To think there should be some kind of national reflection on the pandemic?

[23rdmarch2020]

It’s coming up to three years since the first lockdown. In many ways, it feels an absolute age ago. From personal experience, my life completely changed in the space of a week and so many things happened in my life that never would have because of the pandemic (some good, some bad). For some, it has been an absolute tragedy. In the space of a few weeks we went from being in our normal lives to it being a criminal offence to step outside our homes without a valid excuse. Obviously people are keen to move on but AIBU to think there should be more reflection on the pandemic than there has been?

That was in response to a comment earlier this morning

I doubt many of the posters here have changed their minds. We might have changed username. I change mine a lot.

I've always said exactly what I thought about lockdowns and the whole shitshow from the beginning.

There seem to be the same number of posters on here as were on other threads throughout lockdown.

Well, according to Lucy Easthope, some of those in charge didn't have a great understanding either, if they thought it was a 6 to 8 week thing.

But I agree though, the mentality that we could somehow stop this in its tracks if we just behaved was shockingly widespread. Think how common it was for people to suggest we'd have a quicker way out if we observed restrictions, as though that could ever have been possible beyond the very early days of the pandemic in small geographic area. Although it's not like ordinary people came up with that one by themselves. The likes of Devi Sridhar, linked to approvingly upthread, laid groundwork for that one.

@Delatron that's exactly how it was- we went into a coffee bar in Lund , when stuff in uk was shut - it wasn't packed , but there were plenty of people in it if all ages- spread out- some with masks on- some not. Hand sanitiser everywhere and signs.

In Copenhagen children were definitely back at school earlier and they used test passports in cafes and restaurants- so if you wanted to go out you were testing 'a lot' at centres (which were everywhere and efficient)

I think the fear thing was the big difference- we certainly were not getting the PM or health minister on TV every day going through the stats. It was about every 3 weeks when any changes came in- stats all available every day online . I think it put the fear of god into many older people who watched it avidly every day.

It completely mentally scarred me. We never should have had our liberties taken away

And I personally lay that fault at the feet of the 80% + who bayed for more restrictions.

We were entirely at the mercy of public opinion, which drove government policy, and was then reinforced by state sponsored propoganda.

But I agree though, the mentality that we could somehow stop this in its tracks if we just behaved was shockingly widespread. Think how common it was for people to suggest we'd have a quicker way out if we observed restrictions, as though that could ever have been possible beyond the very early days of the pandemic in small geographic

I wish I could find that awful lockdown poem that lots of people were sharing about how when Boris said it's over well all be hugging in the streets or whatever the sentiment was.
My heart sank seeing it at the time that so many people thought it was going to be over within a few weeks if we behaved ourselves. A few of us were questioning what the endgame was because surely it would just resurge when people started mixing. Actually seasonality helped with that more than anticipated but we lost the benefit of that by locking down for so long into the summer.

And for all the bollocks people talked about following the science, Chris Whitty told them there was going to be a second wave which was liable to be more deadly. They knew that before locking down. Yet we still carried on with restrictions in May and June when cases were through the floor and we had the benefit of summer.

That’s interesting to hear @Crikeyalmighty
All sounds very sensible. Especially the absence of the daily figures of doom!

Yep - another brilliant idea - push the inevitable second wave in to the autumn/winter. When hospitals are under more pressure and there’s far more indoor mixing.

I think the government made many mistakes but the lengthy first lockdown was one of the greatest. Kids should have been back at school from April (or to be honest never out of school.). I had one child who went to school for one week between March and September. But let’s send them all back in September and everyone back to work - all at the same time. Then wonder why we get a huge second wave right at the wrong time.

You artificially suppress a virus and it only bounces back stronger. You get huge peaks and troughs rather than let it bubble away and follow the natural peaks and troughs.

No. I understand of course that people who lost loved ones may want to honour them but I don’t want to dwell or reflect on it any more. It was a horrible time.

@Delatron agree about the length and nature of the first period of restrictions. Had they started a week earlier, I am sure that children could have been back at school in person even a day or two a week in June. Same with the November restrictions, which if in October would have included half term so less school missed.

September took on this quasi talismanic status, people thinking it was somehow going to be safe then. Because that's how seasons and health work in this climate!

Are you in Wales @LlynTegid? We didn't have school closures in autumn 2020 in England.

I think that the majority of people who agreed with lockdown aren't on threads about whether we should have had lockdow. It's probably not interesting to then now that covid is not a threat to them and life is back to normal. The balance of opinion will inevitably look different because of that but it doesn't mean it is.

They’re not in these threads. But go ahead a start a thread saying you want to bring back mandatory mask wearing, and they’ll be all over it like flies on shit.

Those idiots still walk among us. They’re just less militant because the Covid bus has rolled out of town. They probably found some new hobby to be hysterical about.

Do you mean like nursing or teaching or the police for example

@sst1234

They’re not in these threads. But go ahead a start a thread saying you want to bring back mandatory mask wearing, and they’ll be all over it like flies on shit.

For the sake of balance, so would the anti-lockdowners, as they tended to be anti-everything - against masks, against mandatory vaccines, vaccine passports, air filters in schools (even open windows), home schooling, quarantine, isolation periods, etc. etc. So they would be "OH NOES, NO MASKS! This paper thing is the end of life as we know it! (But I've pulled an 'exemption' out of my butt.)"

To be fair, now we are allowed to be told what was completely obvious at the time - masks don't work and are a bit pointless. And now we know via leaked whatsapps that we were just made to wear them because they are visual signifiers to make people frightened. Oh, and because we were keeping up with the neighbours (Nicola)

Pretty much what we were saying at the time

@ArcticSkewer

To be fair, now we are allowed to be told what was completely obvious at the time - masks don't work and are a bit pointless. And now we know via leaked whatsapps that we were just made to wear them because they are visual signifiers to make people frightened. Oh, and because we were keeping up with the neighbours (Nicola)

Oh, okay. it's a bit silly really to actually think masks don't work, but go right ahead. (And don't bring up the Cochrane review - if you believe that's what it concludes, you aren't reading it properly.)

This kind of puerile repetition of skewed information is getting more idiotic by the day.

Did you read the whatsapp messages about masks?

And don't bring up a major review for what reason exactly? You don't like the (very obvious) conclusions it makes? Do better.

Anyway, it's been 3 years of dealing with this crap. Anyone who still thinks that making a mask from granny's tights and wearing it for a few minutes then storing it in your pocket (we are not talking hospital grade ppe here) was going to achieve anything.. is obviously not going to change their mind regardless.

Even if they now know even the mask-wearing rule makers only did it to scare people and make them more compliant. From their own messages to each other!

We were entirely at the mercy of public opinion, which drove government policy

I would lay a fair amount of blame at the feet of a cohort of academics, particularly the like of Indy SAGE. The endless interviews to the media, the open criticism of government policies which - in their opinion - didn’t go far enough really drove the fear, and they had no right to do that.

I absolutely want to see those for whom a particular area is their academic speciality being listened to by the government. After all, this is one of the reasons why academics and research receives public funding: for societal benefit. But they way it should have worked would have been for the government to draw on academics from all related areas - virology, epidemiology, public health, education, economics and so on - and make a decision having considered all angles. This should have been done as a behind-closed-doors discussion, not a media free for all.

But certain academics, particularly those whose expertise didn’t seem to particularly fit the need (Pagel, I’m looking at you) seemed to be very much enjoying the limelight and influence their new status brought them, and IMO they utterly abused that for their own aggrandisement.

That their modelling was repeatedly wildly wrong was just the shitty cherry on a crappy cake. Neil Ferguson was a particular culprit here (aside from him breaking lockdown himself) as his modelling was wrong in the F&M outbreak in 2001 when it lead to the unnecessary slaughter of thousands of animals so why they thought he’d be any more use on humans escapes me.

Indy SAGE were a shitshow. They could've done so much more good with that platform they carved out for themselves. I'm less inclined to blame SAGE because they didn't select their own composition and they modelled what they were told to model. There are obvious reasons why a government from a party who'd just inflicted ten years of austerity weren't going to want it spelled out that when you remove access to services, vulnerable people die, for example. That's not the fault of people who were on the committee, it's the fault of the political way in which they were chosen. It's not like Ferguson's history of doomsday modelling scenarios was a secret when he was chosen either.

On the topic of public opinion, it's true that we wouldn't have locked down without those tides being there. It happened because it was politically unavoidable. But that can't be separated from sustained government gaslighting and attempts to increase fear levels once they decided to do it.