Do any of arch-lockdowners regret it?

[Refractory]

Just that really.

I haven’t really been on MN since 2020 because I found the near complete support for lockdown far too upsetting.

the lockdowners in my life seem to not think about it much. For them, it’s just over.

with hindsight do you wish you’d been more sceptical?

would love a civil conversation about this.

The lockdowns were necessary and probably should have come in earlier. Those who claim hospitals were empty etc is just not accurate. It definitely went in waves and affected parts of the country more than others. I live in a city and it was always at the front of the wave, family in the countryside barely saw it, probably due to the lockdowns. We were seriously close to the NHS being overwhelmed in some areas. As with all rules some common sense needed applying, going to see unwell family with serious physical or mental health issues whilst using appropriate infection control mechanism was appropriate; socialising with alcohol in groups because you fancied a party very much not appropriate. I worked in health care throughout and we had strict rules that we weren't even allowed to eat lunch together for months and months so I am still so cross at the Downing Street parties. However our measures worked and we did not pass the virus through our team, if one person got it it was restricted to them as we were observing guidelines.

Hardly, most people who had Covid, even pre vaccine, were absolutely fine,

Hmm. I wouldn't describe myself as an 'arch-lockdowner', but I was on the cautious side. Has the whole experience made me more sceptical? Yes. It's become clear that even the experts were flying by the seat of their pants a lot of the time and some of the rules were based on little more than guesswork. But turning around and saying 'I'll never trust experts again' is conspiracy theory territory. With hindsight, we know that wiping down surfaces, constant hand-washing, social distancing outdoors etc. were excessive, but we didn't know that at the time. What if those things had turned out to be important?

So no, no 'regret' as such. If something like that were to happen again, I don't see any alternative but to follow the rules as best I can while trying to protect my mental health and maintain a sense of perspective. I think a lesson we can maybe all draw is not to judge each other so harshly for drawing different conclusions or taking different approaches or setting different priorities. Everyone is muddling along doing their best most of the time, even if we all sometimes fall short of our own and other people's standards. (In the case of certain hypocritical leaders, their best wasn't good enough, and it is right to hold them to account.)

I also remember trump saying that if you drank disinfectant it would kill the virus and you would be okay. Neither Biden nor trump are medical scientists.

@sleepyscientist I think lots of people broke the rules, around here the wealthiest village became a national covid hot spot with so many families having pool parties and bbqs in their big gardens, they had tutors and football coaches going in, allsorts, and the older people we were visiting (HCPs) were terrified. Covid carried a few of them off before the vaccine came in. Thankfully there was plenty of space in the hospital for them to get oxygen etc. but they didn’t survive.
Going by this thread a lot of people chose their own rules to follow.

i agree the school closures weren’t great for kids, but you have to assume seeing all your grandparents die in rapid succession because nobody wants to stay at home would also be damaging.
Ordinary people gave up a lot that they didn’t have to because they wanted the vulnerable population to stay well and alive. I’m still really touched and impressed by how selfless people were.

The rules were pretty much the same all around the world. Most of us followed them not because we are stupid but because we were trying to have some control over the fast spread of a new bug.

Were you one of the Conservative party members partying and laughing at the mothers birthing babies alone without partners in the hospital, smirking at people burying their parents with no funeral?

Thanks to having young children we have had the rounds of Influenza A, Mycoplasma Pneumonia, RSV, and we have had Covid a bunch of times. The only one that didn't floor the whole family was Covid. The others were way worse. Don't see any lockdowns for similar viruses. Thought it was a joke then (and I had my two children through the initial outbreak and then my second during the omicron one) and I still think it is a joke. Just sent mental people even more mental.

And yet false statements were still made regarding the vaccine and catching/transmitting the virus by multiple officials.

Ah so it's rewriting history.

First you said they didn't say it. Now they did say it but nobody ever believed it. This thread proves that they very much did.

I don't think much about it and I don't regret it as it had no significant impact on me other than inconvenience i.e. I didn't miss time with a dying relative.

I acted in good faith and did the best I could at the time. I don't regret that.

I think Partygate and the PPE scandal played a huge role in public faith in politicians and where we are today on the cusp of an election though because time ripples. Like a cheater: you might not dump him at the time but that glued up plate is never the same and it's all you can see when you look at it.

it was Boris' human failing, his arrogance, that ruined Boris the Conservatives because without the PPE, missing whatsapps, and hypocrisy of drinking in the garden, being ambushed by cake and allowing his Private Office to run riot holding xmas parties and so on, that things went to shit for them. Not straight away though because everyone loves the drama of the scandal. Now the dust jas settled, leople realose that Rishi is fairly inoffensive as a politician but he is worse in some ways for that reason. At least under Boris there was a strong direction and a sense of things getting done and people coming together whether they loved or loathed him.

Shame for Boris in some ways as i think the history books of the future might have written fondly about him. Imagine letting yourself and your country down so badly.

I do regret it to a certain extent. Only now is my daughter’s mental health starting to recover. Being away from friends, people, the world, it changed her.

There was no staff involved in me walking around the supermarket, they were all absolutely fine.

I regret not seeing some family. My mum died alone in hospital after 2 weeks by herself in hideous conditions.

She had been my 'childcare bubble'. Remember that? So I could drop my toddler at the door but not actually see her or go in and spend time. And what a load of crap that was, since she saw my daughter. I should have just gone in and spent time but I wanted to follow the rules and do the right thing .

I hated lockdown but stuck to it because we had to.
I can name a hundred reasons why we shouldn’t have locked down, and a hundred awful consequences of doing so.
But I can also name a hundred reasons why we should’ve done, and a hundred benefits of doing so.
It was always a marginal call, as far as I was concerned, and I am suspicious of those who are dead certain about it either being absolutely right or absolutely wrong.

I sympathise with those who suffered as a result of anything to do with covid, whether that be losing someone, being unwell themselves, or suffering a consequence of being locked down.

We all sacrificed a lot. But we did so to save a lot of lives.

Conspiracy theories and divisive argument don’t serve anyone well.

FWIW I think the government had a poor 2020 in terms of its covid policy. Too slow to act, too inconsistent in its advice and behaviour. But I think its strategy in 2021 through the vaccine rollout and relaxation of restrictions, was paced very well.

Lockdown benefitted me personally as it’s during that time I realised I might be autistic. I loved the quietness, the order, the space, and was painfully aware that where others were struggling, I seemed to be flourishing. I was sorry for people who suffered due to isolation and definitely thought that the stringent rules around care homes bordered on barbaric though. Watching the queen sat alone at her husband’s funeral, with no one sat with her to comfort her, was heartbreaking.

i didn’t bang pans for the NHS or anything like that. Like another person upthread, I’ve had a lot of trauma in my life, so lockdown didn’t phase me too much, I knew that it was a temporary measure. The harm it did to businesses and the scale of financial fraud carried out as a result of furlough loans and PPE scandal still angers me.

Lockdown cost lives as well as saving them, so if you're going to use that metric it works both ways.

I wan never in favour of hard lockdown and bent the rules frequently. Now with hindsight I’m very glad I wasnt strict about lockdown and I resent that we were made to do it in the first place. It had a very negative effect on the mental health of family members and I think many young people deserve financial compensation for what was taken from them.

Most people eventually got Covid anyway so the lockdowns didn’t save anyone.

Agree with this too. We certainly know now who would have been shopping their neighbours to the Gestapo, given half a chance.

The lock-downs worked really well in NZ.
Aucklanders took one for the team by having a hard lockdown for longer it meant the rest of us were able to get on with our lives.

We did have a consistent and clear messaging from both the government and the Medical Director and they kept the drama behind the scenes.

Of course there were people who were really struggling and they ended up at a massive camp outside of parliament- which prolonged the measures, but overall it was very effective

This I agree with. I used to really have the teaching profession on a pedestal. The reaction of many (not all) teachers and of course the unions, to schools opening absolutely disgusted me. As a parent and an NHS worker who worked front-line throughout.

I never looked at the profession the same again. Lots of great individuals of course but the overall whining and selfish attitude was shit and made me furious.

Exactly 💯

I'm another one who was baffled by the schools not going back in June 2020. Delaying the return until just before flu season was about to kick off made no sense.

It's an interestingly phrased question. There were mistakes yes of course there were. I think we are going to be mopping up after lockdown for years. Children were affected in ways that we are only coming to realise now. However, the alternative was to have no lockdown and some countries did this. So yes, lessons there. Vaccination is incredibly important. I find the anti vaccination movement terrifying - that needs addressing. We did what we had to do. And everyone on the most part followed the rules to some extent. I think that says a lot about us humans. Would we follow those rules again were another pandemic happen? That's the interesting question.

I obeyed the rules and I don’t regret it. I’m absolutely not going to be shamed over something I had no control of, four years later.

We watched the numbers growing every day, saw the devastation in countries like Italy and Spain, no one understood what we were dealing with. We all lived with fear that our families would die. Of course we followed lockdown, we wanted this terrible thing to be over and it seemed this was the only way.

As usual, sneering critics are now looking back at the madness and re-framing it as people being gullible and weak. That’s not how I remember it.

My children’s education and personal development suffered, I lost a job. I know several fit, seemingly healthy people who died in lockdown after contracting COVID.

I regret the whole, awful thing ever happened. I do not regret following the rules. We had no choice.

Agree with 2 pp's . The masks on walking into restaurants or up to the bar but taking them off to drink and eat was one of the stupidest things I have ever seen. The air/con is running full bore, the fans are on but that pesky covid germ is going to know you are sitting down. It all got very weird. We had some poor dude crash tackled by police for sitting on a bench on his own eating his kebab for lunch. Yeah that makes a lot of sense! So now there's 2 police plus the station they took him to, if he did have Covid who are contaminated. What a fiasco. As far as I am aware all of those stupid fines got cancelled ( NSW Australia)