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.

Why did you find following the rules ‘upsetting’? Maybe they turned out to be strictly necessary, maybe not so much. But why would just mucking in with the rest of us upset you?

We abided by the spirit of the law, if not the letter, occasionally.
For example, we sometimes travelled to our 2nd home, door to door, not meeting anyone or mingling till we came home again.
I think lockdown was the best call, not perfect because esp in the early days, it was a scary unknown. I think it was probably declared on the late side here.
I was so relieved and proud when we developed and rolled out a vaccine. My elderly mother received it and so did we.

I regret it hugely. It ruined young people’s lives and their education. It gave some people the excuse to do nothing and be paid for it. So much will never recover. It was a massive mistake and I can only hope we learned from it although I seriously doubt it.

We didn't know at the time but I'm still glad we had lockdown and precautions due to family members being vulnerable. I think it was a time to reflect on what was important, it was huge. Lots of positives to pause the madness of the world for a while, also so many negatives of course. Sad thing is society soon went back to 'normal' with celebrity worship, no ongoing renewed respect for frontline workers, ot was simply an inconvenience for some. Xx

Exactly this! And those who were not working as nurses or doctors in north London hospitals on covid wards (and in some other areas) or in ICU will never understand the ravages covid 19 brought before the vaccines.

People saying goodbye via ipad video calls, oxygen saturations plummeting, proning patients as a last resort, looking at chest x rays of covid 19 patients and seeing destroyed lungs.

Yes, should have locked down in January 2020, better contact tracing early on, by late March so much damage done

Yes and no.
If I broke the first lock down rules I would've caught covid from my relatives that I really wished to visit. My son was a baby then.
But then I would've spent more time with my father (it was his last year on earth)

Ps but the public events HAD to stop. They were stopped far too late as it was

Ever heard the phrase same storm but different boats? For some the laptop class mucking in meant sunbathing and baking banana bread
For others it meant running around delivering stuff to the former. And the thanks they got? Back to the denigration of social housing tenants (where the fuck do people think those doing a lot of essential key worker jobs live) as soon as restrictions were over. After swearing blind that yeah we are all in this together. All in this together my arse. The fact that we went back to the default setting and so quickly proved that it was really about protecting our "betters"

People were moaned at like fuck on here for not having a spare bedroom or second bathroom to self isolate in. Probably by the same cohort who cheered on the bedroom tax. Has peoples faux concern morphed into any new campaigns to end the bedroom tax Of course it fucking hasnt!!!!!

When my son was born during lockdown he had to go to NICU and we didn’t know whether he would live or die. I was told the next day that the midwife looking after us had gone home and tested positive for Covid so we wouldn’t be allowed to visit him.

was it horrendous? Yes absolutely.

did I appreciate it was because me being with my baby wasn’t more important than the lives of the other babies on the unit? Also yes!

(he is fine and we are still teaching him every day not to be selfish)

lots of people were affected in different ways, and it really is time to make peace with it and be grateful that we are through it now

Your ability to turn anything into a rant about social housing is remarkable.

I agreed with and abided by lockdown at the time. But even then I thought it was bonkers to lockdown so late. If you are going to do it, you stop the planes and do it early. By the time it was rampaging across the country, it was too late to be effective.

Now I look back and think we betrayed our young people. Nurseries, schools and universities should all have stayed open. The social and educational set backs were not worth it when for most children and young people, the virus was mild.

Do I regret it, no. Would I do it again, absolutely not. This past year has been a difficult one as my father suffered two severe strokes and his consultant said they have seen a massive increase in strokes since the vaccines. My sister also has myocarditis so it’s like a double edged sword. If I dare mention this to anyone I’m a conspiracy theorist and people think I’m mad to question the narrative.

@Kinshipug I stand by what i said. Where the fuck do you think many essential workers live. But thank you for proving me right. Im no mug. You could see it from the start. We were all told to stay home while people were in and out of Heathrow like fiddlers elbows.

The social and educational set backs were not worth it when for most children and young people, the virus was mild.

but what were they supposed to do? Sleep at school? Isolate from the adults in their life when they were at home? It wasn’t the risk of them being unwell, it was the fact they could pass it on to their caregivers who could be more seriously ill

The last three pages have totally minimised the absolutely appalling way the government carried out lockdowns. I can just about accept one lockdown was needed (not three), but the campaign of fear? Partygate? Barnard Castle? Bullying and terrifying the public into compliance? Making it a matter of luck whether you qualified for support or not? Dodgy contracts for mates? Keeping kids out of school for much longer than needed? Totally stifling any debate? Bypassing Parliamentary scrutiny? Refusing to admit that lockdowns were causing massive harm? Causing suicides because of destroyed business? Trying to record every death as a covid death, to make the figures look more scary? Racing to the bottom with increasingly pointless roolz: tampons “not essential shopping”? Sacrificing children and their futures on the altar of “zero covid”? These must NEVER be forgiven or forgotten.

Should have been up to there caregivers

So thousands of kids can see their caregivers die knowing that they had given that to them? Yeah doesn’t sound traumatising at all

To be honest if you do regard Covid for a second… the sheer amount of people that won’t even vaccinate in general shows that you can’t make people give a shit about each other

Hardly. The vast majority of caregivers of young children are low risk, and provisions for home learning could have been made for those who weren't.

The lockdowns don't seem to be mentioned much as reasons why the NHS is struggling. But they have to be at least part of the problem. Perhaps it's a double edged sword though as who will ever know how many people died early due to untreated issues and therefore "saved" the NHS a ton of money?

I don’t understand this. What has housing got to do with lockdowns?
Also saying the essential workers all went back to ‘social housing tenants’ (rather generalised, and the essential workers I know don’t actually live in social housing), did you think they would all be given free houses after the pandemic or something?

I said a lot of essential workers not all of them. A lot of them live in social housing because of the shit pay. So when you denigrate SH tenants you denigrate them. Is that any clearer? SH isnt free btw You slipped a bit there.

I followed all the rules and guidance. I work in Adult Social Care (not frontline) and it was truly frightening.

I'm not sure I regret it but I am beyond furious at how Johnson and cronies broke all the rules. I wouldn't do the same again.

And still going.. we've got free council houses now

I never said social housing was free, I said did you expect them to be given free houses after the pandemic?
Seriously, what were you expecting to happen after the pandemic to magic the people out of social housing?