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.

Ultimately, and this is from a reserving judgement person, both locking down and not locking down meant some people suffering for the benefit of others, some people having to withdraw when they wouldn't otherwise. There was no course of action open to us in March 2020 that didn't involve this.

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!

Our two local primary schools did similar, but also made a plan to work together.

the two HTs sat down and worked out a way of having a smaller bundle of composite classes at each site which meant the number of families mixing was limited as well. It was really well done.

Permission was denied to them both for the mixing and the using community hall (which is basically in the grounds of one of the schools!!)

Because you were allowed to leave the house. You could go shopping, you could go out and exercise. And the rules only got looser after that.

What people seem to suggest on here is that the vulnerable are locked away with no access to outdoor facilities, or being able to see friends and family, long term, with no other plan in place. That was never the case for lockdown.

The measures were there to reduce the risk of transmitting a virus. And people seem to suggest that we remove all the measures, some as simple as 'wash your hands, keep a distance.' because how dare THEY be infringed just because they are not affected?

No, it's practicalities. Me and my family were "prisoners in our own homes" anyway, as OH was ECV due to cancer. He was diagnosed long before covid, and we knew he was very high risk of infections etc due to chemotherapy, so we already lived a kind of "twilight" existence of avoiding crowded places, having food delivered, etc. For months before covid, literally the only place he went was the hospital for chemotherapy, consultations, etc. We accepted those limitations as a family, even our son was careful - cycled to school instead of taking the bus, only went out with friends to outdoor places (no busy pubs/clubs) etc.

Due to the lockdowns/restrictions, millions more were "prisoners in their own homes" because they weren't allowed out, weren't allowed to go to school, weren't allowed to go to work, etc.

And anyway, the EC/ECV would be free to take their chances if they didn't want to stay as a prisoner in their own homes. I've said said it would be obligatory - it should be their choice to either accept a restricted life and be safer, or take their chances and get out and about, continue going to work, etc. What should have happened is CHOICE and the ability to do either with more facilities such as "services at home", etc.

After all, we'd already seen a fall in infections before the first lockdowns came into force. People had taken their own precautions in the weeks before, when people learned and understood what was happening and voluntarily cut down "risky" places etc.

At the beginning I was very scared, not of dying but of me or dh getting long covid. As carers to multiple dc with disabilities we both need to be fully functional otherwise it doesn't work. Even now my biggest fear is something happening to dh.

Then my dc2 who was 12 at the time took an overdose in 2021. In normal circumstances dh would have taken him to a and e while I phoned the grandparents, who would come and look after the other dc while I packed some overnight stuff and joined dh and dc2 at the hospital. Then when the scary bit was over and he was just being monitored, dh would have gone home to look after the dc.

None of that was allowed so I had to stay at home with our other dc while dh took dc2 to hospital. Dc2 was seriously ill. Not social media seriously ill when parents post a photo of their dc on oxygen for a short while, but proper seriously ill where he was in resus and it was like in casualty on t.v. where the Drs and nurses are rushing around and shouting down the phone that they need the specialist right NOW and how dare they be tied up in theatre. He had those rubber pad things stuck on his chest so they would be ready to shock him if his heart stopped. The children's hospital had been informed that they might be transferring him to the picu there although thankfully he was stable enough to go to hdu so he could stay at our local hospital.

I wasn't allowed to be with him. I had to stay at home with our other dc. I wasn't allowed to have my mum come and help me. I didn't know if Dc2 was going to survive or not. I know it was sensible to only have one parent allowed in. Children generally only need one parent to stay with them in most circumstances. And when I have a child having minor elective surgery or they've swallowed a coin then that's fine. But when your child is having a proper life or death emergency then both parents should be allowed in and you should be allowed to have a babysitter for your well dc. When my dc came home from the hospital I made a decision that I was going to form an against the rules support bubble. So for a few weeks when it wasn't allowed my dc grandparents visited. Because I needed an extra pair of hands if I was going to be getting all the home learning done plus look after a child who had recently attempted suicide.

Also a few months later I was in hospital with one of my dc (different one this time, for elective surgery thank goodness). The toddler in the opposite bed had had a seizure and the epilepsy nurse was explaining to the mum that she (the nurse) would need to go into the nursery and give the staff training in case it happened again. The mum was clearly overwhelmed and said that she had never been allowed to set foot in the nursery because of covid restrictions and that she was scared that the epilepsy nurse wouldn't be allowed to either.

For the most part I agreed with the lockdown but I think that in certain circumstances it was too strict. However there will always be people who stretch the rules and will take a mile if you give them an inch. If you let both parents visit their child in hospital there will be grandparents complaining that they can't visit. If you say two visitors for people who might die then people will argue about that. When my dc was in theatre having elective surgery I went to the cafe and it was full to bursting with patients hosting their extra visitors away from the wards where visiting was restricted. Always there will be people who obey the rules and people who don't and the people who do obey the rules are the ones who miss out.

Because you were allowed to leave the house. You could go shopping, you could go out and exercise. And the rules only got looser after that.

Functionally, it's a fact that lots of people weren't able to access exercise or even walking out of the house in particular. That's what happens when police are permitted to harass those who are sitting down outside, for example. If you were disabled, elderly, pregnant, and knew you'd need to rest during your walk, the threat of being stopped was a potential deterrent. During the 2021 lockdown, some women couldn't combine work with exercise because of the short days and the entirely reasonable fear of being out alone in the dark with few people around.

There were structural barriers in the way of some people accessing even the meagre rights we were permitted during lockdown, mainly people who were disadvantaged in some other way, and those need to be acknowledged.

And this is another thing that didn't have to happen. It would still have been possible to lock down but to do so whilst encouraging people to get out and exercise, issuing guidance that police shouldn't harass those seen to be sitting and resting, making it clear that people who were in built up areas could travel to somewhere less crowded if that's what they needed in order to feel safe. But we didn't do that.

I obviously don't know your views on MN at the time but my recollection of the debate on here was that we should have locked down earlier, very very few people dissented.
That did change in LDs 2 and 3, i don't remember abuse and the Kill Granny message was from the Govt, not MN posters.

Even i know that MN will delete and even ban posters that abuse other people.

But i think what the general public did or did not want is irrelevant, the Govt followed a particular course of scientific and medical advice, i do recal at the time, a group of scientists on SAGE, saying they were being ignored in favour of the LD scientists.

IF LD was wrong and known to be so at the time, thats on Boris and Sunak.

FWIW i think the billions lost in fraud should have consequences for ministers that allowed this money to stolen, boy could we do with it now! far more important than blaming MN posters for LD.

@Seasonofthewitch83

What people seem to suggest on here is that the vulnerable are locked away with no access to outdoor facilities, or being able to see friends and family, long term, with no other plan in place. That was never the case for lockdown.

Where did I say it was obligatory/legally binding? I have always talked about the facilities/options being there for the CV/ECV to "lockdown" themselves - not forcefully, but having the option to do that. Having the option means better access to services, such as healthcare, shopping, etc., but in a safer environment.

Where did I say "no outside facilities"? Again, they had no outside facilities when they went for their daily walk during the lockdowns to find toilets locked, park benches taped off, etc. No one would stop them going for walks, they'd be able to go to the loo, stop where they liked for a takeaway coffee, sit on benches, etc.

Where did I say friends and family would be banned. They WERE banned in lockdowns, but there shouldn't be restrictions - the CV/ECV would be free to limit their friends/family according to their own situation, i.e. meet outside in the garden (banned in lockdowns for everyone), or inside with plenty of ventilation (again banned in lockdowns).

After all, it was one of the most stupid parts of the lockdowns that the CV/ECV still had to get themselves to hospital appointments etc and end up stuck in tiny/cramped/busy waiting rooms with other people, when most of the hospital was like the Marie Celeste with vast empty areas!

@Doagooddeed

FWIW i think the billions lost in fraud should have consequences for ministers that allowed this money to stolen, boy could we do with it now! far more important than blaming MN posters for LD.

The billions lost in fraud is chicken feed compared to the cost of locking down perfectly fit and healthy people at very low risk from covid, preventing them from working, closing down their businesses, etc.

We'd be far better having directed support at those at highest risk to facilitate them locking down and restricting themselves, reducing their own risks however they feel appropriate.

@Seasonofthewitch83

Because you were allowed to leave the house. You could go shopping, you could go out and exercise. And the rules only got looser after that.

Unless you were a student at one of the universities where they put metal security barriers around your student blocks to stop you going out!

Or unless you were a resident in a care home where you weren't allowed out.

Or in quarantine on a cruise ship where ports wouldn't even let the ship dock.

No, lockdowns actually made prisoners of some people!

And....yet that is what is being suggested for the vulnerable. Long term.

I disagree with most of this. Mn was incredible and yes abuse was rife. Mostly ridicule and hounding posters who stood out trying to point out harms of lockdown and closed schools.

And yes public sentiment was a huge factor, we got into a fear spiral where headlines caused panic and people demanded schools closed or whatever.

The support also wasn’t consistent throughout the whole period. More supported LD1 as time passed it became evident DV was rising and children were being harmed, I’d say unnecessarily.

And my initial point was talk about ‘hindsight’ is surprising. There were plenty of people on here saying it was damaging in real time, not later.

Perhaps but why did almost ALL countries come to the same conclusions and LD the fit and well?

Also, people at risk from CV complications were primarily over 50, thats over 20m people

The other thing is, people were genuinely scared of Covid, LD or not, people wouldn't be going about their normal business knowing the NHS wouldn't help them if they got ill from an untreatable illness.

I also recall that there was outrage from the older person when it was suggested older people should lock themselves away.

But like i said, it was down to Boris, it was his call.

Our recollections differ, the number of people in LD 1 who wanted no or little restrictions were vanishingly small, MN will delete any post with even a smidgen of a person attack.

The closest we got was Sweden on one side and NZ on the other, Sweden eventually started locking down harder.

Again, it was Boris's call and not one i'd like to have made either.

Deletion is specific, there are ways to hound a poster fairly easily if so wanted

Posters here saying they were met with abuse on mentioning what they did are not making it up

If mn had been a rational place to discuss the pros and cons of lockdowns as they were happening then great

It really wasn’t though, people were too worked up by Covid figures, it was a strategy of course for compliance but that’s the outcome, we kind of lost that ability for the most part

This selfish granny-killer spoke up about the harms of lengthy restrictions from early on.

I never saw our granny again. We tried in 2021 but the health and care services in her country had restrictions that meant only DH could see her. That visit was on/ off from the point of booking. By 2022 she was too frail to be able to recognise us and died anyway. Lockdowns couldn't preserve her. They just contributed to the loss of interest in her last 2+ years of life and prohibited her from seeing family again. Any minor infection was able to commit the final deed, and did. The children were 9&11 at her funeral... they were 6&8 when she last saw them.

All lockdowns did was shuffle some cards around at a heavy cost.

I said that 3 years ago and was abused for it.

That's really sad but lockdown was never about saving people's lives at all costs it was about protecting the NHS ,so.it didn't get overwhelmed.

The only people with the scientific and medical knowledge were the Govt, in the main, our opinions were based on ignorance and anecdotal.

I guess someone who had seen or known some one die of Covid would have a totally different opinion than someone who didn't.

My view is the 1st LD was necessary, purely because no one apparently knew what the heck we were dealing with!
the subsequent ones were not & obviously the powers that be also thought this based on how they behaved in late 2020/21.

It all seems to have been some sort of weird social experiment in power.

& perhaps why, some in Govt do not want unredacted messages sent to the Public Inquiry.

MN did not in fact delete personal attacks directed at those who were raising concerns about lockdowns - those were allowed to systematically hound and harass across multiple threads and are still allowed to reappear now periodically to attack those who did not just give up and quit the site completely.

MN was fucking vile during those times. Any dissent, any query or issues with people struggling to comply was met with "BUT YOU WANT ME TO DIE" type responses. Any comments about kids struggling with school closures... met with the "BUT THE SCHOOLS NEVER CLOSED" comments you've seen here. And the ableism comment - well that went both ways - I was told I should stay at home and never leave the house because my autism makes it incredibly difficult to cope with the sensory overload of wearing a mask, and there was one particularly vile thread where a rape survivor who had their mouth and nose covered during the assault as I recall who was told similar. You can sugar coat it and try to twist the narrative back to where it was all you want - but for all you're claiming society threw you under the bus - society largely shut down to keep YOU safe and you would happily have confined anyone who couldn't continue to do that indefinitely to be prisoners at home forever. At least have the courage to own what you expected people to do, and at least give society the credit for all that they DID do for you.

The impact of what we as a society chose to do was catastrophic for many groups within society - my daughter lost most of her speech because of the impact of the restrictions and her mentally being unable to cope - she was told by one fucking twat on here that this was "a good opportunity to learn some resilience" - a comment directed at an autistic 7 year old who already had language difficulties and experienced a regression to the point she became almost mute for a period of time and who was so affected by the public information posters that she became terrified of even a speck of pollen being blown in the wind and wouldn't leave the house. The child did not need resilience, nor was it a parenting issue - indeed we did amazingly in terms of how well me and DH mitigated the damage as much as we did - she needed interaction, she needed her peers, she needed the government to lay off fucking granny killing, death particles in the air propaganda of terror administered with a yellow and black garnish and to be allowed to have her fucking childhood.

I have a diary I kept, with news articles and some of the guidance from the Gov website - I kept it because things kept getting changed and twisted and then we were told that that "never happened" and it was the only way I could keep this narrative straight in my mind at times. Yes, there were fucking weeks taken over by discussing if a scotch egg counted as a substantial meal and assorted other ridiculousness, or if easter eggs were essential purchases if they were in your trolley alongside your family shop. It happened and it was fucking batshit insane - and on here people gleefully interpreted and fabricated their own rules about how the path toward death was strewn with reckless crisps consumed on a park bench and other such nonsense.

Round here some knob called the police on a family for an "illegal gathering" - the family had lost their father (to the pandemic) and one branch didn't have a white suit for the funeral (back when we were allowed to attend them before the rules of 6 and whatever else) so another relative had hung a shirt in a carrier on the outside of the front door and they'd popped by to grab the carrier... and someone called the police on that. That's the level of arsehole we reached - and that was before the "good show clapping on George Street, shame about number 37 who didn't want to show their appreciation for the NHS and it's a pity Edward Street didn't put in as much effort" shite going on on social media every fucking week.

MN did not in fact delete personal attacks directed at those who were raising concerns about lockdowns - those were allowed to systematically hound and harass across multiple threads and are still allowed to reappear now periodically to attack those who did not just give up and quit the site completely.

True, I actually remember what was deleted in some cases and it was posters calling out the hounding

Like i said earlier, our recollections differ.

I recall MN deleting posts from both sides of the debate.

But either way, the policy of LD was one implemented by Boris & by the current PM Sunak - this seems to be forgotten and where the blame must lay, not at the door of @mnhq

@CoffeeWithCheese just read the rest of your post. Sounds so bad, sorry you had to deal with the abuse and the rest

@CoffeeWithCheese

You can sugar coat it and try to twist the narrative back to where it was all you want - but for all you're claiming society threw you under the bus - society largely shut down to keep YOU safe and you would happily have confined anyone who couldn't continue to do that indefinitely to be prisoners at home forever. At least have the courage to own what you expected people to do, and at least give society the credit for all that they DID do for you.

Oh, you're one of those who wants an apology? And why project odd feelings onto others? I certainly wouldn't want anyone confined to their homes forever - what a strange thing to say. Society didn't do these things for me BTW - the government did. I feel absolutely no obligation to you, especially since you hold it with such a grudge.