would be even worse, even though they can't begin to tell me why.

That Christmas, while our esteemed leaders were partying was DH's last. He spent it at home, in pain, without access to the medical care he needed and without seeing anyone except those he lived with.

A few days later he went into to hospital where he stayed for 3 months, without a single visitor. During that time he was told, alone, by telephone because his consultant was shielding, that his cancer was terminal, stil he wasn't allowed any visitors. He never met his oncologist and I had to fight every day to find anyone who would talk to me about his prognosis/ treatment/pain control/return home.

He came home eventually once they'd managed to get his pain under some sort of control, to die, a shadow of the man his DC had last seen, still officially not allowed any visitors. (Although by that point anyone who wanted to visited, I classified as a carer).

Then we had to restrict numbers at his funeral.

All the while those making the decisions that had affected us so badly were having the time of their life. Most are still in power/working in governement, making the laws that affect us all, dishing out or receiving honours, spending our money. And they've lied about it continuously since.

I'm still trying to support severely traumatised children whose lives were badly affected by lockdowns, even if they hadn't had to deal with all the stuff with their dad.

I'm generally a fairly easy going, resilient sort, but I dare anyone to tell me it's time we got over it.

I agree with you so much, OP.

I lost my dad during covid; had to say goodbye over face time in a hospital car park as I wasn't allowed in.

And these bastards were partying, and continue on in arrogance, indifference & lies.

I will never vote Tory.

I hope they are overthrown at the next election.

They have been kept in power by the older generation & I don't think they will ever get back in during my lifetime (I'm in my 50's).

My husband is an intensive care doctor. They all absolutely hated what they had to do, will always remember how awful the suffering was, and the effects of the rules that went right against what their training and their instincts. But their main focus was in trying to stem the flow of that awful illness, trying to keep the number of beds they needed for each wave by not spreading it further.

It was a heartbreaking situation for everyone, those ill, their relatives and those treating them.

Medics have suffered PTSD through what they saw during the pandemic, it was like going into a war zone each day.

So you say how did they support this? They didn’t want to and they had no choice. I know my husband literally battled to avoid the unit becoming overwhelmed, so a huge priority was stopping the spread within the hospital.

I will never forgive this government for making merry when the rest of us lived through such a time. For sending medics into this without adequate PPE. The hate I feel for Boris Johnson and the rest of them is immense.

So you’re definitely not being unreasonable, but don’t blame the medics here, they risked their lives and the hours they worked were unbelievable. I know I’d have dropped.

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/lockdowns-were-wrong-why-did-no-10-ignore-me-lvq252l9v

Having a hospital that cannot treat patients is also wrong. Large numbers of people dying, unable to access treatment, unable to breathe and in pain because there are no bed spaces and resources to ease their suffering is also wrong. Should that be allowed to happen with no attempt to control infection spread?

that article is by Lucy Easthope who wrote this.

https://www.waterstones.com/book/when-the-dust-settles/lucy-easthope/9781529358285

But she is on Twitter if you think you know better

I have been working on our pandemic preparedness since 2001 as an independent adviser to the Cabinet Office and the Home Office

One of my other areas of work is planning to manage the death toll pandemics generate — but that does not mitigate the need to make sure children are supported

Firstly I'm so sorry for the dreadful loss you have all suffered. You have every right to be furious. My Dad passed away at the same time (was also alone at the time of his diagnosis without visitors) and my Mum shortly afterwards. Dad couldn't get the diagnosis or treatment he needed to be comfortable (let alone to stay alive) due to CV19 and the rules/restrictions.

However, I could be angry about that forever but I've chosen to let it go - and yes that is a choice. We could live always referring to our anger and regret around that time and what those who should have been managing the situation were doing. But we don't and I honestly think we are healthier for it. I mean this kindly, but perhaps you should consider grief counselling to let go of the horror, the anger and the bad feelings and spend more time on the happy earlier memories of when your DH was alive. You also have a duty to your DC to move on and live a new full life.

Lucy Easthope is really brilliant, and I'd encourage people to read the article and engage with what she's saying. Granted, the headline doesn't help.

What she's doing that's so very valuable is spelling out that in fact we knew exactly what the outcome of some restrictions was going to be. It's a very useful rebuttal to anyone still trotting out the hindsight nonsense.

I wasn’t questioning her credentials.

Every view needs to be taken into account.

My point was:

Having a hospital that cannot treat patients is also wrong. Large numbers of people dying, unable to access treatment, unable to breathe and in pain because there are no bed spaces and resources to ease their suffering is also wrong. Should that be allowed to happen with no attempt to control infection spread?

I don’t think that point can be simply glossed over or dismissed.

Do you think Lucy Easthope is suggesting we shouldn't have had any mitigations? I didn't think that was her view, I might be wrong.

I am sorry for your loss OP and quite frankly what happened to your DH was barbaric.

The two images that stay in my mind are one of the Queen sitting alone for her husband's funeral and the other of Boris raising a drink at a party.

The question in my mind is
did Boris and the various civil servants have a genuine death wish and didn't care if they caught Covid and died.

Or did they know that either Covid was not as life threatening as the Government portrayed it to be or that the restrictions made little difference to whether you caught covid or not.

It puzzles me that three years on Covid is still in circulation, the protection of the Covid jab has worn off for the majority because of no further boosters and yet now we are carrying on as if Covid never existed!

@PortUmber did you read the article

So sorry @Youknowaboutthepaint If I feel rage at what's coming out about those Number 10 fuckers, you must be incandescent!

My elderly father lives in Australia and is in fragile health & suffering from early dementia. Australia was closed to visitors, and I was unsure for 3 years whether I'd ever see him alive again. I did - went there as soon as they opened their borders.

But to see the film of the Number 10 partying, against all that the rest of us went through! - well, maybe we should require Boris Johnson & his staff to walk the length of the country naked, apologising to all of us.

@SideWonder

"But to see the film of the Number 10 partying, against all that the rest of us went through! - well, maybe we should require Boris Johnson & his staff to walk the length of the country naked, apologising to all of us."

++++

Who is at fault here?

The government for introducing the restrictions that they then promptly ignored for themselves or the public for actually accepting and then following the restrictions ?

@JenniferBooth that article is inaccessible to people who do not have a times subscription.

I do not know anything of Lucy.

But I do know that we were insufficiently prepared for a pandemic.

I hope and pray that gov get their act in order to avoid anything like the chaos we were in previously.

I am in agreement with previous posters that doing nothing and letting healthcare provision collapse was not an option.

Interested to know what your interest in this is - have I missed you relating personal tragedy and thus a connection to the thread topic?

Do you have a career in science or as a policy planner?

Or are you Joe Bloggs who thinks the university of life is enough justification to go ranting along?

@JenniferBooth thanks for bringing LE up though - having googled, her book does look like a terrific read!

"Interested to know what your interest in this is - have I missed you relating personal tragedy and thus a connection to the thread topic"

the thread title is "the next person who tells me we all need to move on" not "those of us who have had a personal tragedy are all being told to move on"

This is a public forum. You are not the thread police. EVERYONE had to do the lockdown so EVERYONE was affected although i concede some worse than others.

I didnt realise that i had to suffer a bereavement to have the right to post.

Cant you see how angry people are Being forced to lock down while they partied. Strictly going ahead while people couldnt visit relatives. I KNEW that this was all about protecting our "betters" during the first lockdown when we were stuck at home while planes were coming in and out. Tenants in small places being moaned at when they didnt have room to self isolate (in some cases they will have downsized due to bedroom tax) Funny there is not a new campaign against that after all the faux concern. scotch eggs the tiers which started in the October, oh but we still need a November lockdown if you want to see family at Xmas oh no come 19th December you wont be able to see family at all. Here is a new tier (tier 4) because we dont want to call it a lockdown

You can minimize all you like (which will make damn sure there will be no compliance next time there is something like this) people tend not to like their sacrifices being dismissed. What they did was psychological abuse. Lucy Easthope said this herself while being interviewed for the book that must not be named. I will not comply next time because i know my sacrifices will be minimized and there will be attempts to silence me. Fool me once shame on you Fool me twice shame on me

Do you have a career in science or as a policy planner

Neil Ferguson shagging his girlfriend while i couldnt visit my mum told me all i needed to know

Oh and they sacked him publicly then quietly let him back in again. And yet somehow IM and others like me are the unreasonable ones.

Part of the issue is that the Tory's tend to have a much older support base and 'most' other developed countries had some form of a lockdown . If they hadn't had some kind of one I can just imagine the outrage amongst their support base and a lot of the right wing press too .

On the subject of Lucy Easthope, this interview during the 2021 lockdown is great.

https://twitter.com/BBCNewsnight/status/1357666587927601153

I think her analysis of the pandemic in terms of disaster management is so useful. She's written about how people can all be viewed as disaster survivors now, and whether you agree with that assessment or not, it's a useful way to explain some of the feelings and behaviours people are experiencing now. Including what's been talked about in this thread.

@Crikeyalmighty Most other developed countries did have a lockdown. Lockdown was fairly recently used as a method to control Ebola in Uganda, and prior to Covid. It’s not a novel or new idea. This is why any enquiry into pandemic planning needs to be on a global scale. If the majority of our neighbours are taking a certain course of action, then it’s highly likely that we’ll do the same.

I think the Tories tried to avoid having a lockdown. Boris was in favour of the ‘let the bodies pile high’ approach. They implemented it too late - and then had a confusing tier system. We were very underprepared as a country.

It’s the Conservative papers who are very much reporting now that lockdown was wrong precisely because of the economic hardship it caused. I think they’ll also ‘use’ the social hardship argument to pummel their point - but I absolutely do not think they’ll be suddenly so ‘caring’ and putting vast amounts of resources into schools and hospitals where it’s so desperately needed.

Hunt is now saying that quarantining people sooner "might have avoided" the first Covid lockdown.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-65979485

Please all read Lucy Easthope’s book. She is a leading expert in recovery from disaster. There are references to the recent pandemic but this comprises only part of it. I haven’t read it but intend to as it has excellent reviews.

@JenniferBooth I questioned what you are doing on here being very aggressive and dismissing others experiences because it is reminiscent of the covid non believers during the pandemic.

Of course you can believe that there should have been no lockdown and that scientists are misguided. But there is a way to communicate that without being so irate and shoving it down people’s throats.

People have been through significant trauma on here. We should be supporting each other and unified in our anger towards government members, and anyone else, who failed to follow restrictions because the sacrifice as you rightly point out was very great.

We lost about a dozen family/friends half due to covid, half due to inadequate healthcare during the pandemic. So I feel very conflicted. Nevertheless, I have a research background with some focus on zoonotic disease, so can grasp that to have done nothing was not an option.

If i didnt believe Covid existed i wouldnt have had the vaccines. But i can only say what i saw Im sorry you have lost so many loved ones. To question MULTIPLE lockdowns and vaccine MANDATES does not mean that i dont believe Covid existed. I actually had to FIGHT to get my second vaccine. I posted this in November 2021 I finally got my second vaccine later that month.

This is why the Government and media ramp up the vaccine refusenik rhetoric to cover up the lack of availability. I tried to get my second vaccine six weeks ago and was refused because i was told they now cant mix them (i had Moderna and they are now doing Pfizer) i was advised to go to the next town either relying on a crap bus service or a taxi at £35 each way. Sorry no chance. Ppl on another thread were a bit disbelieving so im going to have another go tomorrow and maybe do a bit of filming. because ppl be like "cool story bro it never happened" and if you film it its "how dare you do that

What we were seeing in the papers at the time was how fantastically the vaccine rollout was going. But that was NOT what was happening on the ground. Hell Boris even used the phrase "vaccine bounce" A friend of mine was told she would have to go to London for hers.

I pre booked appointments which got cancelled because no Moderna I finally turned up on the off chance for the FOURTH time and they finally had some Moderna so i got my second.

it REALLY fucks me off to be called anti vaxxer didnt believe in Covid just because i dont believe in MULTIPLE lockdowns.