Lockdown report/Covid enquiry - if you supported lockdown do you regret it?

[Hell121]

I haven’t seen a thread on this so sorry if it has been done. In light of the report yesterday I wander if people have changed their minds on whether lockdown was a good idea. I remember the threads of utter lunacy on here and the mask hysteria/schools debate. I was against lockdowns and masks very early on but complied - I don’t think I’d ever do it again. I genuinely think it was a massive overreaction which has damaged things in this country irreparably and left many children and adults far worse off than they were pre covid.

You're very welcome. I'll gladly continue to point out that lockdown was never a left/right thing for as long as you want to advance poor arguments that it was.

I'd prioritise making hospitals and other healthcare settings "virus proof", after all, people tend not to have a choice to go to hospitals etc whereas they have a choice whether to go to shops or restaurants etc.

Nearly all the people I know who had covid, caught it IN hospital whilst they were there for other things, such as hip replacement, heart attack, etc. My OH caught it during a chemotherapy infusion session!

Hospitals should be the one place where the vulnerable ARE protected from infections, viruses, etc., but precautions and safeguards seem to be very low priority except in places like operating theatres.

THIS.

The palpable feelings of hostility I felt when I continued to wear a mask were horrible. And...why? My mask is NOT hurting you.

Such easy ways we could be kind and thoughtful to each other were blasted out of the way by those who I deeply believe were the ones living in real fear.

Its easier to pretend its not real than face the truth.

No you haven’t addressed left and right in the U.K. specifically only other countries. In fact you agree it’s true in the ‘Anglosphere’ ie where we live.

So no you have not done much at all.

“I’m alright Jack” works both ways.

if you weren’t adversely affected by the repeated ridiculous lockdowns, if you could take the financial hit, have a lovely big garden etc then good for you - but why should others suffer for years? Is saving a small number of lives worth the mental health of the nation, the impact on children’s education and plunging people into poverty? Personally I don’t think it is

Absolutely agree with this. I'm an anaesthetist and spent lockdown 2/3 on Covid ICU/HDU (Lockdown 1 I was on mat leave, then returned to obstetric anaesthetics). My mind boggles at all the people who just have NO IDEA how bad and scary it was. It just doesn't even come close to comparing to a "bad flu year." How we would have coped without lockdown dropping transmission rates, I have absolutely no clue.

Ditto. I was in a windowless office with 14 other staff but we couldn’t go to lunch and sit at same table.
I wore a mask when I absolutely had to but the second I could remove it, off it came.

And I took the first two vaccines for wrong reasons - because of the threat the vaccine passports - was absolutely tough with both to the point of having to go to a&e after the second. I said never again and I haven’t had any more.

Ive had Covid twice - apparently! Both times I had a mild cold and only tested as friends who test for work were positive after I’d been on their company. I was far more sick from the vaccines than the virus - though I appreciate it’s not the same for others.

Luckily, I didn't need to do much to demonstrate that your claim 'the left tended to go harder' was unverified and continues to be.

Pretty hard to come back from death. Finances and mental health can be addressed.

Awful, isn't it?

Imagine being told you were melodramatic if your loved one died in any other circumstances. But because it was covid, which we were able to stop spreading to a degree, then who cares?

It screams of 'I didn't like having to do something that at the time was for the greater good so now I'm going to mock others whose family died'.

Disgusting.

You agreed it was true in the ‘Anglosphere’

ie the U.K.

😬

And that right there is the kind of over privileged guff that people spout when their lives weren’t destroyed by lockdowns.

When are we going to accept that death is part of life and it’s not designed as an unnatural insult to those we leave behind?

Yep, 100%

As I said upthread, the moralisation on this subject is idiotic. Locking down and not locking down both meant some people were going to suffer. They both threw some vulnerable people under the bus.

If you're sticking your neck out and saying lockdown was the best approach, you're doing the exact same thing as people who stick their necks out and say it wasn't. The only distinction is in which vulnerable people you choose to prioritise.

Completely. Just awful xxx

It’s the “well your mate is nice and you’re a meanie” which is the kind of embarrassing melodrama that should have stopped 3 years ago.

The first lockdown was understandable, because we had no idea what we were dealing with and everyone could see the appalling scenes coming out of Italy. I could also broadly understand the rationale for the Jan 2021 lockdown as buying time to get people vaccinated. However restrictions in both cases went on for far too long and have caused untold damage, particularly to children and young people whose social, educational and emotional needs were entirely ignored by the government and public health officials. I will never forgive them for keeping schools shut for longer than absolutely necessary, keeping playgrounds closed for longer than pubs when we KNEW outdoor transmission was negligible, or for making it illegal for my daughter to see another child in person for months in 2021. I worry that we are so far only seeing the tip of the iceberg of the effects on children. It also exposed a very unpleasant, gleefully authoritarian side of a lot of people both on MN and in real life.

No, I didn't. The Anglosphere and the UK don't mean the same thing, and in fact most of the Anglosphere is outside the UK. The 'ie' here is completely wrong.

You're going to need to work on both comprehension and terminology should you intend to continue this discussion.

The same.

Poverty, like covid, kills people sooner. Check your privilege.

You don't know anything about my circumstances. Ridiculous comment .

BoJo said in March 2020 “it’s just 3 weeks to flatten the curve” and I think most people thought they could cope with that.

Then it went on and on and on and they blamed US for not being Good Citizens.

And what did we do? TurnEd against each other. Reported our neighbours, shamed people who didn’t do the ridiculous clapping, Screamed obscenities at elderly people sitting on a park bench etc.

I bet they were rubbing their hands together in Westminster in glee that we’d all fallen for it.

You’re highly patronising 😂but anyway I cherry picked from U.K. and US various factors to which you responded your oft used line ‘Anglosphere’.

You need to get your argument together if you’re this dedicated to whatever it is that bugs you to this extent.

I dread to think what the left what have done here, based on actions here and that they would have been harsher with lockdown.

You’re all over the shop with India, Russia and Sweden. I don’t care about - other than a good or bad examples. It’s not the Swedish government making decisions in U.K.

Can you state with confidence the left here would have been better with lower lockdown. Based on what?

What I really hope comes out of the inquiry (although I’m not holding my breath!) is an understanding that in future “following the science” has to include listening to experts in the social sciences as well.

The views of psychologists, economists, education experts, sociologists etc should have been prominent in discussions and given due weight. I think if this has been done some different choices would have been made, particularly in relation to how children and young people were treated.

I can understand left / Labour voters who did actually see the harm from lockdown feeling out of step

They were largely not in sync with their party or public sentiment

My preference would have been for both the left and right to acknowledge the harms of lockdown