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.

We weren't impacted much, we have a large garden and are not very social! We cheated a bit went to the farm shop the long way round for a bit of a drive, my DH had a critical worker exemption for some travel rules, he had to go places for safety reasons.

The end of our garden backs onto fairly secluded common land and the amount of people you could hear out there chatting, laughing, fooling around, kids playing, it was pretty clear many people were totally ignoring the rules.

A good example of being expected to protect our "betters" were the masks at award ceremonies but only for those working there not for the celebrities attending. (And before some smart fucker says "there were no award ceremonies during the lockdowns which is the reply i got when ive pointed this out before) im obvs talking about when lockdowns were lifted but restrictions were still in.
This masks for the help but not the celebs was a really really bad look.

It did, because it had to.

Which goes to my point. We all know there were lockdowns harder than the ones in the UK. It doesn't follow that we could've emulated them here. Our lockdowns were based on our conditions. As an example, we don't have anything like the police numbers needed to have been able to monitor the amount of time the population spent out of the house.

I don't understand why more wasn't done first before lockdown. We seemed to go from normal life to lockdown over a couple of weeks, just a very brief window where large events were cancelled.
Why didn't they cancel large gatherings before? Stop flights? Suddenly I'm not allowed basic contact with anyone, when a week or two earlier people were still gathering in large groups!

If you ignored the whole thing. Met friends etc then there's nothing you say in your defence that can make that sound ok. Many people just couldn't conceive of a situation where the welfare of others mattered more than their convenience.

If you felt contempt for the welfare of the medically weak we should note that for when you're old enough to be one yourself.

Some of you claim that Covid was just the flu based on your medical training, your research and the fact that you saw that on Facebook.

Others talk about the "the unprecedented mental health crisis in children" as though that justified their actions, but there is little evidence for that that didn't come from Facebook. Having your parents die would have been stressful too.

Then there are those saying "but lockdown didn't work" based on the fact that people still died.

Presumably they didn't listen when it was explained to them the first 20-30 times that it was to slow down the spread and hopefully reduce the numbers a little too.

Even if lockdown had saved no one (and that is ridiculous) it misses the point.

No one knew what to do to save the lives of all the people at risk. There isn't a book where you can look in the back for the answers. You have to do your best with what you know today. So we did and we got some of it wrong. Locking down too late in some cases.

We set up huge emergency hospitals but because we had slowed it down they were not needed. This was seen as a failure by the hard of thinking who presumably think an air bag never used was a scam.

Why did Strictly go ahead then Should have been cancelled. Ditto Im A celeb Ditto Dancing On Ice

I suspect there was still a level of denial, before the first lockdown, @BathingOnPeriod - or maybe optimism that, as an island, it wouldn’t be as bad here. Plus a bit of pressure from the organisers of big events not to cancel them - the Tories, as capitalists, would not want to affect a big business like Cheltenham Races.

We didn’t have a guidebook or any real experience in coping with a pandemic then - if it happens again in our lifetimes, we have no such excuse.

They formed bubbles, I remember the strictly pros all locked down together and all their dances were done in advance. They did something clever with the pros and celebs too and of course they were testing all the time. I guess the others were similar, they did explain in detail how they managed strictly, but I've forgotten most of it.

So what would we do next time with all that experience? Probably still have no clue how to handle it, lockdown half the population complains, don't lockdown and the other half complain. What if the next one is very serious for children not older people? It would be another poison chalice for whoever was in Government at the time.

Poisoned chalice is exactly what it'd be.

We never really faced the possibility of basic services not functioning during the 2020-21 lockdowns. This was because the people who we need to go out of the house to deliver them were mostly not frightened enough to refuse to work. There's nothing to say that couldn't happen in the future. I'd think if we get one where the risk is higher to people of working age, it could get much worse than we saw in 2020-1.

Many people just couldn't conceive of a situation where the welfare of others mattered more than their convenience.

The welfare of my 83 year old dad who was absolutely bereft at the loss of the woman he had loved for 60 years was my priority and not a mere "convenience", The rule that he should isolate on his own for 2 weeks after her death (the whole "bubble" thing hadn't been implemented then), went out of the window and he stayed with me and DP.

Having your parents die would have been stressful too.

Both of mine did (dad died of cancer 6 weeks after getting his diagnosis and 7 months after mum went), and the sense of isolation me and my siblings (1 of whom lives overseas so had to watch mum's funeral over Facetime ....zoom funerals weren't a thing then), felt was something I hope you never have to experience, so you can get in the bin with the emotional guilt tripping.

I don't know what we are supposed to know now that we didn't know before. Can anyone here enter a parallel universe where there was no lockdown and compare the outcome.

From my own POV no I do not regret it. I was being treated for advanced blood cancer and didn't know if I would survive. I didn't respond to the treatment and had to go into a trial which was very high risk. A cold, flu or covid could have polished me off. I am now recovered and grateful to every single non vulnerable person who did their best for the vulnerable strangers they didn't know about.

I was shouted at for ignoring arrows in a garden centre. The stupidity of some people knew no bounds. We'd had lunch in the cafe and I got up to pay. The cafe was empty apart from us but there were some people waiting to be seated. To follow the arrows meant walking all the way out of the cafe and reentering with the people waiting so I cut across the cafe so I could avoid everyone. That got me a right telling off from the woman behind the counter! Talk about no common sense!

So sorry that you had to experience that. Glad you are recovered. 🌺

My DH (fully vaccinated) died of it in 2023 - it’s still serious with some people.

For others, it’s not. 🤷‍♀️

Interesting question, @FeatherBoas - I’d hope we would do more to keep children in schools - daily testing for staff and pupils, perhaps. I’d also hope that there would be more targeted support for children who couldn’t be in school - both educational support and psychological support.

We could also cancel big gatherings like festivals, sporting events, concerts etc - I know that wouldn’t be popular, but better to cancel things like this which aren’t vital.

If we can catch things before a pandemic arrives in the UK, we should put quarantine in place for anyone coming into the country from abroad. We might not be able to keep a pandemic out of the country, but perhaps we could slow its arrival and its spread, possibly allowing for the development of vaccines before things got too bad.

I’m sure there are other things that could be learned from the covid pandemic, which could make how we handle another pandemic better.

I have to think that we can learn from the covid pandemic - the alternative (that we don’t learn lessons, and make as many mistakes next time) is too bleak.

I’m so sorry.

How can you have no second thoughts about a policy that destroyed so many lives and that benefited only a privileged few (who had large houses and who could work from home)?

How can you have no second thoughts about a policy that destroyed so many lives and that benefited only a privileged few (who had large houses and who could work from home)?

Erm, well it also benefited all those who survived as a result of lockdown, who would have otherwise died.

We live in a tiny house surviving on disability benefits. We are very very far from privileged. Shielding saved my son’s life and potentially mine. I have no regrets about the 14months we had to shield to save our lives esp as so many people didn’t care what happened to us as they ‘broke the rules’ and didn’t care about protecting those most at risk

I've no regrets about locking down. I'd do it again if needed.

What was your lockdown like for all the 'Id happily do it again'? Stuck in a flat on the 12th floor, no garden, 3 kids and separated from an elderly parent while still having to go out and work a mw physical job? And then getting guilt tripped by sanctimonious fuckers for going to see your elderly isolated parent? That was the experience of one of the school mums of my dc friend. Never again for me, it really showed me the societal split of those who see others as only there to serve them and meet their needs.

I was in a 2 bed flat on the 2nd floor, a newborn baby and a tween, separated from my parents. I wasn't at work because I was on maternity leave but my husband was still in work as a teacher with keyworkers' children. I have no regrets that we did what the science suggested was the best option to protect everyone's health and the NHS. I do think the government could have handled it much better, but they didn't and we had to do what we had to do to get through the situation we ended up in.

And killed those who couldn't get medical treatment as their GP wouldn't see them

Sadly I do know this happened and it's terrible. But are you saying more covid deaths would have been preferable?

(ETA for transparency: NC fail but I'm not sock puppeting, merely NC'd recently for different reasons and the previous name came up.)