(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?

D.
I was D then and I’m D now.

D

They can fuck right off with their lies, manipulation and control.

Never, ever, ever, would I obey any restrictions or laws associated with any pandemic.

In fact, I would go out of my way to break any rules they tried to force upon us.

There was never one just one hour a day outside, that was just a passing comment Gove made.

B, ( but not 100% ) It wasn't much of an issue too though. I might have behaved differently in other circumstances.

I'm guessing the 'D' voters didn't have anyone vulnerable in their families they were trying to keep alive!

I followed the rules but ended up giving COVID to someone who then died from it. It's bad enough for that to have happened when I was being cautious but imagine how I'd feel if it had happened because of reckless behaviour.

I’d pick and choose the rules that suited/benefitted me and ignore the rest. Exactly the same as last time.

D - I’d totally ignore.

our government are liars and criminals

D. I was always anti-lockdown. I'm damned if the government is going to tell me who I can and cannot hug, and who I can and cannot host in my own home. The entire thing was ridiculous. And the fall out from lockdowns has been catastrophic. Children missing vast amounts of their education, frail and elderly people isolated and lonely and being tipped into dementia, the economy tanking. Just look at the horrific catalogue of deaths and abuse of vulnerable children, who should have been on the radar of various agencies but who fell through the net because of lockdown restrictions.

A

B.

Once I realised I was unlikely personally to be terribly ill with Covid (touch wood) I was very aware of things such as lack of ambulances should DD have an accident, or needing hospital treatment for another illness.

I was also afraid for my parents - it didnt feel worth the risk. No comeback from death is there?

Being an island, we should have done a NZ and locked down as a country.
In which case C probably.

We used to weigh up which activity was worth the fine and how likely we would end up paying it, bit like parking really. There was probably very little chance of being caught not local so it was just a case of weighing it up. Boris and co said they were like parking fines afterwards and that is how I had treated them.

Most people will be D.

Many people now don’t even give families like mine (my DD is extremely vulnerable and we’ve had to avoid illnesses as much as possible since before covid) as much consideration with bugs, coughs and colds as they did pre-covid because “life must go on”.

There’s a selfishness (I tried to find a different word) now that there wasn’t before. People’s lives were interrupted and now they’ll do whatever.

Folks have knowingly allowed their child to be around my child (even though we’re the one that always misses the event if someone flags up - we don’t expect others to stay away other than from our home) with chicken pox, d&v and colds multiple times since people got angry about covid. They never, ever did that before.

The lockdown resentments have actually made life more dangerous for vulnerable people now imo.

You'd let the government order you to cover your face!

People with your mentality were responsible for the government believing that they could take our freedom and liberty away permanently.

The "easy rules"!

"Just take one step back, there, that was easy wasn't it? Don't worry, it's all to keep you sage, just another little step, yes, that's right, that was easy, and again, it's just a little step back, it's so easy . . .
"

You'd end up miles from where you started if you let people push you around like that.

I would be D.

I live on the edge of town next to moors though so I don't feel the need to be restricted to my own home with only 1 hour exercise outdoors per day. The mask wearing thing in busy indoor places would be the only thing I'd do more to respect people in a vulnerable category. Everything else just felt ridiculous. I also think it's location dependent though.

B

That’s basically option B.

From yesterday's Independent. (It's a hard D from me).

'The benefits of the first Covid-19 lockdown were “a drop in the bucket compared to the staggering collateral costs” it imposed, a study has claimed.
Scientists from Johns Hopkins University and Lund University say the policy may have saved as few as 1,700 lives in England and Wales'
They found that full lockdowns had a “negligible impact” on mortality and suggested they could be a “policy failure of gigantic proportions”
The approach's benefits were far outweighed by its impact on economic growth, public debt, and education, they said.

It's impossible to answer, because if there was a next time in the near future, a) the later iterations of bubbles, outdoor socialising etc would come in sooner and b) the measures would be aimed at a post-covid environment.

I would definitely be very stringent about personal contact and hygiene - I've had long covid since March 20, and it's no joke, even though it's been largely in abeyance since mid 21, I had an episode the other night.

I would be happy, for example, to limit contacts outside the home to once a week with someone else who had done the same. Which tbh, isn't massively different from my normal social life.

D

The costs of lockdown were never properly assessed and factored into the equation. That was forgivable in March/April 2020, but not after that and it never will be again.

I would work from home because I can and I prefer it and totally ignore the rest

C, I think, but my circumstances have changed a lot since last time round. When lockdown hit, we were childless, both in jobs that were easy to do WFH (indeed, WFH was a novelty) and had plenty of space, so were able to follow the rules reasonably strictly without too much inconvenience. Now we've got small children and a lot less space, and there are some rules that I think would be seriously detrimental to my child's welfare and to my mental health.

I would ignore everything.

On balance a C

B. I don't live in the UK, but first wave Covid was handled similarly here.

D because the whole thing was a f*cking joke!