(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.

Sounds like another situation where the reasoning behind something isn’t necessarily flawed, but the execution of that reasoning is flawed.

@JenniferBooth

Do you just lurk about on covid boards spouting absolute garbage?

Please go to college, you might enjoy it.

Re. Masks https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7883189/

Please could people keep to the topic of the thread and set up their own thread if they want to discuss/rant about restrictions and whether they were justified.

That isn’t what this thread is about!

I havent got time for college Sparklecats Im a carer for someone which takes the pressure off the precious NHS

@JenniferBooth

You have time to go ranting inaccurate information on social media.

So clearly there’s a window there.

Good luck.

You are pissed off because you forgot we were told to wear masks to protect others and then admitted it was about protecting ourselves#

Hoist by your own petard.

As Sparklecats advised, perhaps you might spend your time learning something. Masks protect both the wearer and the people around them.

From a different perspective, Running a community historical archive- I’d like some funds so we can preserve some items from our community for future generations.

like how my children asked my grandparents about rationing and what they did during the war; this was a time future generations will be interested in,

I do appreciate though that some money to boost mental health, provide catch up for young people affected may be more useful though.

I don’t know, it was a divisive time - and the government were behaving in a ridiculous way which I don’t particularly want to remember. I would find a record of the science of the vaccines, their production, the decisions made, timelines etc interesting. Bletchley Park is fascinating and there is such a quiet respect there for what was achieved. A similar way to remember Covid would result in it being defaced I think because there are still raw memories. Plus I don’t think anyone feels any sort of ‘quiet respect’ for the complete lack of noble behaviour shown by the Tories at the time. Maybe in years to come - and more for the scientific learning about pandemics.

There was no 'apparently' about it for those of us who couldn't wear masks, I assure you.

We had no choice but to print off exemption badges or buy them from eBay, because people demanded we wore something to 'prove' out exemption (when as you point out, anyone could do so).

Many of us live with health conditions which make us vulnerable to covid - for example, in addition to my neurological condition which made me unable to wear a mask, I'm immunosuppressed thanks to the medication I take for an autoimmune disease. Lots of people who couldn't wear masks were in a similar position. Being unable to wear a mask made everything even more fraught and worrying for people like me.

I never, ever saw an exempt person being aggressive. I was the victim of aggression however, as were many, many others who were unable to wear masks.

Thank goodness it's all in the past now.

Yes, it happened. He pulled his mask down to spit at me. Obviously.

And no, the irony was not lost on me - just as it wasn't lost on me when people pulled their masks down to theatrically cough next to me or shout at me.

For the record, I was always scrupulous wrt SD, went to shops at the quietest times and as infrequently as possible, used public transport as rarely as I could get away with, and so on. I hated every second of not being able to wear a mask primarily because of the risk I perceived myself to be to others. But also because I'm immunosuppressed and my risk was also increased, and also because I received abuse of some sort almost every time I went anywhere.

It was an awful, awful time and I ended up on antidepressants and self harming. I promise you, I wanted to wear a mask so much. But when I tried to, it resulted in a TN attack during which I lost consciousness the pain was so terrible. I wet myself. I couldn't go through that again, I had absolutely no choice.

@JerryLovesMargo
@SaltyOne

Sadly it was a horrible divisive time, a time of top trumps of vulnerability where my vulnerability outranks yours, where neighbours informed on each other stasi style, where the needs of the old trumped the needs of the young.

In answer to the OP original post I would rather not have a commemorative event and instead prefer to try and forget about the whole thing and pretend it never happened.

@1dayatatime

Sadly it was a horrible divisive time, a time of top trumps of vulnerability where my vulnerability outranks yours, where neighbours informed on each other stasi style, where the needs of the old trumped the needs of the young.

The second part of your statement was unnecessary and only adds to the division you suggest you're sad about.

Hmmm. @1dayatatime I don’t like “needs of the old trumped the needs of the young.” I would say the needs of those requiring hospital care (and that applies not only to Covid patients) - ‘trumped’ the needs of those who were healthy. I would say a functioning hospital for any person who needed it was the priority. If you reverse your sentiment, you’re advocating a situation where the needs of the ‘fit’ outweigh the needs of the ‘unfit’. Survival of the fittest. This is what riles me the most. I do not want an emergency situation to push a society to think that the ‘unfit’ are dispensable.

The other issue is @1dayatatime is that a pandemic needs a global response. Would your ‘no lockdown’ scenario apply to every country worldwide? Or just certain countries that have perhaps better healthcare systems and can cope with a crisis? In which case, the countries that can’t cope would be forced to lockdown causing huge global inequality. The poor would get poorer and the rich would get richer.

@JerryLovesMargo

We had no choice but to print off exemption badges or buy them from eBay, because people demanded we wore something to 'prove' out exemption (when as you point out, anyone could do so).

Jerry, I'm sorry you had a bad time. But wasn't it the Government that asked you to show your exemption status, not "people" in general? And if you had a genuine reason for exemption, as it sounds like you did, why was there no choice but to print out your badge or buy from eBay? You shouldn't have needed to do that.

I'm not sure who you are talking about here - yourself, or the body of non-maskers in general?

The badges/lanyards weren't mandatory. The government advice was that you could choose to wear one if you wished, but it was up to you. The government advice was also that nobody could ask you for proof of exemption, or deny you admittance to shops etc for being exempt.

There was no 'proof' available - GPs/HCPs were not providing letters of exemption and there was no official lanyard or badge. It did have to be taken on trust. I carried the letter with my diagnosis from years ago but on the couple of occasions I tried to show it to 'prove' my exemption, the staff at the venue and supermarket I was trying to access wouldn't accept it. One said he didn't know what trigeminal neuralgia was, it could be anything - and he had no reason to know about a fairly rare neurological condition, or its symptoms.

To be clear: there was no official exemption certificate/lanyard and many venues, shops etc made up their own rules, which didn't tally with the government rules/advice whatsoever. And because lanyards and badges were freely available to all, they were effectively pointless and proved nothing, and consequently many people didn't believe those who were genuinely exempt were exempt at all.

But wasn't it the Government that asked you to show your exemption status, not "people" in general

It was as @JerryLovesMargo has said. I find the rewriting of history and gaslighting pretty fucking sinister.

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/coronavirus/4135055-How-to-prove-exemptions

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/coronavirus/3974045-Face-masks-proof-of-exemption

Ooh i remember this point being made.

I may have missed it but has there been a demand for children to carry their birth certificates when they are in shops? Exemption applies to children under 11 - some children look young for their age, some look older. Presumably those who favour a rigorous burden of proof being placed on those with medical exemption feel just as strongly about age exemption and would want to apply the same conditions. If not, I wonder why

There would have been a proportion of people who were caused considerable distress by wearing a face mask, but I think there would have been a far greater proportion of people who were saved from death or from becoming seriously ill by having a mask mandate. So overall I think - in terms of overall harm - more harm would have been caused by not having a mask mandate than by having one.

HeIenaDove · 22/07/2020 02:06

46 attacks on disabled people already for not wearing masks

From Twitter................video and thread.

twitter.com/transportforall/status/1285615607744995329?s=20
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And look at the date. That was before they were even mandatory.

Strange how there wasnt such a pressure for parents to prove their childrens age exemption as ive mentioned above. Imagine the AIBU at the time if it had been recommended that parents carry their kids birth certificates around,

Actually @WhalePolo @1dayatatime

The priority was not the sick or the vulnerable but protecting NHS capacity to function, and preventing complete collapse of the healthcare system.

You’re talking everything from vaccinations for babies, maternity care, flu shots for kids, the whole heap gone or severely compromised.

And they wanted to prevent an escalation of cases that would lead to economic collapse.

Whenever you have a healthcare caseload incredibly high and it’s spreading fast you’re likely dealing with a more dangerous variant so there’s that too.

Honestly, as far as I see it the whole exercise was preservation of infrastructure for societal functioning.

So all this tit for tat, some people over others theory is bollocks. The decisions were made for the benefit of all long term.