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.

Exactly, and great example in pp where poster says they were OK because they only went between their 2 homes...
As @Jenniferbooth seems to be saying this 'I'm alright Jack' stance totally disregards the experience of those trapped in high-rise flats with no green space close by.

Or going out to work everyday leaving your children isolated at home. Facing empty supermarket shelves when you get to the shop in the evening after work.

I'm glad I'm not the only one who found benefits for us as a family from lockdown. I acknowledge we were in a fortunate position as I was on mat leave so could look after our 2 girls (6 months and 3 at start of lockdown) whilst my husband worked from home. I made me slow down and enjoy simple activities with then at home rather than rushing to nursery, playdates and baby groups. The girls saw much more of their Dad as he wasn't commuting an hour each way every day, he ate lunch with us.
And the consequence was that he now works from home 3-4 days out of five,so they still get to see much more of him, he gets to attend their school events whereas before he would have had to book a day off, he can now attend for 30 mins and work 30 mins later.
The 2nd lockdown was the driver for us to move out of our London flat to a village in Buckinghamshire, we had re evaluated what was important to us as a family and our priorities had changed, we now live in a beautiful place and our girls go to a wonderful village school. I can't know for sure, but if lockdown hadn't hapenned, I think we would still be in our London flat, so in a strange way I am thankful for it.

My father in law passed away during the first lockdown, and it was really tough that we then couldn't see our mother in law to support her, and I admit we did break the rules and she came and sat on the other side of our lounge, all with masks on, windows open,testing before visits, as we just couldnt leave her on her own at that difficult time. If they fined us for that, so be it, but I wouldn't have changed it

And then when the first vaccination rounds started the howls of indignation on here by SOME of those who'd received them that anyone who hadn't dared to go out and be in their vicinity.
Remember a poster who stated that we should be going to work and nothing else. Shopping and anything else should be done online and our germ ridden children should be locked in the house alone whilst we worked to serve them. The entitledness and selfish behavior was off the scale!

I'm not sure what you mean by arch lockdowners, surely we all should have followed guidelines while scientists were learning more about the virus. Personally I think we should have locked down earlier and harder to get it under control faster, then we could have avoided the mental and emotional effects that prolonged school closures have had on young people. I was both shielding as someone with an autoimmune condition and work in secondary schools for context.

Plus stuff like piling on to people who said they'd gone into another aisle in the supermarket to pick up something that wasn't an absolute life-or-death necessity. I vividly remember someone screaming 'YOU ARE THE PROBLEM' at some poor poster who'd been unwise enough to disclose that they'd nipped into the biscuit aisle for some shortbread, or something like that. The thing is, it wouldn't surprise me in the slightest if some of those same people have now completely changed their tune and decided the precautions weren't needed and it was all needless hysteria.

I was stick without seeing people and loved lockdown with my kids.

If we'd locked down earlier we would have fewer deaths in 2020 but more later on. That was what happened in other countries.

And I am not sure what you mean by "harder". "Harder" such as having silly rules about only being able to use certain supermarkets, or not go out for exercise, or have to stay within 3 miles of home? Those sorts of completely ridiculous and ineffective rules which would prevent precisely no cases of covid?

Then you weren't alone

People who had to go out for work, caring responsibilities etc were absolutely NOT irresponsible, @Gogogo12345. But it is logical to me to think that, if there were overall fewer people on the streets (because those who didn’t NEED to go out, stayed at home), that will have reduced the risk of getting covid for those who ^^did have to go out.

We are looking at the lockdowns and all of the covid policies with 20:20 hindsight, and that does make it easier to see where the policies etc were wrong, or where there were opportunities to mitigate the negative effects of them - but at the time, the country was going through something that was unprecedented in most people’s lifetimes. I think most of us did our best, with the information we had available at the time.

If, heaven forbid, something like this happens again, though, we will have no excuse not to learn from Covid and not repeat the mistakes that were made, and to hold the Government’s feet to the fire to ensure that pandemic policies are better than the covid ones.

I think those who wanted harder lockdowns don't seem to grasp, with the first one especially, it couldn't have been any harder. Schools shut, almost everything apart from supermarkets and petrol stations closed, people being essentially confined to their homes, I fail to see how that could be any harder. I swear some people would have only been happy had every household had a security guard or police officer stood outside not letting you leave.

It's a good point, I don't know how people think we could practically have achieved stricter lockdowns, as opposed to earlier/longer, with the constraints we had in the UK. There's a reason our government leaned so heavily on psychological tactics.

Tbh, if I was on my own Id also have enjoyed it, my ideal lifestyle pre-kids was living in a lighthouse or monastery :P

It could have been harder- if you saw what was going on in China.

No, it couldn't. China had a vast, already existing coercive state apparatus. Literal gulags, the social credit system, a fully authoritatian system.

We didn't have any of those, and nor were we going to be able to cobble them together at short notice. This is what I mean by the constraints we had in the UK.

Not sure if you ever visited China or only know it from fairy tales, but people tend to live a pretty regular lifestyle on a daily basis. And it was just hard on them to be often separated from families for weeks when they had to self isolate outside their homes as it was for you sitting in your home and going to a supermarket. .

I quietly broke all the rules. My actions were only curtailed by people who kept the rules.
I just did exactly what I wanted to do. I went out every day. I went driving on near empty roads. I went to different supermarkets whenever I wanted.
I have always washed my hands and been very cleanliness and germ aware and the ‘ ‘wash your hands’ campaign irritated me. What the hell did people do before? Did they go to the loo and NOT wash their hands?
I found all the drama extremely tiresome. Clapping every Thursday FFS?
But I did appreciate being cut off from the tossers I didn’t want to see 🤣

The point is that the Chinese state had a much larger and more coercive apparatus available to it than ours, which is why they were able to do so much more to restrict people. You can't possibly think our police would've been able to eg enforce the sort of immediate quarantining you're talking about here, on a widespread level?

You have just said you had your kids there. So not alone

The washing hands thing has really done a number on my ASD 20 year old. His sixth form had sinks outside with only cold water. He developed Raynaud's and even now his hands turn almost blue. His poor hands are in such a state and nothing seems to be working. It's a battle every day to get him out of the mindset of washing his hands every hour.

My DIL's father died of Covid. Several relatively young, normally very fit people that we know were seriously ill, some for weeks.

My DH has a dodgy heart so we were ultra-careful and didn't mix with people anywhere for most of the pandemic, having everything delivered and staying at a distance from delivery drivers. We're very grateful that this meant that he didn't catch it and die.

My hairdresser has been left with a scarred lung from Covid, making her vulnerable to chest infections and breathlessness.
Despite being fully vaccinated I had it myself, albeit not very seriously though I did feel really awful for a week and not well for another. During the time I had it I isolated myself so that DH would not catch Covid.
I heard of somebody who caught it on a flight recently and, before becoming ill, visited my friend with a heart condition.
No, I certainly do not regret the lockdowns and wish they had been implemented earlier and that the breaks in between had not happened. People died because they met family for Christmas.

Oh, your poor son. I am so sorry. 🌺

It's interesting that 4 years down the line the people who were me me me are the same lot who are still saying, "yeah yeah a load of people died, a load of people were bereaved, but what about me?" 😭

I don’t regret it, no. It was the best available recommendation at the time; plus UK lockdowns weren’t even the strictest. If there were even more deaths, it would have caused even more outrage. And what helped was vaccination, not ‘natural immunity’.

what I do regret is billions inefficiently spent on PPE without attempts to centralise it/save money , and giving out these contracts to Tories’ mates. Also mess with care homes. UK should have been better prepared, and preparations like that should be handled centrally to maximise efficiency, not separately by NHS Trusts

Many countries in Europe had it harder, you needed a literal permission slip to go out for anything, were fined by police if you exceeded the time, and weren’t allowed to just go for a walk once a day.
in the UK it mostly relied on people’s goodwill and honesty