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.

I would have just taken a discussion without the mass outcry

Maybe there were alternatives, maybe not but how could people know without engaging in talking about it

The daily fear reporting maxed the reaction so it wasn’t possible, then the public hammered politicians to not change direction. It was like a feedback loop

@StormShadow

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

What does this even mean?

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.

Why twist things I wrote? I didn't write anything nearing the above.

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.

No, obviously they are not, but you wouldn't know it to read these threads. I never claimed children where I live were.

I don't care too much whether you accept what I've said as accurate as I have no reason to. It is accurate, though.

It broke me. It's changed the way I relate to the world. I had two under two at the time and felt completely abandoned. I haven't forgiven yet. I used to be a giver. Don't have much to give anymore to anyone outside my immediate circle.

Young people were pushed under the bus.

Young people should ALWAYS come before the elderly. I would do ANYTHING for my children.

Absolutely agree, but remember the kick off when Lord Sumption said this?

“Hancock was the chief peddler of the idea that everyone was equally at risk from Covid-19. This proposition was patently untrue, but it was useful because it frightened people. “It’s not unhelpful having people think they could be next,” wrote his special adviser, who knew his master’s mind well.”

“Ministers imprisoned by their own rhetoric found themselves forced to follow public opinion rather than lead it. But it was a public opinion of their own creation. Scientific evidence had very little to do with it. The Downing Street media advisers Lee Cain and James Slack, ex-journalists with no scientific background, appear to have been mainly responsible for persuading the prime minister to prolong the first lockdown”

“Matt Hancock insisted on schoolchildren wearing masks in class in spite of scientific advice that it made little difference, because it was necessary to keep up with Nicola Sturgeon. When Rishi Sunak had the temerity to suggest that once the vaccine rollout started the lockdown should be relaxed, Hancock resisted. “This is not a SAGE call,” he said, “it’s a political call.”

“Once ministers had started on this course, there was no turning back. It is hard to admit that you have inflicted untold damage on a whole society by mistake. Hancock resisted shortening the 14-day quarantine period in spite of scientific advice that five days was enough, <a class="break-all" href="https://12ft.io/proxy?ref=&q=www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/03/05/chris-whitty-matt-hancock-covid-isolation-pingdemic-whatsapp/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">because he did not want to admit that the original policy had been wrong.”

“Hancock fought tooth and nail to close schools and keep them closed. Deprived of many months of education, cooped up indoors and terrified by government warnings that they would kill their grandparents by hugging them, children suffered a sharp rise in mental illness and self-harm although they were themselves at no risk from Covid-19. Cancer patients were left undiagnosed and untreated. Old people, deprived of stimulation, succumbed to dementia in large numbers”

“Why did hitherto decent people behave like this? In Hancock’s case, at least part of the answer is vanity. The crisis was good for his profile. He saw himself as the man of action, the Churchill of public health, the saviour of his people, earning the plaudits of a grateful nation. As early as January 2020, he was sharing a message from a sycophantic “wise friend” assuring him that a “well-handled crisis of this scale could propel you into the next league”

And people STILL believe the we were right to lockdown?

What does this even mean?

https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/she-goes-to-another-school

Why twist things I wrote? I didn't write anything nearing the above.

You wrote: 'Why not? I lived under a rule much more onerous' in response to my post telling you that you didn't understand the impact of the legislation we lived under.

No, obviously they are not, but you wouldn't know it to read these threads.

If you think people telling you that primary aged children in England were subjected to age related discrimination amounts to saying they were worse off than children anywhere else, that's a failure of your understanding only.

Personally I loved lockdown, my mental health was never better and I would happily do it again.

@JohnPrescottsPyjamas I hate Hancock more than i have hated any other politician and ive hated a few. Its a very strong hatred.

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.

Yes, that was horrifying. No thought for the wider or longer term impacts. People with MH conditions like anxiety and OCD were collateral, and what has it done to public trust, future willingness to engage with public health messaging?

This was so obvious. Pointing it out at the time went down badly. People couldn’t hear 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?

In February 2020, there was no sign of LD nor did anyone predict one, it was a very fast moving situation and there simply wasn't time for debates on the matter.

Covid was a new virus, not a mutation of an existing one, no one knew what it could develop into, if reports now suggesting this was a Chinese Govt experiment that went wrong are correct, we were right to be cautious.

As far as i can tell, there are an awful lot of posters on here now, that are mis remembering their views and the severity of the situation in spring 2020, bit like the Iraq war and doubtless in time, Brexit too.

Also, for the Tory supporters on here, i thought Boris got all the big calls right? including on Covid.. no?

@SunnyEgg

IF you are the poster previously from Aus, you weren't against LD, one of the few things we have ever agreed on (1st Lockdown) oh and sacking care staff who refused vaccination, both deffo against that.

I don't regret it, no. I think that without lockdown, we would have had a lot more people dying, and a lot more overwhelming of health and other public services.

I think some of the details were wrong on hindsight. At first, it was treated too much as an illness transmitted mainly by touch and contamination, rather than an airborne infection. Thus, while handwashing and general hygiene were sensible, quarantining post and shopping was overkill. On the other hand, masks should have been recommended much earlier.

I also don't think that the hypocrisy of our politicians affects the necessity for lockdown one way or another.

Yeah its just us dirty plebs that needed locking down while they could do what they like.

I also don't think that the hypocrisy of our politicians affects the necessity for lockdown one way or another.

I agree. They're two separate, though overlapping subjects.

However, I don't know how realistic it is to expect people to keep them separate when Partygate hasn't even finished playing out yet. Even as someone who's made this same point earlier in the thread. The impact of that, on a society where such high trust was placed in the government during restrictions, has been absolutely massive.

I always feel a bit icky when posters get this attached hence trying to not get targeted by the same posters over threads but I will answer.

I pretty much always say my views on first lockdown, my view hasn’t changed - it was the prolonged damaged that became evident which I opposed. If we had got children back to school much earlier and sectors open I’d be fine with that. We were too committed though. Furlough was only meant to be 8 weeks it ran to 18 months.

The Covid campaign (daily deaths / cases) which meant people were fearful and public outcry over alternative approaches was damaging in my view.

I don’t recall views on care staff but I remember being very much against making vaccination mandatory for NHS staff, iirc it was Javid who reversed it so at least that did change.

Oh FGS, some of us don't respond to mass hysteria and 'advice' like we're lemmings. We did our own research and made decisions on that basis. My advice was to wear masks, social distance etc because none of us had the medical background or knowledge to know if it was safe not to. Sitting on our arses watching Netflix and wearing masks did not make any of us grow an extra head.

That just means that most of us 'plebs' were cautious, and most of the politicians were reckless.

Just as in many countries, politicians steal and embezzle to their heart's content, while ordinary people are forbidden to steal. But that doesn't mean that everyone should have the right to steal; it means that the politicians are bad.

I didn't take precautions 'cos of the rules'; I took precautions because of my INFINITE TERROR of disease- having had chronic health problems all of my life, and the fear of them getting worse. (Some of them did get worse, but probably more through age than the pandemic.) I'm not even sure whether I always did obey the rules; that wasn't my concern. The tyrant damaging my life wasn't Johnson or Hancock; it was the virus.

THREAD!

https://twitter.com/michael_riordan/status/1667795669627596801?s=20

Fortunately, the vaccine mandate for NHS staff was never implemented in the first place. It was the one for care staff that was brought in and then reversed, after doing untold and yet 100% predictable damage to the sector. The government were told exactly why it was such a bad idea, the unions explained that staff would leave and there wouldn't be a reserve of vaccinated carers ready to fill the gap, but they refused to listen.

I never placed trust in this particular government! I took precautions because I was terrified of the virus- with some reason, due to long-term health problems; not because I trusted the likes of Boris! (Who was not even great at looking after his own health.)

Yes reversed before being brought in. I was against it and remember feeling relief they said it wasn’t the right way to go

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

To some extent, yes. I certainly remember people screaming on here to close schools one week before they actually closed in March 2020 (also influenced by the lovely weather, no doubt).

That was a massive case of be careful what you wish for. I think a lot of people thought they'd be open again after an extended Easter holidays, or at the latest, after May half term.

I also don't think locking down one week earlier than we did in the UK would have made any long term difference to the overall death toll.