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

I'd don't think another lockdown would ever happen now to be honest.

Posters had a go at people on here for not having a spare room to self isolate in.
Same posters moan like fuck when social housing tenants have one more room than they need and are all for the bedroom tax.

The fact that this hypocrisy still stands and there has been no public pressure to abolish the bedroom tax tells me all i need to know!!!!

It's all very well to say that now, but at the time no one knew what we were dealing with, and there was no cure, vaccination, or targeted treatment.

I can understand why they shut down initially to get to grips with what the virus was and the level of threat it presented but, beyond the first month and having learnt that it wasn't containable, I think the lockdowns were entirely disproportional and, ultimately, more destructive than the virus itself for society as a whole.

It's a lot more than a "coupe" of years now.

Yes, I think they should have happened, as we didn't (obviously) have the benefit of hindsight. It's not as if Covid wasn't fatal for a significant number of people, not to mention the lasting effects that some are still suffering.

The first lockdown was fair enough. The whole point of it was to "flatten the curve" but it continued far too long as the govt seemed to change tack and aim for zero cases and then got backed into a corner. I'd have said 4-6 weeks for the first lockdown to give organisations the chance to change things, set up rotas, etc., and then pretty much back to business as normal. When the cases started to rise again a few months later, then another 4-6 week lockdown to "flatten the curve" again, and so on. We should have been learning to live with covid, protect the highly vulnerable, maintain distance and ventilated workplaces as far as possible to REDUCE cases, but the way we kept going too far to try to eliminate it was ridiculous. Ruining the economy and peoples' lives to protect the healthy was crazy.

I have no idea on the lockdowns. I would like an opportunity pelt water balloons full of cat pee at anyone who "loved lockdown being furloughed doing yoga in the sun" though.

Before lockdown the number of reported cases of Covid and death from Covid was doubling every three and a half days. That means 1 case became 4 in a week, over 1000 in 5 weeks. Unchecked that becomes 1,000,000 in 10 weeks

Lockdowns should have never been in place. They didn't work. People developed MH issues, me included. Customers in essential retail were thanking us to start with. Two years later, we were shouted at, spat at, having nasty comments. The rudeness from customers is getting worse too. Essential retail workers are the forgotten heroes.

There were places that shouldn't have closed in lockdowns. Hairdressers is one example. Friend's sister is a nurse with very thick curly hair. As the lockdown continued, she was finding it even more uncomfortable wearing PPE around her head and face as the weight and sweat from her hair was causing this. Hairdresser and customer both wear masks, disposable capes.

In the end, she did fund raising to get her head shaved. She got £500 raised. DH did the shave and DD (13 at the time) filmed it to go on FB.

well you should have just seen them.
Why on earth were you letting politicians dictate to you who you had in your own home?

Guess if we were all happy to accept tens if not hundreds of thousands more deaths then no, reality is, like it or not, it probably saved many lives, remember covid in the first months killed people who were otherwise fit and healthy not just those who were elderly or had underlying illness

Always amazing on Mn how many posters believe they are expert virologists, scientists or doctors.

Yes. It was terrifying being on the front line in the first and second waves. Young, fit people were dying. The hospitals were completely overwhelmed.

But cases had started to fall before the lockdowns, once people were aware of the pandemic and were starting to take their own precautions as advised during Jan and Feb, i.e. wash hands, avoid crowded places, social distancing, etc. There is an argument that we should have waited a bit longer to see if general awareness and advice would have meant reduced cases anyway. It would have helped if the public had been warned and given advice sooner. Not saying we could have avoided lockdowns altogether, but they may have been less restrictive and shorter.

. Don’t forget teachers were not on the priority vaccination list either.
Nor were essential retail workers who had customers not SD'ing and bringing their kids that were coughing - covid or whatever.

Caroline Hirons went tonto on Twitter when she saw men getting their nose hairs plucked at the barbers which were allowed to open while beauty salons remained shut.

https://www.beautybacked.com/

yes, I believed it was a mild illness for the vast majority and stats bore this out.
Therefore i was not prepared to join in the hysteria which was obviously natrional scaremongering

I find discussions like this frustrating as it is so easy to have an opinion on whether or not it was necessary after the fact.
What if they had gone the other way and decided to let us all just carry on as normal, there would be moaning in reverse about how our government aren’t decisive enough and there is no control in our country. Let’s not forget as well it wasn’t just the UK who imposed lockdowns.

Young fit people were not dying.
The figures are very very clear on that

Again

you said “the one walk a day was never a thing”

and I’m simply pointing out that it was a “thing” @Changingplace 🤷

the first one, yes, maybe. At that point we had no idea what was going on other than the horror stories coming out of Italy, no vaccine, not enough PPE to go round, no idea of the best treatments, or how it spread, etc. Plus there were some benefits (like a move to remote working) that came out of it.

Whether the following ones were needed in the same way, I don't know, and the splitting local areas into 'tiers'/rules like staying within your county boundary seem mad looking back on it.

I think all the 'we just have to make it to Christmas' in 2020 and then inevitable last minute back tracking was a mistake - if it had been 'we will just have to accept this is not going to be a normal Christmas but it's only one year,' it might have been better.

Then there were significant restrictions in Wales (and I think Scotland) around Christmas 2021 that weren't in place in England - including even outdoor, fully spaced out activities like light trails, which I think were completely unnecessary as there was no measurable difference in infection/death rates (in fact we might have even been higher).

I also think they should have introduced single people being allowed to bubble much earlier - it wasn't until October it was allowed in Wales.

Yes they should've locked down, abd earlier. They should've closed down the borders earlier aswell.

What about the lives lost or ruined BY the lockdowns, i.e. people who had their cancer treatment cancelled (like my OH!), people who took their own lives due to bankruptcy when they couldn't operate their business but were excluded from support, people who delayed seeking medical help and ended up with worsening health conditions which either killed them or permanently disabled them.

Who said anything about carrying on as normal. It wasn't a binary choice between lockdown and doing nothing!

All kinds of precautions and restrictions could have been put in place to protect people without trashing the economy and people's health (for other reasons).

The rise in cases had started to fall before the first lockdown due to public awareness and people starting to take precautions.