Almost 4 years ago, Lockdown started (23 March 2020)

[SparrowSally]

Can't believe it's almost 4 years ago. I feel so uncomfortable looking back at that time, we really had no idea what was to come.

Having studied epidemiology in my degree I could see what was coming and had already whipped dd out of school. I was watching with horror at how little the idiots running the country were doing. Still makes me feel sick remembering it and all of the huge events they allowed.

I really wanted to take DD out of school the week before lockdown, but was equally concerned about her mental health. With hindsight I did the right thing leaving her in school until lockdown.

I remember Boris' lockdown announcement and almost immediately getting in the car to drive an 8 hour round trip to bring DS home from university. I was worried the police wouldn't let me onto the motorway and DH rolled his eyes and said we don't have enough police to patrol every motorway junction. I wasn't the only parent doing a middle of the night pick up of their student child.

@LynetteScavo There were two worried families in dd's school who pulled out even earlier - one had leukemia and the other really bad asthma. I'm very glad their parents were responsible as a couple of the kids who stayed did catch it in the final week school was meant to be compulsory.

And still people not back to normal

By the way, since the media refused to report anti-lockdown marches, or said they were “a couple of hundred conspiracy theorists”, I’ll tell you what I saw with my own eyes, as I took part in some of them myself. The line of people marching in Oxford street and other places was about forty people wide, and literally miles long.

Not “a couple of hundred conspiracy theorists”, but easily hundreds of thousands of people (maybe even a million): lots of families as well, decent working people deeply concerned about their future, in the face of appalling behaviour by the government. There was far more anti-lockdown sentiment than the media let on. All part of the government spin machine.

By the way, I wonder what happened about the wedding and entertainment industry bosses who were going to sue the government?

One shop’s retaliation to the madness.

@scalt

Anyone criticising the lockdown and restriction measures was labelled a Covid denier or anti vaxx.

Now most rational people would not deny the existence of Covid and most would say that the Covid jab provided a beneficial boost to people's resistance to Covid especially amongst the elderly and vulnerable.

However just because you think that the lockdowns and restrictions were overly excessive, economically and socially damaging especially to younger generations this does not equate to denying the existence of Covid or question the benefits of the Covid jabs.

I never said the virus did not exist, or the jabs did not have benefits. (I think I may have caught the virus in 2019, before the government hit the panic button. So do many other people I have talked to.)

I do think restrictions were excessive, but I won’t go so far as to say they shouldn’t have happened at all. Even I would concede that. However, they went on far too long.

My main issue is the way everything was communicated, in a way, this was almost worse than the restrictions themselves. The infantilising language “don’t kill granny”, the three-word slogans, the gaslighting, the fear porn, moving the goalposts, deliberately pitting groups of people against each other, encouraging people to snitch on each other, lack of Parliamentary scrutiny, things being made up on the spot (eg one hour limit), implied permanence of restrictions with phrases such as “new normal”, labelling children as “vectors of transmission”, bullying, bribing and coercing people to be vaccinated, coming dangerously close to vaccine passports, deliberately confusing those who died “of covid” and “with covid”, cherry picking experts to be interviewed who would stick to the government script (it was obvious they were doing this), interrupting those who were in danger of letting something slip, actively censoring debate, and I haven’t even got on to Partygate there. Because of the highly oppressive nature of the methods the government used to talk to the public, all this made it look as if the government was “up to something”, and many people such as myself considered it vital to fight back.

If the government had treated the public as intelligent people who could make their own decisions, presented them with facts rather than fear porn, people such as myself might be respecting the government much more now. But that ship has long sailed.

So interesting the narrative has changed. You’d be ripped a new one on here if you challenged the mainstream view.
I obeyed all the rules, had three jabs (no more now though)
But in retrospect, lockdown was needless.

I think the changing narrative is a mixture of Partygate and some of the downsides of lockdown becoming more widely apparent as time passes, in a way they weren't to everyone at the time.

I think it’s also to do with the effective use of messaging which made people react

ie risk from Covid was increased and damage from lockdowns etc was suppressed

@scalt

"I never said the virus did not exist, or the jabs did not have benefits"

Sorry if I caused any confusion through my poorly worded post - in no way did I mean or imply that you did say such things.

Excellent post @scalt , sums up my feelings exactly.

The mind still boggles that advice like this was given out and taken seriously.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.chroniclelive.co.uk/news/tv/doctor-hilary-washing-car-coronavirus-18095926.amp

Ah yes good ole Dr Hillary Told everyone they must wear a mask , ranted about anti maskers and then was caught not wearing one in a pharmacy

It was such a bonkers time. Thankfully, the weather was glorious and we remember a lot of evenings in the garden with our teens. We definitely drank too much during restrictions!

All that mask wearing and queuing to get into shops. I shudder when I remember that bit. Also, my mum died (not from covid) and we couldn’t have a funeral.

We obeyed every single rule. We wouldn’t if it happened again.

Dr Hilary used to drive me insane on GMB with his ridiculous scaremongering. He said (I think?) that more than 3,000 babies & children had died in Brazil because of Covid, and the same could happen here. Was that proven?