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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

Do you think the Covid situation will ever deteriorate again so badly that we need another lockdown?

215 replies

goaskmum · 01/04/2022 07:15

Posting here for traffic.

I’m in no way suggesting the situation will ever deteriorate and I’m in no way advocating another lockdown.

I’m genuinely curious though, do you think the situation will get worse again, perhaps in the winter, were the hospitals can’t cope and we end up back in lockdown again?

Or do you think because most people are immune to covid either through having it or being vaccinated that it will keep on getting better from here on and there will never ever be a single restriction imposed again?

YABU - there will never ever be anymore restrictions. It’s over
YANBU - there could very well be another lockdown in the future if it gets out of hand

OP posts:
Belladonna12 · 01/04/2022 15:28

Hopefully there won't be another lockdown but if if a a deadly very transmittable variant came along then it could happen.

Belladonna12 · 01/04/2022 15:30

@Pyewhacket

I work in ICU and the Covid Red Zone is at capacity AGAIN. And it's only a matter of time before the death rate starts to climb back up.

Never mind, just put your fingers in your ears, run around the garden in a circle and keep chanting loudly, "lalala , I'm not listening."

Out of interest, who is in in ICU now? Are they all unvaccinated?.
HardyBuckette · 01/04/2022 15:34

@Pyewhacket

I work in ICU and the Covid Red Zone is at capacity AGAIN. And it's only a matter of time before the death rate starts to climb back up.

Never mind, just put your fingers in your ears, run around the garden in a circle and keep chanting loudly, "lalala , I'm not listening."

Are you saying you think this means there will or should be another lockdown?
Chasingaftermidnight · 01/04/2022 15:38

I’d be astonished. But then again, in March 2020 as other countries started to lock down I was convinced we wouldn’t. So my judgment is clearly off the mark!

Cornettoninja · 01/04/2022 15:42

I don’t know if Pyewhacket is trying to say that we need another lockdown (I don’t agree at this point though I’m not the one nursing severely ill people. We probably have very different vantage points on this question) but they do raise a very important point.

In all the talk about ‘living with covid’ expansion or restructure of health care has been a very quiet corner. If this is how covid is going to look long term than things need to change to accommodate it permanently. Numbers of Covid patients can’t keep been treated as a temporary when the last couple of years have clearly shown us that’s not the case.

Quartz2208 · 01/04/2022 15:51

@Cornettoninja

I don’t know if Pyewhacket is trying to say that we need another lockdown (I don’t agree at this point though I’m not the one nursing severely ill people. We probably have very different vantage points on this question) but they do raise a very important point.

In all the talk about ‘living with covid’ expansion or restructure of health care has been a very quiet corner. If this is how covid is going to look long term than things need to change to accommodate it permanently. Numbers of Covid patients can’t keep been treated as a temporary when the last couple of years have clearly shown us that’s not the case.

I agree - I dont think it is running around with fingers in our ears and saying I'm not listening to say that there is little or no point in a lockdown at this point.

But looking at restructuring and how to deal with it isnt the same. Neither is the fact that there is the potential to go back to Omicron December restrictions

HardyBuckette · 01/04/2022 15:54

Yes, we clearly need to do something but it's equally clear that there isn't going to be another lockdown and that there don't appear to exist easier mitigations that actually do much. It's a very difficult situation.

GoldenOmber · 01/04/2022 15:56

@Pyewhacket

I work in ICU and the Covid Red Zone is at capacity AGAIN. And it's only a matter of time before the death rate starts to climb back up.

Never mind, just put your fingers in your ears, run around the garden in a circle and keep chanting loudly, "lalala , I'm not listening."

What is it you would like people to do to change this? Individual people, the ones you feel are making it worse somehow by running in circles round their garden refusing to listen. Go back into voluntary lockdown? Until… covid has gone away? Or what?

There are many things the government could do differently around health system resourcing, but there is not much it can do differently to just make covid not be an issue any more, and there is pretty much nothing that your average random mumsnetter can do on that front. If China’s government with all the authoritarian powers it has at its disposal still can’t stop omicron from spreading, then how do you think Jane Smith from Stockton-on-Tees can fix ICU pressures?

MurmuratingStarling · 01/04/2022 15:57

Nah. There will be no more lockdowns.

MurmuratingStarling · 01/04/2022 15:59

@Pyewhacket

I work in ICU and the Covid Red Zone is at capacity AGAIN. And it's only a matter of time before the death rate starts to climb back up.

Never mind, just put your fingers in your ears, run around the garden in a circle and keep chanting loudly, "lalala , I'm not listening."

You almost sound like you WANT another lockdown. Hmm
balalake · 01/04/2022 16:02

There are two questions here, whether some restrictions should happen, and whether they will.

Possible some in Scotland or Wales, but there will be none in England.

FourChimneys · 01/04/2022 16:15

I really hope not, and I'm speaking as someone extremely vulnerable to Covid. I don't think the government would be able to enforce it so wouldn't try.

The only likely scenario is if a new variant was serious or deadly to children. I think the majority of people would willingly lock down to protect them. Let us all hope that never happens though.

1forAll74 · 01/04/2022 16:16

You can never tell what will happen in the future regarding viruses, Experts all over the world, keep giving out information about these things all the time, some of them have differing opinions.. Plus travel is starting up again,, so people can transmit all sorts of viruses from abroad , from people who haven't been able to get vaccines. China has now had another big flare up with another covid type thing.

I don't think there will be another big lockdown as yet, but you never know what will happen.

IcedPurple · 01/04/2022 18:43

There were a mixture positives and negatives for most people, all good or all bad would be the extremes.

I can think of virtually nothing positive about my lockdown experience. Only negatives. I don't think that's an 'extreme' situation at all.

HardyBuckette · 01/04/2022 18:53

I suspect it probably is, speaking as someone who found it pretty awful on the whole too and is angry at the way in which so much of the harms lockdown would inevitably do were ignored and minimised at the time. So for example I'll never not be angry at the way my DC were considered unworthy of schooling, but that doesn't mean I won't have derived some benefit from the improved air quality in the first lockdown for example.

Belladonna12 · 01/04/2022 18:57

It's not impossible. Lockdown was very effective in reducing deaths and bought time to produce effective vaccines and covid treatments. If the vaccines and treatments stopped working and the death rate was similar to that at the beginning of a pandemic, I think some restrictions would come back if not a complete lockdown. For those who think there is "no appetite" for one, I bet that is because you personally haven't felt too much at risk from covid. I wonder if you would feel differently if children and young adults were as likely to die as elderly people.

HardyBuckette · 01/04/2022 19:05

@Belladonna12

It's not impossible. Lockdown was very effective in reducing deaths and bought time to produce effective vaccines and covid treatments. If the vaccines and treatments stopped working and the death rate was similar to that at the beginning of a pandemic, I think some restrictions would come back if not a complete lockdown. For those who think there is "no appetite" for one, I bet that is because you personally haven't felt too much at risk from covid. I wonder if you would feel differently if children and young adults were as likely to die as elderly people.
If children and young adults were as likely to die as elderly people then we'd be facing something entirely different to what we are now. But given what's happened with Covid 19 so far, I disagree that if the death rate was similar to that at the start of the pandemic we'd see a complete lockdown. Because in all likelihood, in such a scenario it would still overwhelmingly be the elderly who were most likely to die. The widespread public appetite wouldn't be there to accept for a third time the sort of social and economic damage inevitably done by lockdown (and those things are a given even if you support it) so people who have already lived a long time can live a bit longer. Plus there's also the awareness now of what lockdown itself often did to elderly people, the knee jerk don't kill granny attitude isn't what it was.

More restrictions perhaps, especially ones like masks that don't cost the state anything. Could see that happening.

GoldenOmber · 01/04/2022 19:11

For those who think there is "no appetite" for one, I bet that is because you personally haven't felt too much at risk from covid.

That wouldn’t explain why there was a good appetite for the first lockdown, though. Most people realised they personally weren’t at too much risk from covid, but were still prepared to lock down for a short while anyway to buy time for vaccines and hospital capacity for the people who were at risk.

Two years on of on/off restrictions and after vaccines, most people have more sight of what lockdown’s actually like in reality plus are of the view that this is about as good as it gets for lowering the risk. I really doubt that saying “ah but your personal risk is now a bit greater than it was in March 2020” would change many minds.

ProfessorScarlett · 01/04/2022 19:18

Yabu. Lockdowns were a pointless waste of money. So many more people suffered from MH and other health issues due to lockdowns vs the few who died with covid.

I'm an averagely healthy middle aged person who is unvaccinated and worked all through, when I had covid it barely affected me. Locking down healthy people is a stupid idea.

Egghead68 · 01/04/2022 19:20

There will most probably be more restrictions at some point but a lockdown is very unlikely.

Belladonna12 · 01/04/2022 19:23

Two years on of on/off restrictions and after vaccines, most people have more sight of what lockdown’s actually like in reality plus are of the view that this is about as good as it gets for lowering the risk. I really doubt that saying “ah but your personal risk is now a bit greater than it was in March 2020” would change many minds.

What if your personal risk or your children's risk was a lot greater and the vaccine and treatments were not effective?

HardyBuckette · 01/04/2022 19:27

@Belladonna12

Two years on of on/off restrictions and after vaccines, most people have more sight of what lockdown’s actually like in reality plus are of the view that this is about as good as it gets for lowering the risk. I really doubt that saying “ah but your personal risk is now a bit greater than it was in March 2020” would change many minds.

What if your personal risk or your children's risk was a lot greater and the vaccine and treatments were not effective?

Well, then the situation would be entirely different from the one we face now. But why are some of you so keen on discussing that, rather than what's much more likely? Of course people are going to locate their views based on the reality rather than a hypothetical.
Belladonna12 · 01/04/2022 19:27

If children and young adults were as likely to die as elderly people then we'd be facing something entirely different to what we are now. But given what's happened with Covid 19 so far, I disagree that if the death rate was similar to that at the start of the pandemic we'd see a complete lockdown. Because in all likelihood, in such a scenario it would still overwhelmingly be the elderly who were most likely to die.

Why would it only ever hit the elderly? Plenty of contagious diseases have affected the young more than the elderly.

HardyBuckette · 01/04/2022 19:32

@Belladonna12

If children and young adults were as likely to die as elderly people then we'd be facing something entirely different to what we are now. But given what's happened with Covid 19 so far, I disagree that if the death rate was similar to that at the start of the pandemic we'd see a complete lockdown. Because in all likelihood, in such a scenario it would still overwhelmingly be the elderly who were most likely to die.

Why would it only ever hit the elderly? Plenty of contagious diseases have affected the young more than the elderly.

Yep, but not this one.
Belladonna12 · 01/04/2022 19:33

Well, then the situation would be entirely different from the one we face now. But why are some of you so keen on discussing that, rather than what's much more likely? Of course people are going to locate their views based on the reality rather than a hypothetical.

We aren't talking about a situation we face now though are we? Obviously there's not going to be one at the moment given we now have vaccines and treatment. We are talking about whether there could be any lockdown in the future should the virus mutate or should there be a new virus.