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

could you point out the conspiracy theories on this thread please.
All I can see is logical discussion.
Thanks

I think first one was probably necessary to work put what we were dealing with - and probably should have happened much sooner with travel resctictions though it looks like covid was here much earlier - or at least isolated cases were.

The rest not so sure about a lot of the welsh stuff we lived under was not at all necessary. It took more time from us than many on here want to admit - and it was frustating Wales was so slow to get rid of restrictions.

It was truly awful and the consequences have been very bad, not just for children but for the social fabric in general. BUT I honestly don't see what choice the government had. Italy was in a terrible state, and we could have easily ended up in the same place, which would have been far worse than what we did experience.

Seems fairly obvious that there's still an ongoing and widespread impact, as well as potential future effects?

There are those of us who were specifically affected by things like deaths and funeral restrictions, that didn't impact on everyone. The hurt from this doesn't have an expiry date. Then more collectively, we're paying the bill for it. Also lots of us on this site are parents of school aged children and schools are still feeling the impact, even if one's own DC aren't. There was an impact on trust in the political class, which again is relevant to all of us whatever our stance on lockdowns.

And lastly, there'll be more pandemics. Fair chance many of us will live to see another, or our DC at least. Of course there's a discussion to be had over whether lockdown should be part of the pandemic toolkit in the future, and if so what the conditions ought to be. These all seem pretty important topics!

We should have

• locked down much earlier in 2020,
• avoided eat out to help out the virus,
• locked down earlier over Christmas,
• done more to protect care homes, including testing patients who left hospital for care homes
• bought decent PPE
• used local authorities' environmental health teams to track the virus
• closed the airports and ports properly.

I could go on. We are an immunocompromised household and at one point we didn't leave the house for six weeks. Thankfully we had always had groceries delivered and the RVS volunteer team picked up prescriptions and left them in the doorstep.

No one in our family died. I am the only one to have ever caught Covid (in 2023) because I'm no longer eligible for the vaccine. But I know/knew people with very serious long Covid.

One man mid-50s caught it early on and was never the same and died in 2024. One teenage girl caught it and has had heart palpitations that can't be controlled by a pacemaker because her heart rhythm is unlike anything they have seen. Her heart regularly stops and then restarts beating in the middle of the night, terrifying her parents.

It is a horrendous disease that we should vaccinate for in the same way we do flu. I'm eligible for the flu vaccine but not Covid. The government treated the population with contempt and was happy to see people die because it saved money on the NHS and pensions. It is an absolute scandal and.we we're massively ripped off and let down by the charlatans in the Conservative government. I hope hell freezes over before they are trusted with government again.

@Mightymoog ,

That the government lied about the seriousness (they didn’t).

That it was always a mild disease in the young (it wasn’t).

That the government lied about hospitals struggling for capacity (they were).

That the government made a deliberate choice to sacrifice the Young to protect the old (they didn’t).

As for ‘logical discussion ‘, unless you understand what exponential growth means mathematically, you aren’t really in a position to comment. Sorry, but that’s true.

Given that hospitals were nearly full and some were only offering oxygen if sats dropped below 90% as we were perilously close to running out of oxygen, what do you think would have happened if cases had grown even twice as fast?!

lol, those arent conspiracy thories.
Those are what we call opinions.
I know it's become fashionable in the last few years but it really isn't logical to decry everything as a conspiracy theory just because you don't agree with it.

As for ‘logical discussion ‘, unless you understand what exponential growth means mathematically, you aren’t really in a position to comment. Sorry, but that’s true

I think most people of average intelligence know what exponential growth is. You're obviously trying to sound intellectually superior but you just sound a bit silly.
Sorry, but that's true.

@Mightymoog ,

What’s become fashionable is to disregard a body of expert opinion in favour of your favourite YouTuber.

You could possibly say that when I claim it could be serious in the young, as serious is subjective. Equally you could claim that the government lied as sometimes they ramped up the messages in PR videos, although the facts were always available uncensored online.

Everything else I wrote is factually backed up by actual data and mathematics. It is not an opinion.

@Mightymoog ,

‘I think most people of average intelligence know what exponential growth is. You're obviously trying to sound intellectually superior but you just sound a bit silly.
Sorry, but that's true.’

That’s factually untrue again, just for a change.

To understand it properly, you need A level maths, something that no one of average intelligence (iq of 100) has.

so yes, a large part of what you said was subjective opinion.
I take it opinions are only CT's when they aren't your opinion?
+

I'm a little puzzled at the mention of youtube? Have a lot of people stated that's whereb they get their info from on this thread?
Could you show mw eherabouts please.
Personally , I got my data from the ONS where it was clear that it was overwhelmingly the elderly who were vulnearble to this illness.
I take it the ONS are CT's too?!

To understand it properly, you need A level maths, something that no one of average intelligence (iq of 100) has

Not one single person with an iq of 100 has an A level in maths?
Thought we were dealing with true facts/ stats. Not phrases you pluck out of thin air with no back up whatsoever

@Newbutoldfather these are opinions, and for a few of them not that robust

The last one on capacity depends on timing at some points it was the case

Oh, and I know plenty of people who understand exponential growth who don't have an A level in maths ( weird opinion from you TBH)

no, she as valid opinions.
Anyone with a different opinion is a CT .
She's also frightfully clever

@Mightymoog ,

Probably best to check with @noblegiraffe on that one, but I really doubt it!

And you said ‘most people’ of an average IQ grasp it, implying over 50% of people with an IQ of 100 can access A level maths.

But how about you answer my key question:

If hospitals were seriously struggling with the lockdown, what do you think would have happened if cases had increased twice as quickly?

I'm sorry; I'm not engaging with someone who shouts CT every time someone says something theuy don't agree with. I'm a grown up and would rather not waste my time.
Enjoy the rest of your evening

Totally agree with the banging of pots etc

My neighbours were out each week banging and whooping.... but none of them ever offered to put my bin out... or cut my front lawn or do anything that might actually have been of help to me ..... except give me a bloody headache when I'd just got home from yet another 12hr shift

I don't think there was much choice- A lot of other countries were putting things in place to lockdown. Can you imagine the outrage if the UK stayed open and 'let the people die'? Also, the elderly and those with medical conditions were obviously the most affected, without a lockdown its quite possible that the country would have had to resort to mass graves and mass cremation, due to increased deaths and people off work sick with it.

The original strain was horrific, and very very different. A lot of people don't realise that Covid affected the body very strangely, even people with mild viral symptoms became unwell due to their organs being affected. If it carried on the way it did, it would be on the same level as diseases like polio, measles, etc due to the complications. I only work with children so here's some of the complications they had:

multisystem inflammatory syndrome affecting their organs- https://www.gosh.nhs.uk/conditions-and-treatments/conditions-we-treat/paediatric-inflammatory-multisystem-syndrome-pims/#:~:text=Paediatric%20Inflammatory%20Multisystem%20Syndrome%20(PIMS)%20is%20a%20new%20condition%20that,off%20infection%2C%20injury%20and%20disease

A link between children contracting covid and then getting type 1 diabetes. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-66054946.amp

Seizures that were not febrile convulsions or epilepsy post covid https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2589986423000266

I think that it's very easy to forget how bad covid was at the beginning as the new strains are mild and not much different from flu for the general 'healthy' population.

That article does not state a ris ein diabetes due to covid.
It states there has been a rise and they don't know why

@Mightymoog ,

‘If hospitals were seriously struggling with the lockdown, what do you think would have happened if cases had increased twice as quickly?’

’I'm not engaging with someone who shouts CT every time someone says something theuy don't agree with. I'm a grown up and would rather not waste my time.
Enjoy the rest of your evening’

Thought you wouldn’t fancy actually discussing some real facts and scenarios! LOL

You have a lovely evening too.

Even more worryingly, rates of diabetes in children were already increasing before the pandemic. Covid speeded that process up. I think that's even worse because it suggests multiple causes for what we're seeing today.

Yes, but employees at least got their 80% of £2,500 per month.

Self employed earning over £50k per year were entitled to nothing at all, they didn't get the same 80% of up to the limit that employees got.

Self employed with two sources of income got nothing if the s/e profits were under 50% of total. There was no equivalent exclusion for employee furlough if the employee had two sources of income and the other source was over 50% of total income.

Employees were eligible for furlough if they were employed in Feb 20. Self employed had to be self employed at least from March 19 - if they started later that that, they were excluded.

So many different exclusions for self employed with no comparable exclusions for employees.

Ok my mistake, its been a while since I last looked into it and just share without rereading!

Correction- type 1 diabetes in children increased.
Irs uncertain whether this is due to children not being exposed to as many germs/bugs dring lockdown, whether covid triggered an autoimmune response or if there is another cause.

About the one way systems and standing behind taped lines in shops.

Some didn't adhere to this and 95% of the time it was the elderly. We had a taped line before the checkouts - so created a corridor for those customers wishing to buy a few items they picked up at the far end of the store to pay at the kiosk or self scans. Security and staff asked customers to stand behind the line and wait until the serving customer moves past the cashier before unloading. A few apologised. Some got very abusive. A few times, elderly customers thought "oh nobody queueing" without looking at the queue, plonked their shopping at the top of the belt "I am very sorry, but there is a queue behind you" said by a mix of staff, security and other customers. Again more abuse. In the early days of the lockdown, the customers under 70 were more understanding and cooperative.

Self scans - there was no need for the whole family to congregate in the self scan area. Just whoever is paying. That caused so many issues when we had to approve customers for age restricted products etc. As they had all to step out of the 'booth' created by the dividing screens for each self scan, to allow us to approve this. The dividing screens made the self scan area even tighter for movement.

Kiosk was better. We knew what most customers smoked and when we got the cigs or rolling tobacco for a customer, we put what the regular customers usually buy on a ledge in the kiosk or asked colleagues does customer want their tobacco. Yes, got them and gently threw the products at colleagues.

Worst is the counting of customers. Having a car park underground the store with lifts. Fortunately, had two lifts so made one for entering the store and the other to leave. Needed a colleague in the car park and one on the pedestrian entrance for those customers who walked to the shops or parked in one of the car parks in the area. Had to communicate via walkie talkie to when to let customers in. Usually when a customer exited the exit lift, we let the next customer (only allowed those living together in their bubble in a lift together).

I think if we ever have another lockdown and restrict the number of customers, those who WFH or furloughed should work in the essential retail instead.