Now we are a coupe of years on. Do you think the Covid lockdowns should have happened

[Rainbowdeer]

I don’t we should have shut down the schools and I don’t agree with the lockdowns
the damage has been far too great
esp regarding children’s mental health

the economy been damaged far too much

work culture has totally changed

but @yikesanotherbooboo Belarus, Brazil, Burundi, Iceland, Japan, Nicaragua, South Korea, Sweden, Taiwan, Tanzania, 6 USA states and Uruguay all did something different and they are still there to tell the tale!

Our health service has further deteriorated since 2019, so presumably faced with another potential viral crisis, you think that we would have to lock down again?

You said we had NO IDEA who was at risk when we did know it was by far the elderly.
I should imagine youre still peeved that schools ever reopened without full hazsuits for staff and the mega filtration systems you wanted in every classroom. Guess what, everyone is fine without them!!

It wasn't 'guaranteed harm' for a 'whole generation' though. DS was 14 and loved not having to go to school and having so much more time to pursue his interests. He got really into programming and is now doing it as a career. It was great for him.

I think it was the right thing to do, places that didn't do it probably don't have a population of 68 million and very high expectations of a health care system that can't cope at the best of times.

It was one of my favourite ever summers. The weather was amazing and I spent most of it in the garden.

I think often it's used as an excuse for all sorts of things.

'Our health service has further deteriorated since 2019, so presumably faced with another potential viral crisis, you think that we would have to lock down again?'

You're right that the NHS is in a far worse state than it was in 2019, despite all the claps and banging saucepans 🙄 the thought of another pandemic is really horrifying. I think a lot of people would just flat out refuse to comply with measures like lockdowns and mask wearing

Yeh I'm not sure.

We're at the edge of affordability looking at borrowing

This has been stated by IMF or other similar can't recall

We don't really have the same ability to cover closures of sectors

I said we had no idea if asthmatic kids were at greater risk which is why parents of asthmatic kids were pulling them out of school well before lockdown.

Not just parents of asthmatic children either, classrooms were rapidly emptying as parents took their kids out, and as I said previously, kids who were at home weren’t getting any education because they were meant to be in school. School closures allowed for remote learning to be set up.

You might have been blasé about the risks of an unknown virus that was killing lots of people and happy to keep your kid in school, but many, many parents weren’t. You also might have been relaxed about a horrible premature death for elderly relatives but again many, many people weren’t.

Lots of people were calling for a lockdown and thinking that Boris was mad for delaying it for so long.

Lots of people were calling for a lockdown and thinking that Boris was mad for delaying it for so long.

And lots of people thought it was a ridiculous, unscientific hysterical reaction and though Johnson was mad to go along with it.

School closures allowed for remote learning to be set up.

Haha, now I know you're taking the piss

When schools were open we were supposed to be teaching as normal to classes that were less than half full and dwindling. The kids at home were getting nothing, and weren’t supposed to because they were meant to be in school.

When the majority of kids were actually meant to be at home, then it switched and provision was to be made for them.

Yes, but provision wasn't made for the vast majority.

As far as I am concerned, we were at the edge of affordability in 2020. There's never a good time to completely shut down the economy. As far as politicians are concerned, there's always a magic money tree for war, and other "disasters". They think "spend now, think later".

There might not be further lockdowns for pandemics, at least, not for a few years; I think that a future pandemic would have to be portrayed as (note: not necessarily actually be) as very bad indeed for the public to co-operate with another lockdown, especially after Partygate. And maybe people are starting to notice that it's been the "worst winter ever for the NHS" for about the last twenty years. But I do foresee that if we allow the idea of lockdowns to become normalised, they could happen for other things: terrorism, or climate change. All the government would have to do would be to talk up the threat of climate change, pay dear little Greta to make a few TV appearances, and the public might be baying for lockdown and state handouts again. Unlikely I hope, but not impossible. Before 2020, lots of us thought that national lockdowns could never happen. This is why I think we must keep reiterating the damage caused by fearmongering and prolonged lockdowns, emphasise it, and say "never again", before this damage is forgotten.

I've said it before and I'll say it again - people think that shit provision of education from schools, disparity in resources, disparity in access to teachers, disparity in use of technology was an aspect of lockdown and school closures, to be solved by re-opening schools.

In fact it is an aspect of the education system that at the point of covid had been starved of resources for a decade and that was already crumbling. Of course the private schools got better provision, they still do now with schools open. Of course schools differed massively in their offerings, they still do now with schools open.

It is entirely depressing that parents got a glimpse behind the curtain, were (rightly) furious, and then imagined that all those problems disappeared the minute the school opened its doors again.

The public would also wonder why the NHS hasnt used the intervening years since Covid to be better prepared.

This
Nobody knew what we were dealing with, it was an unknown virus.
So yes I do think they were needed right at the beginning.
The second lockdown though, I think there's a lot of undiagnosed mental health issues around it that people are still suffering with.

@scalt I agree with you on all points

We'd better hope for a long break as there really isn't the ability to do the same

And I agree we couldn't afford what we did, on many levels. I thought that at the time.

Yes but she should have happened much sooner and closed our borders and much stricter lockdown. That would have meant lockdown would only have needed to last a short time and less lives would have been lost.
The people looking at the impact on schools being closed can’t assess that in isolation. If schools had not have closed, the resulting consequences would have a had a greater impact on children.

At least you are alive to worry about whether your child is behind in school, and your child is alive to be in in school. Many aren't. My guess is that is the lockdowns had been longer earlier and tougher, many more would be. If they had not happened at all many more would be dead. But we'll never actually know, so it's not really worth debating.

this is such hyperbole

I'd genuinely like to know why lockdowns and how some things were handled badly during the pandemic are still at the forefront of some people's thoughts. OP, how are you still affected by lockdowns? Why do you still need to discuss them?

It was a mistake to lockdown and we shouldn’t have done it. I complied fully with all the regulations, but I was always concerned that we were doing more harm than good. Turns out we really, really were. It was evident very quickly that only certain sections of society were at significant risk. They should have been honest about that and let people make their own choices about the level of risk they were prepared to take.

Well, personally I supported the Barrington declaration idea of protecting the vulnerable but allowing society to continue as normally as possible. We are ‘elderly’ and DH would probably count as ‘vulnerable’, but we never wanted other people locked in their houses for our ( dubious) benefit.

I don’t suppose we will ever know what would have happened with a different strategy. There is an area near me where lockdown was just ignored. We happened to go to pick up our C&C at the Tesco there and as there were no queues outside we went into the store. No one except the staff wore a mask, the lines and arrows on the floor were completely ignored, kids running around barging into people….I would love to know what their mortality and infection rates were, and how they compared to the surroundings of our usual Tesco where everything was being done to the letter.

I don’t suppose anyone wants to look at that, though.

Absolutely. People simply wouldn't have it, as things stand.

I don't rule out the possibility of another one at some point, but it won't be soon and it wouldn't be easy. Lockdown only works for a disease that meets quite specific criteria. People have to be scared enough that a critical mass of the population will voluntarily limit their behaviour, whilst also not being so scared that the shelves are empty, petrol pumps dry and so on. Both boxes have to be ticked. That space doesn't exist now, even if we were willing and able to pay for another lockdown. I don't rule out the possibility that it will in future, but there's no guarantees.

And in answer to the OP, I think the jury's still out.

Which specific consequences would have had a greater impact than what children did suffer?

Well here is why. Wrap your thought process round this!
The High Court has just ruled that the MET Police cannot weed out POs who have or are suspected of sexual violence and abuse against women.
The High Court says that the police are acting outside the law!!!
But the courts didnt seem to mind them acting outside the law when it came to the Covid restrictions!!!
People are still being taken to court and fined. Oh but when it comes to actually protecting those same people from predatory officers that is acting outside the law. The absolute stinking hypocrisy.

@Muddypawsies ,

There are a tsunami of conspiracy theories on this thread.

Who wasn’t honest? You could look up the risk of hospitalisation and death by age group as soon as it was available.

And you don’t just take risk for yourself, you take risk for everyone you come into contact with and then everyone they come into contact with etc. Everyone is in it together.

And it was and still occasionally remains an unpleasant illness which, even in the young, can be serious and can cause long term lung and heart damage.