Eat Out To Help Out: Brilliance or Lunacy?

[verdantverdure]

On the day the Covid Inquiry convenes I thought I'd ask your opinion on Eat Out To Help Out.

Covid case numbers and deaths were low, as we'd done a phased return out of the first lockdown.

Then we had Eat Out To Help Out and it all kicked off again within weeks.

What did you think? At the time? Now?

YABU Eat Out To Help Out was brilliant, I loved it.

YANBU Eat out To Help Out was a bloody stupid idea that was obviously going to help the virus spread, leading to another wave, more economic devastation, and tens of thousands of us dead. And it didn't even help the hospitality industry because it screwed up Christmas which is usually their most profitable quarter.

Yep - the IFR was well known and was a lot lower than the CFR. IFR hugely varied between age ranges and co-morbidities. yet Vallance and Co chose to ignore this and advocated for lockdown for young, healthy people. Utter madness. They were having their time in the spotlight too.

It's not a conspiracy theory - this is well known now and was early on too.

My daughter suffered enormously from school closures - entirely unnecessary IMO. Her learning has never recovered and thus will affect her for the rest of her life. I can never forget that.

Sweden went the right way.

Did you notice any harms from lockdowns?

Or do you think they were downside free?

I was discussing the 'not understanding' aspect, and it really annoys me as I think it's a let off.

The graphs, the maths, the basic science were not hard to understand. Hard to DO the modelling, but not hard to understand the graphs. If you care to read/listen.

Eton and Winchester did not give a good general education it seems.

Eat out to help out was a stupid idea. As to the rest ....nobody knew what would happen with Covid and choices were made which were later proved to have been OTT but there weren't any crystal balls around. I'm just astounded that so many people think it's OK to waste all this money to apportion blame for it all !

But why do you think they did this?

Sweden was the outlier, so you presumably think pretty much all CMOs were involved in the same conspiracy.

Why?

Conspiracy theorists always state what conspiracy they believe they see, but can never explain why the actors would act in the way they claim.

Did you notice any harms from lockdowns?

Or do you think they were downside free?

There were clear downsides, discussed at the time and ever since. We all lived through them, and some suffered very much.

The government didn't care about those harms either. If they had cared, they would have done something to minimise them.

Let's face it, if a government doesn't care if people die, they are unlikely to care much if people have difficulties in their lives.

There were clear downsides, discussed at the time

I didn’t see much at the time tbh, well a few who did stand out, but most on here were demanding restrictions and closures

That's possibly your memory. The downsides of lockdown were discussed here a lot.

At work we all talked extensively about our children and older relatives, our neighbours.

I have noticed there are a few anti-lockdown posters who say 'everyone' on MN wanted lockdown. That's not accurate.

Many people will have felt lockdown was inevitable at certain points. That is not the same as 'wanting' it.

I didn’t say ‘everyone’.

But yes I stand by the general mood and reaction, I take it by your use of the ‘anti-lockdown posters’ phrase you were one of the majority of posters who were pro restrictions.

Irl was different here, we discussed impact of schools closing easily and without challenge

Also no not ‘my memory’ it’s all recorded on mn, that’s useful, people can see why people were so pro restrictions even though damage was there

@wildfirewonder I agree that to me none of the "pandemic maths" etc seemed hard to understand.

And I agree that it's letting them off the hook to say they didn't understand it because it was their job to understand it.

Don't run a country during a global pandemic if you can't understand simple graphs, multiplication and basic scientific concepts.

I just want it out there.

I want us to know.

I didn't say you said everyone, I said some posters say everyone.

I think I was firmly middle ground!

If a lockdown were not needed, surely everyone would be happy?

I have little time for the idea a lockdown could have been avoided without serious impacts on health services and other essential services.

Those who say we could have just carried on as normal never explain how that would have come to pass.

We talked to our local pub landlord about the topic of lockdowns and EOTHO etc one quiet evening and he says the times where we weren't locked down but covid prevalence was high were the worst for their business, because they had to be open, heated, lit, stocked and staffed, but hardly anybody came.

He said business was already down in February and March 2020 as people stayed away because of covid, then there was lockdown, then EOTHO when you needed more staff on EOTHO days AND you had to buy stock and staff Friday night, Saturday night and Sunday lunch as usual in case people came out but generally they didn't.

Then trade fell off a cliff early in October 2020 and didn't recover until summer 2021. The massively profitable Office Christmas Lunch season and Christmas itself just didn't happen.

He says since the government knew the vaccine was coming soon he would rather they had planned ahead and closed hospitality rather than let him order all the Christmas food, keep employing the chefs, keep lighting the fires and lighting the candles, complying with the covid measures, doing extra cleaning, dealing with staff sickness rates, stocking the kitchen with produce and bringing the staff in day after day after day and running at a loss. The constant changing of rules was a nightmare,

You could really see in his face how hard 2020 had been for him. He said they nearly gave up, lots of people in the trade did.

I'm one of the people who thinks that if you are told about what covid has done to China on NYE 2019, and you do nothing in January 2020, when Germany is ordering in gallons of the chemicals needed for testing in January, and you do nothing, then you watch what covid is doing in Italy in February 2020 and you still do nothing...

When in February and March universities are offering to take on testing, when British textile manufacturers are offering to switch production to PPE and you still do nothing..

Then a lockdown is inevitable.

That they did much the same again in the autumn after bringing the numbers down is unfathomable to me.

And to give the virus a good head start with EOTHO was madness.

It was inevitable there was going to be a wave in the autumn. Not having EOTHO would not have prevented it.

The view of scientific community seems to be EOTHO did not cause the wave (that was inevitable), but did contribute to a change in behaviour that increased transmission.

All through it feels like England pinged between 'let it rip' and 'lock everything down'.

Like a trolley?

More people died in the second wave than the first where they did next to nothing from December 31st to March 23rd.

The ultimate harm though is clearly dying, not yet got a vaccine for that.

'Course there are harms, nothing is free in the LD world but given we knew little about the path CV would take, eat out scheme was bonkers.

Kids still not attending/falling behind in school now is down to lack of action by schools/authorities and Govt, same with MH provision, lack of services, not caused by LD's.

Waiting lists huge before lockdowns.

There were people on here who were questioned where they were going when they went out to get excersise. Two young women were fined for meeting for a hot drink. Do i really need to link articles again to stop the gaslighting!

Including essential workers

The Lancet view:

I fear this enquiry is a witch hunt rather than a "what should be learned for next time?". And there will be a next time

Absolutely those who led us so dreadfully should be held accountable. But this should not be the main aim.

. So many things were done badly. People seem to be fixating only on "we should have locked down sooner" rather than how, for example, our children and young people were so terribly badly let down

Yes I hope there’s more on that. It also seems to be a barrister looking for media lines and blame

We keep asking people who were there but if we lacked anyone who was there for young people and children at the time who do we get to give evidence speaking about harm to them?

At the time I thought it was nuts and refused to participate although friends of mine happily tucked in and avoided the virus.

Rishi Sunak, like many highly educated people, has no common sense.

Disagree, there may not be another pandemic for a 100 years (might be one next year) we need to hold people to account too and that requires blame and consequence for their actions.

Learning the lessons is all very well if people did what they were supposed to have done but they didn't, they cut investment, had parties, locked down too late, lied......

Young people were let down v badly, my DD one of them, but what is the Govt doing to help make up lost ground? Sweet fuck all.

How about attaching blame and accountability for that?