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.

um.. are you shaming someone for their beliefs?

Absolutely not, just because some people didn't follow the rules doesn't mean they weren't necessary. I have a child I believe was effected by it, but he would have been even more badly effected if he had lost a parent or grandparent from the virus. My only regret is that I didn't realise he thought (for quite a long time) that anyone who caught it died.

I followed the rules. Most people did. It was necessary and anyone can see that it fulfilled the purpose of bringing down the infection rate to buy time while a vaccination was developed. I don’t see how anyone can argue anything else when the curve of a graph is easy to see and understand. It wasn’t fun, it was necessary. It came about a bit too later though - earlier lockdown would have prevented more infections and more deaths and may have led to restrictions for a shorter amount of time.

i caught Covid for the first time when Boris was assuring us that there were only about 15 cases in the UK (when it was already spreading quickly and there were far more cases than anyone could have guessed). It left me disabled. I am still very cautious with Covid now because I know first hand what damage it can do, and I’m not even talking about the deaths.

I don't think our lockdowns would have needed to be so strict if the government hadn't spent years pillaging the NHS. The parties they had confirms that to me, we didn't lockdown because those relatively young and healthy people were worried about the impact on the majority of the population, it was purely to stop the NHS collapsing and the government being seen for what they were doing to it.
Of course if you're clinically vulnerable, or have clinically vulnerable family members you'd be pro lockdown. But in reality there is many potentially dangerous viruses and bacteria for these people, covid cannot be treated any differently by the majority of the population to flu as they're similar illnesses.

Full lockdown didn't happen for me as I was a keyworker so still working. I feel like I missed out on a lovely break in the sunshine!

Masks were the bane of my life though. Hated wearing them as they made my glasses mist up so I didn't really get out and about freely until they stopped being mandatory.

Actually it’s how OP describes themselves on previous posts. Nice jump though.

I don't think I was an arch lockdowner. I followed the rules. I didn't report anyone for breaking any. I just didn't join in when my neighbours did.

My parents tried to break the county lines rule and I stopped them - I knew people who had been stopped by the police for leaving the small town we were living in.

I got Covid in March 2020. It was unpleasant. The recovery much worse. I thought one of my lungs had collapsed and the tiredness was unreal. I didn't want to pass it in and was worried about the health of older people, vulnerable people.

Right at the start, when nobody knew what it was and nobody was saying "oooh, it's just a cold, stop letting me live my life" everyone I heard amd spoke to was worried about it. People were desperate for a lockdown to slow down the spread.

The problem with hindsight (and a government that acted under their own rules) is that we can turn round and point fingers and say this person was too strict about the rules and that person was stupid for worrying. But without the lockdowns, it would have been worse.

Even countries that didn't lock down at first (thinking of Sweden) got hit by a wave later on.

Dividing people into those boring old rule followers who blindly supported lockdowns and those cool dude rule breakers who followed their freedoms, it just makes the whole thing worse.

We did lockdown. So did many, many other countries. It isn't time to blame or poke fun of people using hindsight.

I stuck to the rules but with hindsight, I would not have to the same degree.

Give over.
The point I was making as that it was a relatively short amount of time. The lockdowns themselves didn’t last for years, they were periods of up to 6 weeks and then the rules relaxed.

If we had been in total lockdown for years then I could perhaps see why people would be so bitter about it. The reality is it was a minuscule amount of time in the grand scheme of things.

On a personal level, I don't dwell on it much, but I certainly hope that those in positions of power do dwell on it and the lessons we can learn if something similar happens again.

I spent the first part of the pandemic in the UK, and was 100% in favour of the first lockdown. We didn't know the virus, what the impacts might be, I think it was good to be (overly)cautious, if anything I think lock down should have been implemented earlier. I think later lockdowns were more difficult to justify. In hindsight I still agree with the decision to close schools during the first lockdown (again, due to the unknown impacts of the virus), but I think more effort should have been made to keep them open in the 2020-21 schoolyear.

An arch lockdowner is someone who was too stupid to see the absurdity of the rules and that they didn’t work.

someone who could see that locking down healthy people for an illness that almost entirely effected then elderly and those with cot morbidities was beyond stupid.

Someone, who to this day, cannot see how lockdowns were manufactured to steal taxpayers money by government to give to their cronies, including big pharma. Someone who calls anyone calling out the absurdity a conspiracy theorist. Someone who one had squeals about double digit inflation, fall in living standards, the state of schools and healthcare but cannot make the link that these would not be as bad had it not been for lockdowns.

Someone who think that it was just an unfortunate period in history that happened by accident.

I followed the rules as NHS but as soon as I was able to I got my children mixing again and very glad I did that for their sake.

I don't feel remotely "ashamed or embarrassed" to have followed lockdown rules, and I don't think we were wrong OR stupid. We didn't know what we were dealing with. And people WERE dying; lovely for you if you didn't know anyone who did, but it was people following the rules who made it easier for those of you who couldn't be bothered. I find "arch anti-lockdowners" and anti-vaxxers much of a muchness, tbh. Conspiracy theorists, mostly.

I did pretty much the same as you.

DH asked me once if we should start wiping the groceries and I told him if he wanted to he could but he was on his own. No way was I encouraging that!

I never clapped for the NHS and one of the neighbours told me we'd been missed. It was almost like it was compulsory. And it got so competitive!

Reporting neighbours was one of the worst things to me. I know my neighbour used to meet her boyfriend and my first thought was good for her. I'm sure most of the people criticising other people didn't live alone.

I do wonder if some of the people on here look back and regret how nasty they were to others. I was told if I truly loved DH I would wear a mask indoors even though I didn't have covid. I was also called stupid and thick for buying chocolate as it wasn't essential. I wonder what these people were like in real life.

Erm, with respect, we have a flu vaccine which is targeted every year to the strain in circulation at the time for vulnerable individuals. So yes people will die from flu unfortunately but not in the same kinds of numbers thanks to the vaccine. We didn't have a vaccine for COVID at the time until later and people in their much younger years were dying as well as it wasn't obvious who was vulnerable to COVID as seems to be genetic factors. The only way to protect people until the vaccine programme could be rolled out therefore was to make sure people didn't mix and spread it. God people have such short memories or are a bit dim.

I would've interpreted arch lockdowner to mean someone who was fully in support of lockdown and vocal about it, perhaps even opposed to the removal of restrictions. But that's just me.

Imho it's twatty to have a go at people simply for following the rules. We had a government that were deliberately trying to make us more scared, and also some people didn't have a choice in the matter. For example, in my circle, we broke the rules in order to ensure that all our children could be looked after and socialised when they weren't amongst the favoured ones for schooling, and to keep everyone feeling happy and together. Didn't fancy any illegal raves or similar, more at the playdate end of the spectrum. But in order to do that, you needed people to do it with.

I said most do you lack basic reading skills? It is a fact that most people who had Covid then and who get Covid now will have a mild illness, just because the Covid loons want to believe differently doesn’t change that fact.

I had the second of four operations cancelled just before I was due in surgery, surgeon sent me home and it took five months to get back into hospital. I had no real contact with anyone apart from my dad who was very vulnerable, he was my bubble as I was looking after him, also a weekly visit from Tesco delivery driver, that was almost a highlight.

Luckily, I have a lovely garden and spent a lot of time there. I don't regret it, I missed my friends (we Face Timed during the week) and family members but overall, it was the right thing to do. I hope we never have to do it again though. 😔

Yes, but I think this is the crux of the matter. Who do we trust?
On one hand we have scientists and people working on ICU who say it was serious and the vaccine made a huge difference.
On the other hand we have really self-important people on social media, who say the virus was man made, non-existant virus that was a cold and that the people who died did not matter.

It is a tricky balance.

Dh and I followed the rules, the teen DCs less so but their mental health was really affected.
I do feel that the winter 21 lockdown went too far as by then people were vaccinated. Some of the rules also made no sense esp around eating in pubs - the ‘substantial meal’ etc, tiers etc. And of course we now know what the govt did when we were all suffering in one way or another.

6 weeks? The first lockdown lasted three months. I think it was Leicester that had a whole 10 days of loosened restrictions after that before they had a local lockdown imposed on them.

What’s an arch lockdowner? And where’s the OP? I thought they wanted a conversation or maybe just wanted to light the blue touch paper and run off?

I think most of us did the best we could do.

I think some of us exercised a bit of lateral thought and common sense.

I know that for me there was a particularly dark place where I wiped shopping

we never clapped for the NHS, no point, no one would have heard us.

we did go out of the house more than once a day, but we’re in the middle of nowhere.

the minute they introduced Eat out to Help out I knew we were being ‘had’. What a joke that was. It was all about making us spend money, knowing how risky it was to health.

I also left MN during Covid because there were the extremes of COVID, those who couldn’t lock down enough and those (who still exist sadly) who say COVID isn’t a thing. Even now.

bizarrely, I got a great job in covid (still there) and the previous agoraphobia I had is now fixed as a result of the bookings systems introduced in covid.

No regrets, I nearly died from Covid

This

“Chucklit · Today 01:24

It was necessary far before they implemented it. It ended up being a last resort far too late. And those in charge made a complete mockery of it all. Lives could have been saved, the NHS could have been less overwhelmed. Every lockdown was too late. Because low average people didn’t matter to the government.
It's not just over, even happening too late didn't stop the horrendous impact on thousands of people. The utter fear and anxiety. How many people died without a family member even present. You're saying that you were upset with how many people favoured lockdown from the viewpoint of 2020?
How utterly ignorant can you be?
You do you OP, I’m sure you did then as well.
Is it beyond your comprehension the scope of what actually happened or would you rather mentally stay in 2020?
Batshit.”

……………………………………..

And this

“DefyingGravitas · Today 01:25

I guess the people that thought we didn’t need to get vaccinated or stay apart from each other, benefitted from the people that followed the rules, and then were able to say ‘see! We didn’t need to do that!’ There’s just one teeny tiny piece of the puzzle they’re missing… But no worries, come along and call us ‘arch’ something…”

………………………………………….

We followed the rules. I’ve no regrets about this other that it would have been nice to have seen more of my MIL before she died in 2021 of unconnected causes.

But neither she or my vulnerable Mum caught it. I didn’t want any behaviour of mine to cause illness or death for anyone else.

I didn’t eat out to help out as that seemed a recipe for additional illness.

I was appalled by the behaviour of some members of the government.

It should have been started sooner - councils were ready, plans in place - but the Government dillied and dallied. This hesitancy cost lives.

Why did I follow the rules - they made sense, I could understand the reasoning behind it (not hard), not keen on dying early. Later into the outbreak my reasoning was reinforced by accounts from friends working on the frontline in local hospital - in particular from a friend, a senior cardiac nurse, called back from retirement.