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.

I was heavily pregnant with my last baby when the first lockdown was announced and she was born May 2020 (homebirth). My mat leave was pretty crap but I can't complain.

I remember it as such a slow and eerie time. DD was 2 and she kept trying to
follow random people we saw on our daily
walk-think she was sick of us and wanted some different company!

With the relics of "social distancing" signs and markers, somebody I know made it her "resistance mission" to remove as many of them as she could, from parks, bus shelters, and from the pavement. Her strategy was to do it on dark and rainy evenings, when there would be fewer witnesses, she could hide her face under her raincoat hood or umbrella, and the ones stuck to the pavement would easily come off. She said she ironically wore a face covering while doing this, so that people would not suspect her. She said that with the signs attached to railings with cable ties, all she did was cut the cable ties, and often the sign would not fall down straight away; she would then return a few days later, and be delighted if the sign then disappeared, and was not replaced.

Yes, I agree with this. I think we're all still suffering even now, our brains can't quite compute it.

I saw a comment (might have been here, might have been Twitter) that you could tell who'd have jumped at the chance to be the informers in East Germany.

My favourite was the use of anti bacterial hand gel in order to combat a virus. I mean the clue is in the f'ing title!!!

Don't even go there

My own favourite was when the funding sponge organisation the council had co-opted to run the community libraries demanded £20,000 for PPE equipment and allegedly "spent it all" on a box of hand gel and a dozen simple perspex screens

It took a FoI request to discover that the actual cost of these was £1,680, and needless to say nothing was pursued as to where the remainder went - but then of course it was public money they were spending so presumably didn't matter

It pales into insignificance against this though: https://fullfact.org/health/test-and-trace-37-billion/

It's just gut wrenching.

There was a significant increase in the number of alcohol related deaths during the restrictions years- not sure if we have full data for 2022 and 2023 yet.

https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/deaths/bulletins/alcoholspecificdeathsintheuk/2021registrations

An example of how it wasn't ever possible to protect the vulnerable, because they had sometimes competing interests. Instead, we had to choose which vulnerable to prioritise and which to risk.

Yes I remember watching the figures and realising we'd gone well beyond flattening the curve and our spring/summer plans were being wasted away.

The first weekend that campsites reopened we were there, with friends. As was everyone else. Our campsite had lost track of bookings and were saying just turn up.

We also made it to a small family festival. The police came on site driving much too fast around children to ensure people were in their 'family bubbles' and social distancing. Oh and No dancing was allowed. So they'd happily have run over a child while they were doing their hand break turns but at least no one had too much fun!

It seemed counterproductive because we already had a good idea the second wave would be more deadly. Chris Whitty was saying that in May 2020, and I think he might even have said it earlier too? Yet we pushed it closer to flu season. I understand why it was politically expedient, but it wasn't a good idea otherwise.

No dancing has a very Derbyshire police coffee cup energy to it!

My work still has "social distancing is being used here" signs up and "please sanitise your hands on entry and exit of the building" I look at them and think what did we do. I think I still have a mask in my glove box.

I remember handing a sick cat over to the vet in the car park, I had to put them down in the basket and walk 2 metres away, then sit in the car and wait. I thought it was hard but I read about people who said goodbye to their pets in the car park and weren't allowed in with them for their last moments of life. Those stories broke my heart.

For whatever we might think about Boris Johnson, the inquiry shows that he was one of the lone voices arguing against lockdown, and lots of people have commented that during the "briefings" (which I refused to watch), his body language shows that he clearly didn't believe the words he was reciting at all. It shows that the prime minister is certainly not the one who was really calling the shots (see also "Yes, Minister"); and that although he didn't believe in lockdown, he eventually embraced it for his own selfish ends when he realised that he would be liked for it. Lots of "conspiracy theorists" have speculated that while he was in hospital, the heavy mob went and had a word with him, to tell him "this is where your loyalties lie". When he said "we will do whatever it takes to beat the virus", this became "we will lock down until we have zero covid".

For many reasons besides this, it's a real tragedy that he was in government, rather than opposition. In opposition, he might have been a very effective force against lockdown, with his brazen ways of saying things outside the official script. In a way, it's much easier for the leader of the opposition to speak his mind than it is for the Prime Minister. He would probably have argued vociferously that lockdowns would certainly cause much more harm than good, and people might have believed him, because they loved him so.

And the U-turn on masks. At first, no less an authority than the Health Secretary was saying they were useless, and maybe even counter-productive. Then suddenly, we were ordered to wear them. How convenient that it then became so easy to tell who "believed" in restrictions, and who didn't. It's been reported that Boris Johnson was "nudged" into wearing a mask, by being shown pictures of world leaders wearing them, followed by a picture of himself not wearing one. It's also been reported that even some of the "scientists" have admitted that lots was made up on the spot, such as the figure of two metres. Ditto "you are only allowed out for an hour a day". Utter bullshit, but everyone believed it. All those at the top were caught up in a creed of "we must be seen to be doing something, no matter how much damage it causes."

@Puzzledandpissedoff

Another one for you.

I know a customs officer at Heathrow and she told me that during Covid when flights were allowed but very few were flying she pulled over a lot (more than 20 less than 50) of travellers flying to Dubai with suitcases stuffed full of cash (frequently £500k and in one case £800k). This was helped because they had a lot of officers screening not a lot of passengers.

When they were interviewed they initially claimed that it was all legitimate. It was only when the interview started going on the angle of financing terrorism charges and likely prison sentences for this that they quickly fessed up that the money came from Covid £50k business bounce back loans. They had a number of shell companies that took out the £50k loans, flew the money to Dubai and then collapsed the companies.

The suppression of harm was needed to get people to comply generally but it was frustrating to see people believe so comprehensively that damage wasn’t there

If they had briefed a full picture of economic and social damage it would have been different

I'd already heard about that one @1dayatatime ... what was that we were saying about a gilt-edged opportunity for fraud?

@Puzzledandpissedoff

Here are some key stats:
• During its tenure, almost 1.56 million businesses were approved for finance.
• A cumulative value of around £47.4 billion was provided via the BBLS.
• Some £17 billion won’t be repaid due to fraud and defaults.
• NATIS has opened 273 investigations into BBLS fraud with a total value of £160 million (Sept 2022).
• 78 suspects have been dealt with, and 49 arrests have been made (Sept 2022).

Or if you put a pound in a jam jar every second it would take 500 years to get to £17 billion. By comparison to get to a million would take 11 days.

The only one of those that surprises me is the 78 suspects "dealt with" and 49 arrests made, @1dayatatime - though note it says arrested and not charged

Frankly I'm amazed there have been any ...

Yes at times you could see Boris didn't want to do what he was saying. I remember commenting on his lockdown speech at the time saying he looked like a child banging his fists because he's been told to do something he didn't want to.

But Boris did what Boris does the best and that's follow whatever view will get him votes. He did the same with Brexit.

It makes me really sad to think back about it.

My two dc had both just started new schools, lockdown completely pulled the rug from under them.

There's a photo from just before lockdown, we were in a happy bubble and blissfully unaware of what was to come.

Children died needlessly because no one was keeping tabs on them, some children have never returned to education.

Sarah Everard may not have been murdered had it not been for lockdown.

Some people behaved disgustingly, they lost their minds. Some of the things people said on here were unforgivable. The lockdown fanatics should be ashamed.
A couple gave me and my son filthy looks and tutted because my 4 year old scooted slightly near to them as we crossed on a shared path.

It's very frightening how many people were advocating for peoples doors and windows being nailed shut, letting animals starve to death, having the army on the streets ordering people to stay in. Park benches being taped off.

Horrible times, it went too far.

This just about sums it up.

I don't think any PM could've done anything other than lock down in March 2020. Didn't matter who it was.

And werere all still paying for the furlough etc some got.

How a govt can “lock up" all healthy people and think they and the economy will remain healthy is a puzzle.

And they are now busy trying to shift the blame to the public

I remember listening to a retired Chief Medical Officer, I think that was his title but whatever it was he had held a very senior health role? He had been retired for over thirty years and said that if COVID had happened when he was in office then 2020 would have just gone down as being an extraordinarily bad year for 'flu. And it would just have been retrospectively noted that the overwhelming majority of deaths were in the over seventy fives, so no surprises there. But because of social media, 24 hour news and instant access to world wide news it became immediately propagated.

@JenniferBooth

"And they are now busy trying to shift the blame to the public"

To be fair the majority of the public at the time supported the lockdowns. Rishi Sunak's popularity was at an all time high during Covid. Remember the £600 million spent on eat out to help out - it was massively popular.

We locked ourselves down from 9th March because we were terrified of what was happening and both dh and I are classed as vulnerable. As soon as there was a confirmed case on our estate we decided it wasn't worth the risk at that time. The lady who was the confirmed case on our estate was in a coma so it wasn't just the sniffles for her and that made us worry even more - had we been near her at the local shops which also had her gp surgery within the grounds of the shops and was confirmed she had visited whilst infectious.

Scary times!