(Poll) If a new disease with a similar fatality rate to pre-vaccination COVID appeared again…

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And the government started to issue instructions about rules, hand washing, masks, social distancing, not meeting up with people, and the like, similarly to what happened in 2020-21….

What would your response be?

A: I would follow the rules more strictly than I did last time (because WFH has made it easier OR because the deaths from COVID make me feel we should have been stricter last time).

B: I would follow the rules about as strictly as I did last time, for the most part.

C: I would follow some rules or follow most rules to an extent, but would be significantly less “strict” about this than I was during COVID.

D: I would be much, much less strict or would completely ignore most rules/instructions, insofaras I was able to disregard them.

I’m just trying to work out whether the COVID experience and aftermath has shifted the Overton window and made people more open to the idea of following rules etc. to contain infectious diseases, OR alternatively whether people have grown a bit more blasé about diseases, disillusioned about governments or concerned about negative aftermaths of pandemic control measures.

For what it’s worth, I’d be a C (although I was never very strict first time round either to be honest).

And MNHQ, can we please get a proper poll selection option that goes beyond YABU/YANBU options?

(B). I wasn't strict last time, though.

D. I'd vote E if I could. Or Z.

C

I was pretty strict during covid and what difference did it make? We all still caught it multiple times anyway.

D

I tend to follow rules to the letter but the bunch of hypocrite arseholes in power making sweeping decisions without respect or evidence of how it would affect lives of the plebs under neath them.. fuck the lot of them.

There's a problem when truly law abiding citizens like me think this.

B. If the circumstances were the same.

D

Is there going to be a tally?

The lockdown equality impact assessment that the ICO made the government publish in December 2021 said as much. I'd link but can't seem to find it now.

D!

D
but I was also D in the last winter lockdown

D

B. It's not just yourself you have to think about. You doing what you want could have fatal consequences for someone else.

D but if pressured C

D

Never again

C. To be honest I think a lot of people are only saying D to stick a middle finger up to the government or try and look edgy. It’s similar to voting Brexit because you hate David Cameron. It’s only going to hurt you in the end! 😁

B

D

B - my workplace and role would require ‘A’ but I would have to relax on some level so that I could actually live a little.

I feel for the healthcare workers talking about how awful things were at their work, but the thing is, my reaction is also "Well, people did all these extraordinary things, made themselves miserable, damaged their mental and physical health, trashed businesses, and we STILL had the situation that you describe? Did it even make much difference? And if it did make a difference, did it make a difference overall or just temporarily?" Sweden's total excess mortality looks similar to other European countries despite much lighter restrictions which were mostly focused on "WFH if you can, under 16s stay at schools and only over 16s and uni students stay home, and let's do things outdoors as much as possible and stop massive indoors crowded gatherings for a while."

In addition, what frustrated me no end about the UK's COVID rule is that they ignored the fact that most infections were taking place within people's homes (and probably the most severe ones, due to higher viral loads). People were being encouraged to sit indoors together with infected people breathing all over healthy ones all day long.

If COVID-23 happened, I'd happily go all-in with the ventilating, shift activities out of doors when possible and meet only smaller groups of people (outside if possible, and if indoors, with masks and ventilation), avoiding mass events for a certain period of time. But stopping social activities altogether? Cutting down on outdoor time? Absolutely not. The effects on people's mental and physical health have been alarming; I'm fit and slim, but even I saw rising cholesterol and blood pressure during this period, due partly to the fact that my eating and exercise habits were significantly worse. I am not doing that again.

It seems to me the only logical response would be B.

No @Endlesssummer2022 I say D because i dont like hypocrisy. Why wasnt Strictly 2020 cancelled then Im fed up of being told how serious this was oh but wait it wasnt serious enough to stop Strictly or DOI. It was serious enough so menopausal women couldnt have their facial hair sorted but not serious enough , therefore men could have their nose hair plucked at the barbers getting deja vu here and before anyone says you could have sorted your facial hair yourself well so could the menz

Penis owners and celebs came before women and kids. Either this was serious or it wasnt YOU CANT HAVE IT BOTH WAYS

Oh and serious enough for the "help" to be masked at award ceremonies but not the celebs

Ed West wrote a very good substack a year or so ago called "Would we lock down for COVID-22" which discuss this exact scenario. It is unfortunately now only for paid subscribers, but discussed the fact that people were willing to follow rules in a fairly extreme way at the time in part because, in an age of antibiotics and vaccines, we were simply not USED to infectious diseases that kill people (even a very small %) and have no vaccine, and out tolerance for this was very low. Familiarity, however, will have shifted people's internal tolerance thermometer a fair bit on this one. We now just think of infectious disease death as part of the background pattern of life, just as all societies actually did in the past (and many still do).

I remember trying again and again to explain this during the pandemic. There were people literally insisting that "We are going to live like this forever and keep up these restrictions forever and Zoom weddings forever, because WHAT ELSE CAN WE DO?"

I kept trying to explain that I have lived in places where there are endemic diseases like falciparum malaria which have much higher IFR than flipping COVID (which, frankly, is barely lethal at all by historical standards; it only has a 1% IFR in our society because we have exceptionally high numbers of elderly people compared to 99% of human history), and it's a bit shit, but at the end of the day, people living in falciparum malaria zones don't spend their lives hiding fearfully in their mozzie nets; they do some easy-to-fix stuff to reduce risk (use a mozzie net at night, adjust their habits a bit, avoid certain areas at certain times), and then get on with their lives. A certain level of malaria death is tolerated as being part of life. It sounds fatalistic, but it's human nature. People want to date, see friends, start families, travel and have jobs; it's the eternal Adam and Eve in all of us!

C
I can imagine that getting the public to do any kind of lockdown again would be very difficult though.

B: I would follow the rules about as strictly as I did last time, for the most part.

Lockdown was great for me, I’m immune compromised so wasn’t getting as sick as I normally would with all the social distancing rules and sanitation stations and masks.

I think most shops should keep sanitation stations all the time. I’d also love to keep the 2 meter rule, no one breathing over my shoulder or getting too close was bliss and not just from a health aspect.

I also like the the fact no one cares if I wear a mask now, pre covid I’d have felt to embarrassed too, now I can choose to wear one and know I won’t be the only one and others aren’t staring at me.

Somewhere between A&B. It speaks volumes about our society that so many have answered D.