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

@taxguru In one of the Chalet School books, written in the 50s or 60s, there's a line "Thank goodness for asbestos" when there's a fire. It always makes me smile. Will "thank goodness for lockdown" be a similarly ironic line? And yes, we certainly should examine those things, not be fobbed off with "pleeeeeeeeeeeease can we draw a line under it and forget about it", like Boris kept saying about Partygate.

Those who are against lockdowns need to answer the below questions (to themselves if no one else), though I would of course be interested to see replies.

If hospitals were at breaking point (and they were) with lockdown, what do you think would have happened without a lockdown?

Do you not believe in lockdowns ever? And if you do but not for Covid, what r number and mortality rate do you think it would be worth locking down for?

As addressed previously in this thread, the advice/guidance/restrictions February and early March WERE starting to have an effect and reducing the scale of Covid infection growth. People WERE voluntarily taking their own precautions as they thought fit, to help prevent the spread and help avoid catching it, particularly the vulnerable. We also started to see enforced restrictions, i.e. pubs being closed, which we never got to see the effect of because the lockdowns happened so quickly after.

Had the advice/guidance been issued sooner, and had the more limited restrictions happened sooner (i.e. maybe pubs, restaurants and other "closed" cramped environments), then the curve may have been flattened without the draconian lockdowns.

Maybe if people hadn't been discharged from hospitals to care homes WITH Covid, then there may have been fewer cases/deaths arising in care homes!

It's far from a certain fact that the lockdowns we had were the answer. Other options may have also avoided complete collapse of the NHS and may have even enabled it to do other treatments rather than shut down to all but Covid.

Anyway, not all hospitals were blitzed with Covid - some were pretty empty - our local one was, and a poster upthread who had a OH working in a hospital said the same, that he was actually annoyed at treatments being cancelled which could have gone ahead as they weren't stretched due to Covid and could have carried on treating people who had been cancelled!

@taxguru ,

A lot of what you have posted is hindsight and wishful thinking. Every single doctor I know who worked in the field was absolutely swamped and intensive care units were using ratios of nurses/beds of 4/1 in some cases (it is normally 1/1).

‘Conclusions
Throughout the first wave of the pandemic, an adequate supply of all bed types existed at a national level. However, due to an unequal distribution of bed utilisation, many trusts spent a significant period operating above ‘safe-occupancy’ thresholds despite substantial capacity in geographically co-located trusts, a key operational issue to address in preparing for future waves.’

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7843315/

• Study of occupancy rates for mechanical ventilation beds in England shows 30% of hospitals reached 100% capacity at some point during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic.

https://warwick.ac.uk/newsandevents/pressreleases/nearly_a_third_of_hospitals_in_england_reached_maximum_ventilator_bed_capacity_during_first_wave_of_covid-19_pandemic1/

You can make the point that in a perfectly organised system, there would have been enough beds but, as we all know, the NHS is what it is, and it is far from perfectly organised!

In London at least two events caused the first wave, the Easter Holiday skiing in Italy and Cheltenham. Only one was within our control.

You also have to remember that they had to err on the side of caution. The initial estimates of fatality rates were 3%, well over double what it turned out to be. Imagine what it would have been like were it actually to have been 3%!

You can’t look back with perfect knowledge of specific mistakes made and ideal steps to be taken (what about schools btw, they are the single biggest vector for viruses?).

Which leads to my second related question. What t number and specific fatality rate should lead to a lockdown or are you against them per se, even for a novel virus with a fatality rate of 25%? Would you trust people to make the right decisions then?

R number *

What happened with the first wave?

I recall More or Less I think talking about a fall in cases pre lockdown

They tracked it back

Was a while ago, pp mentioned it below maybe someone has more on that

@Newbutoldfather how are you going to know the specific fatality rate in advance to determine whether or not a lockdown is something to consider?

What t number and specific fatality rate should lead to a lockdown or are you against them per se, even for a novel virus with a fatality rate of 25%?

This seems a rather pointless question, unless said virus was really hard to transmit. A novel virus with a 25% fatalty rate that we could reasonably assume we all risked catching, something similar to covid in transmissibility, would make lockdown impossible. Because lockdown is a policy that requires a functioning society.

Whatever one thinks of lockdowns, and I'm still on the fence, they're just not realistic or relevant outside quite a specific set of circumstances.

@MargoLivebetter ,

Precisely. You don’t.

So you have to err on the side of caution and use the high estimate, not the low one and take a punt.

@Newbutoldfather if you believe that lockdowns are your only instrument and if you think that "estimates" are factual and based on sufficient evidence so as to be meaningful.

No I don't. It was a waste of time and money.

@EasternStandard ,

This is a good unbiased summary of the evidence, which isn’t conclusive:

https://fullfact.org/health/can-we-believe-lockdown-sceptics/

Even if lockdown wasn’t the factor, it was the closing of schools which was. This is regarded as the single most effective measure to stop spread. Sadly, it is also the most impactful on people’s lives.

I think i broke all the lockdown rules.

lol. I broke as many as I could !
I went to a holiday park place at one point: can't remember when but we could go and stay but people were still wearing their useless masks and standing 6 foot apart.
Anyway, went to the loos where they had taped "not in use" signs on every other toilet cubicle and sink. Took me a good few moments to gather them all up, put them in the bin then use whatever toilet/ sink I wanted.
Made me feel better for a bit.

There are people walking about outside in those useless masks. Even they don't wear them properly - ie nose or mouth is exposed. What do they achieve from this? Not to mention the guy wearing a disposable mask which exposed both his mouth and nose. He looked like Groucho Marx with a blue 'tache.

I broke a few covid rules myself. This was before the bubbles. Getting DF around to mine to fit something. Going to my parents to sit in the garden - got no garden and used their loo. DM cutting my hair in their back garden. Some examples.

we ignored the not visiting people rule completely.
So glad we did. i dread to think how my mother or children would have gone on witjhout meeting properly with friends and relatives/

The first lockdown was at the same time as schools closing. If it peaked before lockdown started then that includes schools, they hadn't shut yet

But also where did you see that about the most impact? Is it in the full fact link or did you see it somewhere else? thanks

I imagine a lot of people who broke Covid laws (as opposed to guidance) hate speeders. Personally I think on a dry road with good visibility 80-90mph isperfectly safe, so that is the speed I go. But I would take my ticket without complaint if caught.

Of course, seeing your parents or a couple of friends in the garden didn’t make a huge difference to anything, but large indoor gatherings and, certainly, parties did.

Maybe 20% of people could have totally ignored the guidance and lived their normal lives (many of the rich and famous appeared to) and the r number would have stayed below 1. But all it did was kept everyone else locked down a little longer.

And who decides who gets to be the lucky law breakers?

@EasternStandard ,

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41562-020-01009-0

That is a good article putting it at number 2, with restrictions on small gatherings at number 1.

But other studies have put it at number 1.

And who decides who gets to be the lucky law breakers?
well personally, I approved myself to be a rule breaker 😁

I do think your analogy to speeding is a poor one. Speeding can be and is dangerous to all of the population.
Covid was an hysterical over reaction to an illness that wouldn't be severe for the vasy majority under the age of 80

@Mightymoog ,

‘I do think your analogy to speeding is a poor one. Speeding can be and is dangerous to all of the population.’

Well I think the total opposite.

Most of Europe legalise the speed at which I drive. Most of Europe prohibited social gatherings during Covid.

I, too, decided I was a lucky law breaker. My children's socialisation was not going to be collateral, despite the state decision that some DC were going to get school access and the full curriculum with better ratios whilst mine were to fester at home.

Should have come and helped out on crit care then. And since you think the virus wasn’t that bad, maybe worked without a mask as protection.

well I was a bit busy doing my own job.
Why would people want an unqualified person in critical care? As far as i remember there weren't volunteer roles in ICU etc.
Weird suggestion.
I would have been happy to be in CC without a mask as they wewre useless anyway. i was happy never wearing a mask and mixing with people who hadcovid at times so i guess i'm just not as susceptible to fearmongering.