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.

I think this was the way it was for the majority of people. Wary because we were concerned about catching a new and quite frightening sounding illness but not so much that we couldn't use a bit of common sense eg if it's safe to meet in a park, then it's safe to meet in a garden (before rules changed saying you could do this) and whilst we wouldn't have had a party ourselves, wouldn't have reported neighbours who obviously had more than 6 guests in their house .

Absolutely you were right to spend time with your dad . At the time of the lockdowns, my mum was in a care home with dementia and we obviously had to abide by their rules, and my dad had passed away the previous year, but had they still be living at home there is no way that I wouldn't have visited them and helped if they needed me .

@Refractory

would love a civil conversation about this.

And yet you haven't returned to the thread . Assuming you are just looking to whip up animosity again .

But what about those that died as a result of draconian lockdowns, who were unable to be seen by a doctor so that their illnesses had progressed to untreatable stages?
Don’t they matter?

Are you still washing your shopping? 🤣

@GreekDogRescue

Of course they mattered, but there was a huge influx of critically ill patients needing urgent intensive care, ambulances, resources. If someone is unable to breathe and in pain, do you say

1. sorry you’re not getting an ambulance/doctor/pain relief because we can’t resource that : we’ve got to do our cancer screening.

or

2. deploy your resources as best you can so the person struggling to breath and in pain gets help/urgent cancer care gets help - and control the spread of the virus - so you can get your cancer screening done ASAP and the demand on all your hospital resources settles??

I'm not sorry but that's a pathetic response.

Exactly, @TippyTiger.

@GreekDogRescue - (love the nickname - we have a cypriot rescue dog) - the people to blame for the deaths you are referring to are the successive governments who cut all the slack out of the NHS.

When I trained, it was not unusual to have empty beds on the wards, and it was unusual for patients to end up waiting on trolleys in A&E for ages, before getting a bed - even if it wasn't on the right ward for the speciality they needed.

But this slack in the system cost money - you had to have enough staff to care for the patients if all the beds were full, and successive governments looked at the NHS as if it were a business, so empty beds and the staff needed to run them, were seen as financial losses that could be eliminated, so the 'business' was more economical. Those of us working in hospitals tried to explain why you need some slack in the system - to cope with unexpected demands - but we were not listened to.

Maybe if we had been listened to, the NHS would have been better able to cope with the insane demands of Covid, whilst also dealing efficiently with people with other illnesses.

What about when the person who is ill but does not have covid also has breathing difficulties and pain?

@Gogogo12345

Then they SHOULD get help, they’d be critical/emergency case. But if you’ve got a huge number of critically ill patients, and 20 ambulances queuing outside hospital - you NEED to reduce the demand on staff/resources so they can get to as many critically ill as poss. If you needed and ambulance, and it was an emergency, they weren’t saying : oh you’ve had a heart attack, but because it’s not Covid you don’t count…we’ll just leave you and only get a Covid case…

I think the question is why weren't they seen by their doctor because some of us certainly were. I was really impressed at my local surgery, one of their first actions was to get builders in and the windows into consulting room were turned into doors so you didn't have to go through reception. When I had to go I had to go to the car park, phone to say I was there and the doctor opened one of the new doors and called me in when she was ready to see me. One consulting room was designated the "red" room and if you had suspected covid you went in that one. The system worked well, they did do more online and phone consultations but none of us were left without a doctor. Maybe some surgeries weren't as proactive about seeing people but put the blame where it belongs.

That I can answer because as previously stated My Mum was one of the victims of this COVID obsession. She kept trying to get an appointment. The doctor would only do phone appointments and diagnosed her as having a chest infection over the phone and prescribed antibiotics to be collected from the pharmacy. Never once was she actually examined. 3 times she was prescribed different antibiotics while getting worse and worse.

She didn't have a chest infection at all. She had heart failure. She died in March 21

Oh and it wasn't unusual. My local surgery ( miles away from mums) was also not seeing any patients in person

@Gogogo12345

I’m really sorry to hear what happened to your Mum. I think so many of our views are down to our personal circumstances at the time.
I sadly don’t think it was a Covid obsession : I think it was an attempt to reduce viral spread and reduce demand on scant resources. But in your Mum’s case that failed and I understand why you feel angry.

It wasn't just my mum though was it. There were thousands of people affected the same way.

And a great deal of people certainly were obsessed with covid

@Gogogo12345 - as I’ve said, I think the blame for what happened to your mother and others lies with those who have gradually whittled away any slack in the NHS, so that it was stretched way beyond its normal capacity by the covid pandemic. The impact of covid on hospitals was huge - having to turn ordinary wards and operating theatres/recovery rooms into ICUs was unprecedented, and if there had been even more covid patients, that situation would only have got worse.

I believe that the policies aimed at limiting the spread of infection were necessary, and that they helped to limit the overwhelming demand on the hospitals. If there had been more slack in the system, this could have been used to care for people like your mum, who didn’t have covid but were in as much need.

It does sound as if your mum’s surgery did not cope as well as some, with covid, and I do think that this is one of the things that should be a major learning point, if we face another pandemic - how to maintain care for patients who don’t have the pandemic illness.

I also think you are right that people were obsessed with covid - but I am not surprised by that, or critical of it. For the first time in most of our lifetimes, we were facing a world wide pandemic, and seeing a huge death toll, even amongst fit, healthy individuals. People were scared.

The doctor surgery should've been an easy one. Just take a bloody test before entering the building.

I had to do that to go into a hospital for cancer operation. No reason it couldn't have been done for the GP.

Strangely enough they were happy enough to send mum to a large centre to have the jab. So what about all the people there possibly spreading the virus?. I don't see if that's ok to attend without testing first then it's not ok to attend GP surgery with a negative test

It's strange that op finished her post with "would love a civil conversation about this" but hasn't actually taken part in any conversation

You are making good points, @Gogogo12345 - if we do face another pandemic, then maintaining access to GP care has to be a priority - that is an important learning point.

Re. the vaccination centres - I suspect someone somewhere did the projections and decided the benefits outweighed the risks. Maybe one day we will find out, and see those calculations - who knows.

I do tend to think that, at the time, most people were doing their best, with the information that was available, they at an individual and community level and, to a certain extent, at the governmental level. That doesn’t mean that every decision made was right, or the best choice - but it was an unprecedented situation, and there was no guidebook.

Well that shows where the fault lies, not with people who agreed with lockdowns, not with covid, definitely with a surgery and doctors who wouldn't do their jobs. Surgeries were open and people were seen and it is shameful that your mother wasn't seen, have you raised it with them?

My dad started complaining of feeling unwell in August 2020. The Dr refused to see him in person despite dad telling him that he felt there was something blocking his "food pipe" and he was losing weight. The DR insisted it was just grief (due to mum dying in very late March from covid), and told dad to take Gaviscon. This went on for a month until dad started bringing up blood. He was taken by ambulance to A&E where a scan showed a tumour in his oesophagus. That was in the middle of September....6 weeks later dad was dead. Just 1 F2F appointment would have been enough to see that dad was seriously unwell (weight loss, skin colour etc), but no, it wasn't covid so it didn't matter. It's probable that an earlier diagnosis would have made no difference to the outcome, but at least he could have been spared 5 weeks of pain and uncertainty.

@Dontcallmescarface so sorry to hear that

I'm sorry to hear this.

As I said it wasn't one surgery - it was many many surgeries who wouldn't see people in person. Just because you may have been one of the lucky ones doesn't mean it was the same for all. I know in many GP surgery's ( not even to do with covid) there's a group of " regulars" who almost always seem to get appointments when no one else can. But from what I know very few surgeries in our town we're seeing patients IN PERSON. Not everything can be diagnosed over the phone.

I think @Iwasafool’s point still stands, @Gogogo12345 - the fault for surgeries not doing face to face appointments lay with whoever was making that policy - the government/health authorities/individual practices - not with the people who agreed with lockdowns. Yes, they were making those decisions due to covid, but as I said, none of us had a guidebook to dealing with a pandemic, and I think most people were doing the best they could, with the information they had available at the time, in an atmosphere of National and international fear.

It must be a learning point, though - if there is another pandemic, regular GP services must be a priority too.

In my personal experience, one thing I’ve been aware of - and very much aware of since Covid is ‘shirking’.

I think - unfortunately, some people/professionals used the excuse of Covid to absolve responsibility. Which, in principle - shouldn’t have happened.

Our government at the time were so guilty of this.