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.

No but they did tell.is in March 2020 that we needed to flatten the curve and that restrictions might be eased and tightened as the number of Covid cases, rose and fell they said that would be for maybe 18 months ,
I'm not suggesting for one minute that the government didn't make mistakes or that some of the restrictions went on too long or didn't make sense ,but it was made clear the pandemic would last for a long time .

Well, people's views are inevitably going to be influenced by their own experiences. Your sister might have a different view if she worked with DV victims or alcoholics, for example. Each set of expertise would be valid, but none of it when considered in isolation could fully explain the risks and benefits to lockdown or not locking down.

Which feeds into the stuff about public memory, because there are a great many posters talking about hindsight on this thread when actually, plenty of the downsides of lockdown (like the DV increases) were known and discussed at the time. People just prefer not to dwell on that part.

Yes, it was clear that the pandemic might last for a long time. That's the only thing that was really clear in March 2020, though. The fact is that people weren't giving ongoing consent to any and all restrictions the government might want to implement at that time, and that some people gave their approval only because of our relative ignorance of covid at that time.

There is a reason why the government were careful to essentially seek rolling rather than upfront consent for long lockdowns and restrictions. Whatever other mistakes they made in their governance, the Tories knew enough to do that.

It was real enough : never witnesses death like it. We even had a refrigerator lorry in the car park as backup for the mortuary.

It was going to last a long time but even furlough was meant to be short

Once committed to the course of action, fear based plus support it was harder to switch dramatically to say, shield the vulnerable

I don’t think they expected furlough to run for over a year, and some have since said the approach to schools was wrong (it really was, and not a surprise to hear it)

Why people couldn’t listen to that last part was crazy. People were incapable of hearing about the damage because all the Covid stuff was about the virus not the harms.

@VeryQuaintIrene your sister and other medical professionals did not experience devastating drop in income, loss of jobs, no school place for their children and hugely damaging social isolation.

But we know they were discussed at the time. And they were considered when making decisions. Even the scientists and economists were saying that lockdowns don’t come without downsides but the benefits outweighed the risks at that time. Especially during subsequent lockdowns.

If the government hadn’t been trying to pursue a let it rip, immunity by catching covid policy then some of the subsequent lockdowns might not have needed to happen. Similarly with some of the mitigations where government didn’t exactly follow the science because they were trying to appease libertarians. (You don’t need masks around people you know or in corridors but not classrooms, anyone)

Masks everywhere public, including workplaces and primary and secondary schools would have made a better impact. As would encouraging sensible behaviours and ventilation.

Cos post traumatic stress and dying due to infections contracted at work is not damaging at all.

And none of the things mean that lockdown wasn’t necessary to control covid.

@RafaistheKingofClay some medics had/have PTSD and some died - most didn't. Just as some people had a jolly old time in lockdowns, saving money and chilling with their family and many didn't.

Of course you're not going to think lockdowns were an overreaction if they didn't completely fuck up your life.

So your experience with one nurse cancels out the experience of everyone else saying it was different? One utter idiot means you don't believe the hell that those working in hideous circumstances had??

I would've thought we could all agree that some people's personal experience means they're better placed to understand either the benefits or the downsides of restrictions than others who didn't have those experiences.

People on this very thread are trying to rewrite history by claiming schools never closed.

Agree.

In my friendship group and family, those that were very pro lockdown were those in professions where they were guaranteed an income and no material change to their lifestyle; military, police, teachers (not all of them) civil servants and of course, the retired.

Then there were those in the service industries and airlines who received absolutely no help whatsoever apart from universal credit (eventually because it took months to come through) and didn’t qualify for some reason for furlough.

Not all medics agreed with the lockdown. My BIL is now picking up the pieces of terminal cancer cases from people who were more scared of catching covid than reporting unusual symptoms or turning up for regular screening and despite all the horror stories about the potential collapse of the NHS, my DH still had a knee replacement in July 2020 and the other one done in August 2021.

Our large general hospital also had a refrigerated lorry for mortuary ‘overspill’
It was never needed.

I’m surprised at posters saying this is ‘hindsight’. Maybe they missed how some posters were on here.

It was crazy. But people did try to speak up

@CoffeeWithCheese

The halls owned by the universities refunded, but the private providers refused to - absolute and sheer lottery whether you'd been allocated to one of the two halls that were university owned or not - and therefore whether you got your money back.

That wasn't universal though. It was also a lottery of which university. My son was in university owned accommodation at a Uni who didn't refund anything.

@CoffeeWithCheese

People just kept quiet I think. You were absolutely ripped to shreds if you dared question things - look at the constant abuse on here and the nasty tones that have come out from some of the usual lockdown lovers on this thread.
It was absolutely Orwellian some of the stuff that went on - the constant rewriting of history and narrative was horrendous.

I find it fascinating how anti lockdowners - those against most measures really - are attempting to say this when it is exactly the opposite. The ableism on here, particularly, was terrible. All of those moaning about allowing the fit and healthy to get on with life? Multiply that by 100 and that's what MN was like for at least a year. I find the loudest, most obnoxious voices tend to be from the more extreme end of the spectrum, and that happened then and is still happening now on this thread.

Bearing in mind that something along the lines of just isolating the CEV and CV wouldn’t have worked and wasn’t a realistic option and that doing nothing would have collapsed any healthcare system well funded or not, what would all those who didn’t want lockdown at the time and still think it was a bad idea have done?

@RafaistheKingofClay

Bearing in mind that something along the lines of just isolating the CEV and CV wouldn’t have worked and wasn’t a realistic option

Why? The hundreds of billions that lockdowns/restrictions cost would have paid for a small army of staff to deliver food/medicines, to provide healthcare at home where possible, to "requisition" hotels etc so care home residents could be relocated to larger, more spread out premises (like is happening with asylum seekers).

Our local hospital "rented" the function rooms/hospitality boxes at our local football stadium to provide ante-natal/post-natal services so they could spread out staff and patients rather than have them crammed into tiny/cramped waiting rooms and consulting rooms at the hospital. Obviously they couldn't do surgical procedures, but they did lots of other things, they even had an ultrasound scanner delivered there, and did reviews/monitoring etc. That left the actual maternity floors of the hospital to spread out their labour wards and have extra rooms so that post-operative patients could have their own small "ward" cluster rather than having to share. Safer for both staff and patients to spread out!

Let those at low risk get on with life to continue the economy, paying taxes, etc.

There really ARE ways of increasing protection of the vulnerable without shutting down everything for months!

Same with schools. Our local primary headmaster had "in principal" agreements in place with our village community centre and village church halls (2), to rent (at a peppercorn rent, so basically free) them as temporary classrooms/assembly halls, to spread out their pupils instead of them being in small classrooms. He never got approval to actually do it by the education dept!

@taxguru

Why? The hundreds of billions that lockdowns/restrictions cost would have paid for a small army of staff to deliver food/medicines, to provide healthcare at home where possible, to "requisition" hotels etc so care home residents could be relocated to larger, more spread out premises (like is happening with asylum seekers).

Do you know how many people, of all ages, you are talking about? A good amount of these people work, too. And the "small army" you reference would act as an infection vector.

Why should just those of "low risk get on with life" while vulnerable people sit in a room and ... don't?

@taxguru

This is particularly frustrating as so many replies on this thread reference the fact they won't be locking down again - ie. staying home for a prescribed period, but you are suggesting that exact thing for the vulnerable as a solution.

Why should just those of "low risk get on with life" while vulnerable people sit in a room and ... don't?

But millions did have to withdraw from work and school. It was vast and the impact huge.

Its absolutely blowing my mind that some people would be happy with millions of people literally becoming prisoners of their own home long term so they could carry on swanning about 'living their life.'

Better to lockdown a small proportion of the population rather than everyone surely? Much less economic/social damage.

're clinically vulnerable Extremely vulnerable often live with partners and families all of who would have had to isolate too.,if covid had been allowed to rip through society ,there would have plenty of people to unwell.to work in significantly higher numbers ,they might not of needed hospital admission but for many people it was still a nasty virus what affect would that have had in society with loads of people frequently going off sick ,there's would have been police officers,teachers,paramedics ,shop workers,refuse collectors etc,etc.

Millions were isolated, do you not recall?

We were told we could exercise but for many there was no school or leaving for work

I don’t recall people saying ‘prisoner’ for that group