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.

It happened. Are you going to decide that everyone in my country didn't have stay-at-home orders that, over time, totalled almost 10 months? Just because you have a bee in your bonnet that kids in England must be the most shortchanged of all? That's ... arrogant.

And if you are telling me what I can't do on a chat forum, I'm happy to do the same: you can't demand that someone produce a source, and in so demanding that source helps locate them. Most people on this forum live in Britain. I do not. Providing the source you're asking for means I would then need to change my username. I don't want to do that.

And you have been insulting, BTW.

in the UK the rules were pretty lax you could pretty much do what you like like as long as you were considerate to others.

I wouldn’t characterise the U.K. situation like this. Much was closed including schools for two terms for dc. Being considerate didn’t mean they could just rock up and not be isolated.

Elderly people isolated in care homes

Students in universities

It was damaging and not lax

in the UK the rules were pretty lax you could pretty much do what you like like as long as you were considerate to others.

Glasgow had the longest lockdown in Europe nothing lax about it. Nobody was allowed visitors from August 20 to May 21.
Softplay and nightclubs were closed for over a year.
Please don't try to minimise the damage that lots of willy and flag waving did.

Compared to other countries where rules where far more severe, it was lax. Believe me I lived in one.

I already said it was deeply traumatising for all involved, re read my post

Sorry you’re right, Scotland was on another level of over hysteria. I’m talking about England.

Where were you?

I think Spain had some draconian laws around children and I’m glad we didn’t have that here but schools were closed for two terms which caused damage

@Sublime66 I couldn't see who @SunnyEgg was quoted.

Where were you?
I know the Netherlands allowed people to have a visitor all the way through but not a couple of visitors.

Thanks for this. I see the same posters mocking and hounding on other threads but I just avoid it as it’s not worth anyone’s time, and frankly I care much less about topic

But on the pandemic, where dc were subject to harm it was a tough one.

Mn was extreme and I don’t think that segment has changed much but people probably just leave them to it

The legislation totes exists, it just goes to a different school you wouldn't know it.

If you don't want to talk about where you live, it wasn't wise to tell us that your experiences living under those laws mean you understand legislation in England. It's pure arrogance to imagine that because you say something and decline to back it up, your opinion should be accepted as accurate.

Also, don't make things up. Children in England clearly aren't the most shortchanged of all, and neither are children in the region where I suspect you are. There are children in China who died in a fire because of lockdown there, for example. This is a separate point to whether your country, like mine, functionally excluded only one age group from socialisation.

Incidentally, spurious accusations that someone's being insulting because you don't like being called on your implausible claims are insults in themselves. Pot kettle.

England probably was better than Scotland and Wales in various ways but it still hit hard for various groups in profound ways

Whereabouts were you? It may have been tougher but hard to say without info

Agree. Remember the Brazil graves? The people in Italian hospitals, their beds crammed into corridors? The hospitals there couldn't cope with the number of illnesses and deaths. Our government, like nearly every other government in the world, dealt with it in ways we now realise we're unwise, but honestly? Would you have dealt with it differently, knowing only what they did? Johnson etc behaved badly - no plaudits from me regarding 'rules' they bent or ignored - but I'm so glad I didn't have to make decisions about lockdown / no lockdown.

Politically, there's no way the UK could've avoided lockdown. It would be daft to pretend otherwise, and I really think there's benefit in considering separately the behaviour of the government during the period and whether lockdown was the least worst option available. A lot of the worst aspects of lockdown weren't even a necessary part of lockdown, after all.

It's easy to look back and think that now. At the time science needed time to catch up and learn about the virus

it was completely obvious at the time.

The first lockdown was needed but much of the stuff that came later made no sense.

Safe in a cafe with a two dozen other people
Unsafe at home with one other visitor or family

Safe to eat out for lunch
Unsafe to eat out for dinner

Safe for kids to play sports indoors
Unsafe for kids to meet at Guides or Scouts, or play in a softplay.

Meanwhile adults could book 2hr slots in pubs - so people were effectively booking pub crawls - rather than sit in the same pub all evening.

Where was the science?
Where was the consideration for non-sporty kids.

I could understand March 2020 but it went on far too long. After an initial short lockdown it should have been living with the virus with some preventative measures around large crowds, at least until the vaccine roll out early in 2021. By March 2021 it should have been back to normal.

I do think I'm ten early stages lockdown was the appropriate action and definitely saved lives. The rules got a bit silly after that and once the vaccine was Introduced was largely redundant

Does anyone think a lot of the government’s response was based on the populist vote? They saw the anxiety and panic growing in the population, and particularly on SM, and basically tapped into that. Other political parties criticised what the opposition was doing or not doing, and how they would have done it better had they been in power. Drakeford and Sturgeon did the same too - just played a game of political oneupmanship. ‘We’re handling it better than you. Nah nah.’ What we really needed at the time were leaders that were proactive rather than reactive but they were too busy trying to read public mood.

The pandemic became the ideal opportunity to make political mileage.
Politicians fell over themselves to try and out do each other with soundbites which weren’t helpful or constructive to anyone and I can’t help feeling many of the nonsensical decisions were made on these bases. They were just to demonstrate to the public that they were ‘taking charge and doing something’ rather than being of any real benefit or for sound scientific/medical reasons.

I supported the Lockdown and think the UK government should have locked down much earlier ( particularly around travel). We saw the horrendous reports from Italy and yet people were freely travelling into the UK from Milan in Feb/ March 2020 without being checked. However DH was extremely clinically vulnerable, and was on shielding list. We caught Covid 6 weeks ago, had all our vaccines, and it was still utter shit. I'm still tired. DH was pretty ill when we caught it, and his breathing was awful and they wanted to admit him. Luckily he had an NHS rescue pack and got anti viral, so he was OK. I dread to think what would have happened if he caught it pre vaccine or anti virals.
Saying that, it ended up being utterly silly later on, because you could go back to work, go to shops and come into contact with random strangers, but our daughters ( who tested regularly, and wouldn't have put their Dad at risk), couldn't visit. And yet there were no 10 parties.
I would never have reported anyone for breaking rules, and admittedly we ended up breaking some once we were vaccinated especially in regards to family visits.
I had to go to Italy in late 2021, and there rules for travel were far worse than anything we had.
Lots of negative stuff about Lockdown ( including Lockdown children who weren't socialised), but the one thing I am happy about is the fact that my employer is still promoting hybrid working. I get so much more done on my HW days!

Yes

*We knew pretty early on what we were dealing with - in terms of age risks etc

It was also pretty easy to see the damage from shutting down society to a large degree. And data from that came in pretty early eg impact on children’s safety*

100% this. We had all the information we needed. The problem was the mass hysteria.

I think memories are short. This time 3 years ago, before vaccines, most people I know were terrified of catching covid. They were the right thing at the time.

Absolutely 💯

Spot on @JohnPrescottsPyjamas. Witness Hancock wanting to 'scare the pants off us'. Where's the science behind that? What is a democratically elected government doing trying to scare its citizens? Quite revolting.

A lot of the scientists' advice was much more reasonable and nuanced than it became once it had been filtered through our politicians. Science doesn't lend itself to soundbites and attention-grabbing headlines. Unfortunately politicians and the media love that stuff.

From September 2020 I knew first-hand what rubbish a lot of it really was, but by then the lockdown narrative had been established and it was hard to break free of it.

Maybe they could have followed things like previously developed pandemic planning, or actually allowed debates over restrictions on civil liberties, or looked at the science which is still not very convincing about masking, and allowed people to decide for themselves, or at least discuss it in the media?

The reactions were based mainly on hysteria in certain sections of the public, which they then deliberately ramped up. It was bizarre.