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.

No. I followed common sense and science.
It was a pandemic, meaning it affected everyone, not just me. I was all for protecting vulnerable people even if I didn’t know them.

My Dad starting showing signs of illness during lockdown and we couldn't get near a GP. He was also having monthly blood tests due to medication that stopped. By the time these resumed, he was already terminally ill.

Lockdown cost him dearly. And hundreds of thousands of others who are all the victims of the draconian lockdown that was never truly necessary. MN was utterly toxic but I think that's due to the high %age of users with MH issues who still see Covid as a threat. I'd add in that my Dad caught Covid and even with cancer/failing liver, survived it.

@Iwasafool the whole point is the "rules" just stalled it long enough for mildly effective vaccines to be developed. It wouldn't have prevented Covid long term, it hasn't. People had to get back to normal at some point. But everyone who wants to stay at home still can if that's what they like.

We stuck to the rules. With hindsight they were probably over strict but I have no regrets. We did the best we could with what we knew at the time.

They shut the world down, so no. No one knew what we were potentially dealing with.

No I don’t regret following the rules.
We had no idea how the virus was spread or how damaging it could be and to what demographic in those early days. Lockdown was implemented a couple of weeks too late in my opinion.

If the same thing happened I would do it again, however I think fewer people would given the awful double standards shown by our government.

I don't regret following the rules. I do regret getting the vaccine, but I believe we (most of us) did the best we could with the knowledge that we had at the time, for ourselves, our families, and for our fellow human beings.

No, I think that if we'd all locked down sooner (and closed/vetted the borders) and more people had stuck to it, it would have been over faster and fewer people would have died or got long term illnesses.

It's the long covid kids I feel sorry for, they won't be able to have lives. I had long covid and I would rather have died than live like that my whole life.

The only regrets I have about decisions made during covid are:

1. the ones politicians made about sending covid positive old people back to old people's homes (because pretending even now they didn't think a contagious illness would spread, especially among the most vulnerable people, is for the birds).

2. the crap PPE deals made to line certain people's pockets

3. eat out to help out and the 50k+ given to businesses that was so ridiculously fraudulent, so many businesses have just taken the money, shut down, and optionally reopened under a new name (or just taken the money). So much fraud. We have an international business, and the thing US and Canada did of giving everyone cash payouts was much fairer and much better for our business as it made people happy about spending, not scared like UK people.

Honestly it made me sick - the hypocrisy of people feeling smug that they were never leaving their homes & therefore being “good” when large chunks of society had no such luxury. And not even recognising their privilege.

I think it bought out the worst in a lot of people. There was also a lack of understanding that it’s easier for people with middle class jobs to self isolate for 10 days or whatever it was after a positive Covid test than people who didn’t get paid if they didn’t attend the workplace. I was lucky that I did get full pay when I had to self isolate but lots of people didn’t & I saw people getting savaged on Mumsnet because they had to go back to work earlier than they should according to “the rules” because they had a mortgage or rent to pay.

"Lockdowns were for a relatively short time."

That depended on where you lived.
I lived in an area where we had extended restrictions and this has decimated our hospitality industry.
My child missed a significant chunk of reception and year 1 and this has had a profound effect on his year group.
Working full time and home-schooling broke me and it has taken me a very long time to recover.

💯 this. No one thinks about the cost beyond stopping Covid. People got advanced cancer they could have stopped earlier, mentally unwell mothers harmed themselves and at risk children went unchecked. No one checked on my baby at all. I could have sold her to the circus and no one would have known.

I was never an arch lockdowner (or even much of a lockdowner) and I think the lockdown has either led to or directly resulted in the following:

1. NHS semi-collapse as bad health mounted up and conditions went undiagnosed
2. Massive mental health damage to teenagers resulting in an epidemic of depression, anxiety, EDs and gender dysphoria
3. Education disruption
4. Poor socialisation of young children - my teacher sibling's school calls them 'coronials' because they are so different to where they should be that this needs to be accounted for in the classroom
5. Greater smartphone addiction
6. More rudeness, hostility and aggression on our streets
7. Economic malaise especially amongst small businesses
8. Decline in the workforce meaning further stagnation of productivity
9. Higher taxes cos we paid ourselfs to stay at home
10. Inflation from Ukraine war significantly worsened by QE to pay for staying at home

So...yeah. It wasn't good. We should've done like Sweden and refused lockdown but asked most vulnerable and their families to isolate.

I think the not prioritising schools and how to get them back as soon as possible was a mistake

The first lockdown was I think entirely needed when people were figuring things out even to some extent the 2021 lockdown

the arch lockdowners to me were the likes of Nanny something and someone else who wanted harder stricter lockdowns than the ones we got. It was always a balance and it was fairly clear by alpha that it was never going to go away so trying to do so would cause far more damage

I don't regret the lockdown as such, however I wish the whole thing was better executed

I suppose we should have just let it run like the influenza of 1918 and let 50 million die world wide. Then at least we wouldn't have been controlled by the government who just wanted to make things up and 'profit' from it. Us sheep just went along with it.

This.

Not in the least. You only had to look at the statistics to be able to see that, pre-vaccines, lockdown saved thousands of lives.

I stuck to the rules as there was no other option really. I was working in schools at the time so still going in to work to oversee the key worker kids. Wore a mask when required, no problem.

Didn't have any vaccines and still struggling not to feel angry about how I was treated for that. As a young healthy person who had previously had covid I didn't see the need, particularly as it was obvious from fairly on that it wasn't preventing infection or transmission. If I genuinely felt I was putting people at risk by not having it of course I would have done. Being made to feel like a terrible person on here and in real life, planning to not be allowed to go to gigs or bars with friends or travel, it was all completely insane.

I look back and think it was all a bit bonkers. Loads of people I know have got Covid right now, it seems to be back on the rise, and are just wandering about like normal - so it seems mad to think of all the isolating and everything that we all did. I don't know a single person in real life who died from/with Covid or who developed long covid, so while these things are both horrendous, I don't actually think they are as prevalent as people think. I also think the damage to people's mental health as a result of the lockdowns was just as damaging in some cases.

My own son started primary school in 2020 and it was terrible, he developed awful anxiety to the extent that he could barely function at school and became a wreck at home and it took him about 18 months to recover.

That said, we stuck to the rules. I was wary of the vaccines though so only had the first two and no others, I'm glad we didn't vaccinate our children (not anti vax in general, they've had all the others). I wouldn't stick to the rules again though, and I don't think many people would either.

I was terrified of getting Covid. As pp have said, it has mutated a lot since 2020 but at that time, it was a serious illness with unknown long-term effects. I turned 30 in the first lockdown but I was obese and I vaped.

I followed the rules to the letter, quit vaping cold turkey, and have lost almost 9 stone since then. The loss of my routine saw my (already tenuous) grip on my life crumble and over 2021 and 2022 I was diagnosed with autism, ADHD, dyspraxia, Irlen syndrome, PoTS, and Ehlers-Danlos syndrome.

I joke that I went into lockdown "a bit weird" and came out of it with a blue badge. Obviously I always had these conditions but lockdown shone a spotlight on them and it was a disorienting period of extreme change during an awful time on a global scale. I don't regret following the rules though, and I'm disgusted by the behaviour of the government at the time.

In the end, I didn't catch Covid for the first time until 2023 - then again just a few weeks ago - but it still knocked me on my arse for weeks. I can only imagine if I'd caught it at the beginning.

I regret how strictly I followed it for the first few weeks. Me and my now DH weren't living together at that point, and for the first few weeks both lived alone in our separate houses, not seeing another person (we couldn't live together because of our pets). After a few weeks I saw how ridiculous it was and we went between each others houses. They really should have implemented the single person bubble from the start, it was ridiculous they expected people to be completely alone for weeks.

During COVID I lived abroad in a country that was super strict on lockdown - you didn't dare break the rules! Lockdown was hard and fast, and then it was over in 2 months. There was almost no COVID, and by the time the rules relaxed, the country was opening and COVID did start spreading, over 90% of the population was vaccinated. They were relatively few deaths. I felt safe and I wasn't actually worried for ourselves, whereas I was very worried about family and friends back home.

Of course it wasn't fun at the time - we had restrictions and wore masks much longer than the UK did. But I'm glad I didn't get COVID unvaccinated.

That was obvious at the time and now

We obeyed the law and the only 2 people we saw maybe 4 times was my sister who stayed in all the time. We work from home so actually loved the quiet and loved our quality time together working on the garden etc. I just wish even today that people with colds who sneeze over everyone without using a tissue would wear a mask.

Wow, you’ve been through a tough time - sorry to hear that.

I’m very impressed by your weight loss success though - congratulations on that! At least one positive thing came out of the experience.