(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. It was clear very early on (definitely by the summer) that the average age of death was 86 and there was absolutely zero point in young and healthy people partaking in the pantomime. We should have thrown every penny that was spent into looking after the vulnerable while the rest of us got on with it.

And I take a bit of an issue with "pre-vaccination" covid. Imho it wasn't the vaccines that made the real difference, it was that it had mutated into a much milder strain. Like what many people predicted would happen because that's what they do. And which would have happened a lot quicker had the healthy population not been locked down.

Absolutely a D

Option D.
I did follow most of the strikter rules during Covid, but some rules were ridiculous, and so was some people’s behavior.
We have friends who were to nervous to stop and talk to us outside for more than two minutes ffs.

Key question: who is most vulnerable to theoretical new virus? I think you'll find peoples answers are different if children were the main at fatal risk group rather than elderly. I'm not saying that's right or wrong.

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

Except that would have been totally impossible.

D

Neither. I'd be physically actively opposing lockdowns and closing businesses and schools with protests as I'm sure millions of others would also.

A/B. And that's because of threads like this. When I see how many people don't care whether they put others at risk by their behaviour, it makes me all the more determined to stay well away from them in a pandemic type situation.

I think you'll find peoples answers are different if children were the main at fatal risk group rather than elderly.

In that case, you've got a whole other set of problems on your hands.

Do you think parents who are key workers would be happily skipping off the work if they stood a major chance of contracting something that might well kill their child?

I doubt the precise circumstances that enabled the Covid lockdown could ever be replicated. It only worked because heathy working aged people (and younger) were not a great risk - and therefore essential services could continue.

B, my DS watched many people die during COVID, I isolated entirely and fortunately didn’t get Covid until I’d had five vaccinations, I’d have been one of the many thousands dead if I’d have ignored the warnings.

As with Covid , D.

B, but only until the required research had been done and any vaccine or other measures were in place.

This. But then thats what I thought we should have done in the first place.

A/B
Regardless of the government own breaking of rules. In an unknown virus situation I would take precautions to protect my loved ones and follow the advice/rules of the time.
It is in my mind logical to proceed with caution until more is known

I want to know what the options would be if the mortality rate was solely under 18s.

I want to know what the options would be if the higher mortality rates were in under 18s.

B - in the sense that I only followed the rules for covid that I legally had to / bent them when we thought it ridiculous or nonsensical but risk of getting I'm trouble was low. So we didn't have massive parties but I went out with a single member of a different household (gasp) when that was against the rules, and once went out shopping for non essential items from a garden centre (horror).

C-D , leaning towards D

One of the largest triggers in any sort of Covid trauma for me was realising how selfish and dog eat dog we really are as a species.

A, because I now have a medically vulnerable child.

Otherwise B. I was very strict last time, and would be equally as strict again.

B

It's a D for me. The government scared the public into thinking covid was some kind of nerve agent and could be passed on any which way with the slightest touch. I remember viewing a house and being asked to hand sterilise, wear mask, gloves and shoe covers!!! In reality the government followed very few rules and carried on as normal, enjoying fleecing as much money from the public purse as they could in the process whilst no one was questioning anything

Same here. It's a bit frightening. And I'm aware that there's an element of selfishness in my own choice of locking down, too. I'll keep myself and my loved ones safe indoors while all the D voters here go out and infect each other...

I think my answer would apply the same. Protect the vulnerable at all costs and "the rest" go above and beyond to do so. So if that meant appealing to those who'd retired to go back out on a volunteer basis and keep the country running so the young could be safer etc, then yes.

What we had in the summer-autumn of 2020 (in Scotland anyway) was playparks chained up and kids who hadn't set foot in schools since early March, WHILE THE BINGO HALLS WERE OPEN AND FULL OF PENSIONERS.

It was just absolute madness and I will never forgive or forget what they did to children.

Depends on the science not the politicians' take on the science so, if like Covid we knew early on it was viral load dependent and testosterone pathway affected then D, if we knew other and the rules made a difference then A but those who said we didn't know much about it - what we know now is confirmation of what was known in the medical community by March 2020.