To think that in the future lockdown will be studied as an example of effective propaganda?

[Jericoo]

I remember studying different examples of propaganda when I was at school, mostly in the context of wartime efforts. In the context of lockdown, all it took was a 3-word slogan and people abandoned all of their civil liberties! Astonishing.

@RuggerHug

Inaccurate? What was inaccurate? I'm not in UK but we want to stop people becoming infected and dying was pretty worldwide.

The statistics are inaccurate and deceptive.

I think it will be studied as a way of showing how ineffective our much vaunted human rights, developed since the end of the second world war, are.

We know that Article 15 of the ECHR only permits derogations for as short a time as possible when the safety of the nation as a whole is at risk, but this has been ignored by governments all over Europe. is the average age of death from Covid still 82? I cant see how this justifies suspending the civil rights of the entire nation. Its all to do with protecting politicians from future condemnation.

Fuck me, MN really is a breeding ground for some utter shite sometimes. Propaganda okay then hun. Don’t knock your tin hat off on the way out the door

It's a a fucking pandemic. Do you really think that visits to care homes and hospitals were curtailed because the government are control freaks? Or to stop more vulnerable people becoming unwell?

What does make me laugh is all of this propaganda/anti masker absolute BS, like Covid is one big global conspiracy that is absolutely decimating the world’s economy just so that politicians can find out when Susan visits her mum and little Jimmy phones his mate. Seriously, get an education that doesn’t come from Facebook, please.
I’d probably start with basic economics.

@Whosayswhatnow

I agree with the restrictions but did wonder today what would happen if everyone just said no. I’m in Scotland and Nicola Sturgeon said today they can’t police people so it’s on us to do the right thing... what if people just have enough and ignore all the rules. Is there even the man power to control it?!

There never has been. All nations with national government and laws are governed by consent.

YABU. This is one of those threads that's pretending to be intelligent musing about the social ramifications of Covid, but is really a poorly-concealed foot stamp about being fed up with the guidelines/thinking there ought to be stronger measures (depending on which end of the polarised argument the OP happens to vehemently agree with). 'Propaganda' isn't a synonym for 'things I don't agree with'.

@Mintychoc1

Historians will look back and marvel that weren’t street riots, when cases like Dominic Cummings were all over the news. Instead we sat at home and painted rainbows and clapped the NHS, like a bunch of Stepford Wives.

You've struck a chord with me regarding "painted rainbows and clapped the NHS, like a bunch of Stepford Wives". We didn't make rainbows or go outside and clap. I just couldn't bring myself to - it felt coercive and "fake". (No offence whatsoever intended to those that did). But then I felt like a right curmudgeonly bitch for not joining in.......

@D4rwin

A study into how anti social personality disorders have a high correlation with non mask wearing already been carried out.

That's not surprising, such people don't care much about social pressure.

Propaganda doesn't have to be untrue, it can be completely factual. It's very much directed though to producing a certain belief or behaviour in people, and so it's often simplified, even if it is true.

"Fuck me, MN really is a breeding ground for some utter shite sometimes. Propaganda grin okay then hun. Don’t knock your tin hat off on the way out the door hmm"

Don't worry I've glued it on people get very bold over the internet sometimes

@Jericoo

"Fuck me, MN really is a breeding ground for some utter shite sometimes. Propaganda grin okay then hun. Don’t knock your tin hat off on the way out the door hmm"

Don't worry I've glued it on people get very bold over the internet sometimes

I totally agree and I think you have proved your point here.

This was the study that said mask avoidance is due to anti social personality disorder. I wish I had known earlier I had one. I could have used it as an excuse for all sorts of behaviour.

Considering how many people are ignoring it and how many people on Mumsnet think being asked to wear a mask is a breach of their human rights, I’d say it’s not very effective.

@lazylinguist

YABU. This is one of those threads that's pretending to be intelligent musing about the social ramifications of Covid, but is really a poorly-concealed foot stamp about being fed up with the guidelines/thinking there ought to be stronger measures (depending on which end of the polarised argument the OP happens to vehemently agree with). 'Propaganda' isn't a synonym for 'things I don't agree with'.

Yep, and we have a bloody coronavirus forum, I don’t see why people can’t post there.

Go and break lockdown and don’t wear a mask, OP, you’re not going to get arrested.

Well as “propaganda”, it’s not been effective at all. I read last week that only 12% of people comply with quarantine / self isolation requirements. Leaving 88% who break the rules.

There was a behavioural scientist on BBC news tonight, unfortunately I didn’t catch her name, who explained that for people to comply, there needs to be 1- clarity over the rules, 2- perceived fairness in how the rules are devised and applied, and 3- perceived rationale so that people understand why they are being asked to change their behaviour, and believe the required change will be effective in meeting the objective (whatever the objective might be).

Clearly there are failures on all fronts at the moment.

But if I see you not wearing a mask, or wearing it under your nose like that cretin Corbyn, I will totally judge you.

Tell you what I find interesting is all the fear and hysteria whipped up by the government and media when deaths from Covid didn’t even make it into the top 10 causes of death for September.
But just to put it into context,
Covid deaths to date = 45, 955
Smoking related deaths (2108) =77,500
Smoking related hospitalisation (2018) = 489,300
Alcohol specific deaths (2018) = 7,551
Alcohol related hospitalisations (2018) = 1.26 million.
Seems pretty clear to me where the public health crisis lies, and it’s not Covid.

digital.nhs.uk/data-and-information/publications/statistical/statistics-on-smoking/statistics-on-smoking-england-2019?fbclid=IwAR2d56VWotKY7djo0Z5T6S8VdYkTC5Vu-xHqKAME_unvs-Uo0TUssUvZpLc

alcoholchange.org.uk/alcohol-facts/fact-sheets/alcohol-statistics?fbclid=IwAR0E0jYYqbuk4sUdC9PH90vhN0Y6kIwQYF_a10f8t_4bdN_5SKGCufC16uM#:~:text=In%20England%20in%202018%2F19,previously%20%5B22%2C%2023%5D

Covid deaths are higher than the government figure, and isn’t the main point that unchecked - ie. no measures taken - the figure would have been much much higher?

Governments around the world have been grappling with how to deal with this virus, and we have a particularly incompetent government at the moment which does us no favours. That doesn’t change the basic parameters of the situation however - it’s a pandemic.

I suspect that Covid deaths are actually much lower than the government figures.
The reasons are that the tests aren’t totally accurate and likely to give false positives, and that Covid is put on the death cert if a positive test was had in the last 28 days.
So a person who had recovered from Covid but was was killed in a car accident would be a Covid death.
There is also the fact there are very many less flu deaths this year, whether that is because Covid is getting them first or the diagnosis is Covid not flu is up for debate.

@TinyTornado, your suspicions are wrong. There are way more people who die of Covid after 28 days (and are therefore not counted in official tally), than there are Covid victims who die of other causes, within first 28 days. The real number of Covid deaths in the U.K. passed 60,000 last week.

I suspect that Covid deaths are actually much lower than the government figures.

You should think about going to a newspaper or something with your suspicions. What made you suspect that? Do you work in both testing and a coroners officers? You should really become a whistle blower. I can’t believe you have come up with all this by yourself but have only chosen to impart this insider knowledge with mumsnet

As for the flu, scientists fear that the low rate of infection this year, due to social distancing, will lead to a super severe outbreak next year as fewer people will have developed immunity. So it’s deaths deferred, not avoided.

I might be wrong, but I genuinely don't get why this thread is suddenly all about 'anti maskers' and tin hats...

I am neither an anti-masker and nor do I wear a tin hat (I don't even have Facebook!) but I can still agree that at the beginning of all of this (and probably now, although I can't see it as clearly perhaps because I haven't got the clarity that distance sometimes brings), we were all manipulated to be incredibly frightened. I'm not saying that there wasn't good intention in this - I think the manipulation came from a desire to ensure we all stayed inside to help stop the spread.

By definition, propaganda is 'information, ideas, opinions, or images, often only giving one part of an argument, that are broadcast, published, or in some other way spread with the intention of influencing people's opinions'. We were definitely subject to very clever propaganda at the beginning of all of this. To clarify - I am not saying that is a lie or some big global conspiracy but I think it's fairly naive to not recognise the extent to which we are, as a matter of course, and have been throughout all of this, played.

@Yellownotblue

Well as “propaganda”, it’s not been effective at all. I read last week that only 12% of people comply with quarantine / self isolation requirements. Leaving 88% who break the rules.

There was a behavioural scientist on BBC news tonight, unfortunately I didn’t catch her name, who explained that for people to comply, there needs to be 1- clarity over the rules, 2- perceived fairness in how the rules are devised and applied, and 3- perceived rationale so that people understand why they are being asked to change their behaviour, and believe the required change will be effective in meeting the objective (whatever the objective might be).

Clearly there are failures on all fronts at the moment.

Public health involves a lot of behavioural study, which I think sometimes people miss. It's not just what things will prevent x, y, or z. It's also what behaviours it is possible to modify, for how long, and what the other effects of that will be. The more unnatural the behaviours you want, the more difficulty there is in getting people to do it.

It was well known before covid that a lot of pandemic control behaviour modification has a shelf life, I think about six or eight weeks if I recall correctly. It's why many doctors were concerned not to bring measures in too soon - they knew that they would only have good adherence for a limited amount of time, so they didn't want to waste it.

We've gone well beyond that now of course, and I think it's really up in the air whether attempts in various countries have managed to make it work. There seems to be clear fatigue among some populations that have tried to keep measures in place all along.

This was why the Swedes took an approach that seemed too relaxed to many - the idea was that it would cause less fatigue and so hopefully have better adherence over the long period they thought would be needed. Which seemed totally alien as a concept elsewhere though I'd have thought the idea would be entirely understandable to anyone involved in public health, even if thy thought it might not work.

It's propaganda. It's a tool of the same sort who brought us the 3rd Reich - powerful businessmen and corporate interests. The key is in the phrase..

"we're all in this together".