(Covid) To think these recommendations are bonkers?

[NoCharnce]

So the government commission into how to memorialise the Covid pandemic has recommended the government implement “A UK-wide day of reflection should be established and held annually.”

Other recommendations include national memorials (10 sites already identified!), oral histories and museums plus additional funding for local authorities to set up their own memorials.

I can’t be the only one who thinks this is nuts and hope the government ignores the recommendations? I genuinely cannot believe people get paid to produce this crap.

@WomblingTree86

Have you provided the evidence or data either way showing other countries are in the same boat or is it just your perception that they are?

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Without knowing which country you are referring to it is difficult to provide the relevant data.

However here is a Lancet article referring to the increase in cancer deaths in Australia as a result of missed diagnosis:

www.thelancet.com/journals/lanpub/article/PIIS2468-2667(22)00111-6/fulltext

A similar article in relation to the US:

www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-covid-cancer-effect/

-@WhalePolo

"I think had we not had restrictions, the results would have been more catastrophic in the short term AND the long term. Because hospitals would have collapsed and it would have been difficult for them to recover"

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It is impossible to say what the number of Covid cases and Covid deaths would have been without the restrictions simply because there were restrictions.

The best estimate we can get is looking at places like Sweden and Florida which has no lockdowns and fewer restrictions and did not suffer disproportionately higher covid cases and covid deaths than those places with much more stringent restrictions.

I think a lot of that WAS nonsense @WestwardHo1 - and very much down to mismanagement by our government.

But then the global consensus scientific opinion, and the reasoning behind that - wasn’t nonsense.

In every country there would have been atrocious government decisions as to how to implement restrictions - someone being shot in the Philippines as an extreme example.

@1dayatatime

I think a comparison is so hard (Sweden/Florida) as the majority of their neighbours WERE in lockdown, which might have afforded maverick country the chance to do that. However ALL countries, EVERYWHERE? I think would have been a disaster. If you look at India, Brazil who went for the no restrictions approach - it did not work out there. Also - our healthcare system was not great prior to Covid. I would imagine Sweden’s were better able to cope. Also need to consider population density, and compliance in other ways. Sweden had ‘trust’ in their government/one of highest vaccine uptakes in Europe.

If you are saying ‘lockdown doesn’t work’ then you have to apply that reasoning on a global scale. Saying some countries can, others can’t - would cause massive global division and poverty : in probably the poorest countries as it is already.

Well we agree on the colossal unforgiveable mismanagement then

My point all the way through was that the government handled this so unbelievably badly that they totally lost the faith of the population. Covid quite clearly was not "the big one", and by the time the big one does come around (e.g. if birdflu does a bit of cross species jumping), any kind of infections controls will be far far more difficult to implement. Probably impossible.

Bloody idiots the lot of them. They completely failed.

Chuck in the revelations about Partygate, is it any wonder that many people concluded, "well THEY weren't scared. Why were we?"

I agree with you there too @WestwardHo1 . About the trust - about how we’d cope with another pandemic. I’d say it’s important to extrapolate the science from the politics. I trust the science, and think the global comparison is important if the politicians here are behaving like idiots.

@WhalePolo

". I trust the science,"

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What the pandemic taught me was that there is no one true science in relation to Covid at the time as many believed or "followed the science ".

There were different scientific views at the time and the decisions on restrictions and lockdowns were political decisions not scientific decisions as Chris Whitty said.

The loss of learning, freedom and hope to children during the Covid-19 pandemic could have been prevented:

www.savethechildren.org.uk/news/media-centre/press-releases/harm-to-children-in-covid-lockdown-preventable-new-report-conclu

Even worse this was pointed out at the time, but was dismissed as anti vaxx or Covid denier or children will bounce back or children are disease vectors etc etc.

@1dayatatime

Yes there were different opinions. But there is a consensus opinion which feeds health guidelines everywhere. In any situation, whether you are trying to send a rocket to the moon - or treating cancer, you go with the consensus view as it’s likely to be the safest. I also don’t think the consensus view has changed : masks, or - lockdown in an emergency situation as seen recently with Ebola in Uganda. Of course the debate is good, but until ‘masks don’t work’ for example, becomes the new consensus - it’s not the safest thing to advise on a global scale.

That report you’ve linked is not saying ‘no lockdown at all in a pandemic” it’s saying it could have been done better. I agree.

”
· The prioritisation of venues like pubs reopening before schools.
· The 1:1 rule, where adults were allowed to meet a friend outside. Younger children that would have needed supervising were not able to do the same.
· Grassroots sports clubs and other places for children’s activity remained closed while pubs and restaurants re-opened.”

The Australian article is not an actual study looking at the incidence. It is referring to a exploratory analysis (a statistical modelling study) of the potential effect of treatment delays during the COVID-19 pandemic. It’s not looking retrospectively at actually what happened or talking about the effects of lockdown.. The US paper is mainly talking about the fact that people were scared to go in for screening. Perhaps they would have been even more scared if there wasn't a lockdown and COVID rates were deaths even higher. Neither state that there has been a long term impact on screening/healthcare and neither suggest this healthcare would have been fine without lockdown.

Actually, it could have. Teachers mail lesson plans and assignments; kids mail completed assignments back. I did my entire final year of school in the 1980s this way. I also was a bullied child through many years of school, and though this wasn't ideal, it worked out well. I even did exams this way.

Again, this is a confusing post. You're confusing me in part with another poster. I never "wanged on about how SH tenants are less likely to follow restrictions". I said "not relevant" about SH as at that point in the thread, it wasn't. If you are going to be sweary and abusive, at least get the right person.

If this occurred, no, that's a bit silly.

Ah yes, we heard these types of anecdotes frequently. "My mother is only 60 but would give her life so the childrenz could go to school again!"

My Mum also said a similar thing. “I’d give my life so others could go to school etc”. I pointed out this was very noble. However if she got seriously ill, I’d expect her to have access to ambulance, hospital etc to ease her suffering. And if you’ve got a huge, huge, huge number of elderly “giving their life” for others - do you think they’d just pass away peacefully from Covid at home? Or would they be in pain, struggling to breath, and taking up space in a hospital which impacts all departments, availability of ambulances etc. So what’s the other option? Euthanise them? Can you see what dodgy territory this is? @WestwardHo1

Well that’s thorough and damning and exactly what some of us were saying at the time.

These two are to be held as true in image from report

And this put in place

• For the UK government to appoint a Cabinet Minister for Children and Young People, and make sure in times of crisis that they are involved in key decisions, so children’s interests are considered

• Pass a new law to make schools essential infrastructure so MPs have more oversight before schools can be closed

All things I argued for and got insane amounts of harassment and abuse over

Even worse because this is a parenting site and those posters managed to attack people enough to try to overrun all threads

It can both be true that lockdown was needed and it was applied an insane and damaging way that privileged certain sections of society over others.

@EasternStandard

Even worse because this is a parenting site and those posters managed to attack people enough to try to overrun all threads

Strange - I was about then, and I felt the exact opposite to be true. Those against any mitigation measures dominated the threads until board became unusable.

But, with respect, there was no consensus on "the science". Science isn't a finite answer or an ultimate truth - it's a series of questions. And they politicised this notion of "the science" and used it to control people. It was very very dubious

Can you perhaps lose the scornful tone? Now that posters are debating civilly?

Probably depends which threads posters were on

I know for sure talking about exactly what is in that report meant utter abuse.

Yes it did occur

But thanks for the cunning little hint that I'm lying 👍

But the point, I think, was that with Covid it wouldn't have been necessary for enormous swathes of elderly people to give their lives so that children could go to school. It wasn't the bubonic plague or the Spanish flu.

The school closures and the way they were handled (with the associated utter lack of safeguarding for children and young people) were appalling. Why did children not return to school during the summer term of 2020?

@WestwardHo1

Can you perhaps lose the scornful tone? Now that posters are debating civilly?

Oh, now you want to be civil? Ironic.