(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.

@WestwardHo1

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?

The true extent of the illness wasn't known at that time, and there was no vaccine. It was, and still is, a key killer of the elderly and vulnerable. Schools need teachers and administrators, and they were sick too in large numbers.

In summer 2020? I thought the best info we had about sickness rates then is they were pretty low, especially as we'd been in lockdown so contacts had been significantly reduced. Is there data about school staff being too ill for schools to open at that time?

Intuitively I'd have thought that would've been more of an issue in September 2020 when they actually did fully open, rather than June and July. All the EOTHO stuff.

You're making a huge assumption that she was wearing a mask as a measure against covid or similar respiratory disease. That's a big assumption. You don't know why she was wearing a mask, do you? She could have had her own reasons for wearing one for other reasons.

But did they really know a lot more about covid at the end of August when all kids went back to school, than they did in, say, June? I don't think so. In fact, covid infection rates were pretty low in June and were rising pretty steeply in August (after the stupidity of EOTHO). It's that kind of illogic thinking that people are calling out!

I think it might be quite a safe assumption mightn't it? Given that prior to 2020 you would pretty much never have seen someone out in the fresh air in a strong sea breeze wearing a blue surgical mask.

The true extent of the illness wasn't known at that time, and there was no vaccine. It was, and still is, a key killer of the elderly and vulnerable. Schools need teachers and administrators, and they were sick too in large numbers.

Not in June 2020 they weren't.

She may have been wearing it like that so she could pull it up easily before going on a bus or inside somewhere. It can be easier than taking it off completely and then having to store it in a pocket or handbag. They weren't as easily available prior to 2020 and many people hadn't experienced wearing them. Now they have, many people prefer wearing them in certain circumstances.

@WestwardHo1 but maybe the reason it wasn’t that bad was because we had a lockdown. It’s impossible to know how we would have fared without one - and I’m applying that on a global level. Half of humanity were in lockdown. I don’t think you can really pick out Sweden and say “well they were ok” because you’d then need to apply their stance across the globe. And we know it wasn’t ‘ok’ in India or Brazil. I do completely agree that it should have been handled better, and we should look to see how other countries fared in terms of how we could handle a future pandemic better.
But when there is a new virus, causing hospitals to be on the verge of collapse, with no vaccine as a method of a control - I do think emergency measures and restrictions are needed.

Subsequent lockdowns, I can see the debate about their necessity. The first lockdown I think was necessary.

I agree a lot of people supported and continue to retrospectively support the initial lockdown, because of the unknown aspect. Even some people who oppose/d later restrictions. But surely part of that discussion must be about the length of the first lockdown too? Whether we lifted those emergency measures at the optimum time.

@TrashedSofa

It was very difficult at the time to know how things would progress. The effectiveness of the vaccine, new mutations. With hindsight you’d say - we should have done things differently. But with foresight? In an unprecedented situation?

Hmm, thing is we knew there was going to be a second wave and that it was liable to be more deadly. Whitty was saying that in March, so it wasn't new info or a hindsight thing in June 2020. And obviously we all know how seasons and illness work, but we took decisions that delayed the time when more mixing recommenced and pushed it closer to flu season.

Yougov poll on whether people think schools should have closed

x.com/yougov/status/1707043667519603083?s=46&t=G9BWOZlYGPa1_pR7aKkbHQ

@NotReadyForAutumnYet

Thats interesting. I’ll copy and paste….

In hindsight, do you think it was right or wrong to close schools during the COVID‑19 pandemic?

All Britons
Right to do so: 59%
Wrong to do so: 29%

Con voters
Right to do so: 47%
Wrong to do so: 41%

Lab voters
Right to do so: 72%
Wrong to do so: 20%

Thanks. Poll was published this week.

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

You had a whole bloody board. We ustt had long running threads in Chat and there was STILL someone trying to get those threads shut down THREE YEARS later.

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/site_stuff/4763622-anti-dementors-the-ads

Yes? The ADs dominated the boards and had a thread a chat. Two things can run at the same time. You were never oppressed as you claim.

This is the thing about people who claim their ‘free speech’ is being oppressed. It’s fine for them to spread anti-mask or anti-restrictions type sentiments. Or to formulate their own attempt to ‘cancel the narrative’ surrounding masks etc with comrades. To make assumptions, attack and ridicule those supporting restrictions and dismiss them as snobs. Or say any misinformed, scornful or hateful thing they like. But absolutely not ok for anyone to speak out against that view. Free speech for me, but not for thee.

Just catching up with the bun fight…. 5 pages behind…

@1dayatatime

Wtf are you talking about?

Two problems regarding covid in hospitals

1. some people developed severe problems and needed to be admitted for treatment to get them well/prevent death. This is NOT MILD ILLNESS.

2. others would be admitted for other reasons, and then contract covid which would prolong their stay either because there was nowhere for them to go (care home wouldn’t admit them etc) or because their health deteriorated as a result.

People with mild disease would not be admitted to hospital. They would be told to treat at home.

It’s not as if the hospitals opened the doors and welcomed in everyone with mild flulike symptoms.

Your position is completely flawed in its thinking.

Covid suffers who required urgent attention took up hospital resources.

This will have led to backlogs in treatment for other conditions, including cancer unfortunately.

The only way to solve the problem is to get case numbers down and thus the number of people developing severe disease requiring hospitalisation. Via restrictions/vaccination.

Feel your head will you.

What did you want them to do, leave seriously ill people on the street.

To be clear - those admitted to hospital with covid have illness that warrants it!!

^This

And I say this as someone who lost friends/fam from both cancer and heart conditions in the pandemic in part due to untimely treatment (lack of access to gp face to face, rescheduled treatments etc).

If we had sat on our hands and done nothing it would have been so much worse; the health system would have collapsed.

This is a deranged outlook.

It was about protecting yourselves Jennifer.

Especially since there is such a tight link between social deprivation and heightened covid risk.

Everyone was given the same information and guidelines.

If anyone chose not to follow them yes they could harm others unrelated to them. But the main risk was to their own person and their family and friends.

I found the restrictions very difficult. But I held to them tightly because I needed to protect myself and my family. That was more important to me than anything else.

@firefly

For future reference you can get a sunflower lanyard stating that you are autistic. I think you can customise them too to say that you can’t wear a mask.

I would be wary if mask wearing is reintroduced in future, as having a neurodevelopmental disorder could put you at higher risk of devloping severe illness.

Currently autism is in the green book for vulnerable children. I don’t think so for adults at this time, but still be careful with yourself, especially if mask wearing is difficult for you.

Again the thread has been derailed into general discussion surrounding mask wearing and other restrictions.

It is all very well for people to bleat on about covid being a virus with low fatality rate that mainly targets the elderly…..

But this was a novel virus with no therapeutics whatsoever. It’s an RNA virus that mutates quickly, is highly transmissible and there is a global population of 8bn for it to run through.

With close relatives know to have fatality rates in excess of 10% caution absolutely was warranted.

I agree with another poster who stated that Sweden etc enjoyed more freedoms on account of other countries sacrifice to slow the spread and thus mutation rate of the virus until the point where vaccines etc were developed.

The topic of the thread is discussing the recommendations made to deal with the legacy of covid, in particular remembrance of the dead.

If people want to discuss the rights and wrongs of lockdowns/masks, maybe a new thread would be more appropriate.

It was about protecting yourselves Jennifer

Really I thought we were told to wear a mask to protect others.

I think your mask has just slipped!!

Cant wait to hear the justification for this

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/4909131-covid-any-nhs-nursecadr-care-to-comment

@JenniferBooth

That situation sounds very poorly managed, but hospitals do try and control infection spread to protect their patients. Such as MRSA means you might have to be isolated when treated.