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.

It was awful and some of the threads on here re people being upset and stressed at the loss of their livelihood, then likely home got responses like "how selfish its just a house, am sure you can go the council if you end up homeless... how selfish of you, if we don't have total lockdown, someone might get covid and might pass it on to someone who's vulnerable and they could get sick, how selfish of you to consider yourself and family in anything"...

Better than ignoring it, @PregnantWithHorrors?

Yep. I actually think it's quite important that in threads where people are talking about genuine suffering and trauma, those who dismiss it are laughed at.

Completely agree @DoreenonTill8. It's not like it was a binary choice between lockdown and better support for the self employed either, so the arguments about selfishness were particularly daft. We could've had both.

There’s no need to be disturbed. ‘Hindsight’ is really important here.

Covid was an absolute unknown with the most known about it is the that it was similar to SARS. There was no known treatment, cure, certainty of transmission routes or identified demographic most at risk. These were all suppositions for quite some time partly due to the time it takes to verify something as factual and partly due to the changing nature of the virus.

Did our government (and others) get everything right? Absolutely not but they took decisions with information available at the time. With the limited resources available to tackle a contagion it only left the most basic of options - people needed to stay away from one another. Note this wasn’t to necessarily to protect anyone, although that was a popular personal motivation, it was to maintain a semblance of healthcare. Truthfully, if Covid killed in a couple of days we probably wouldn’t have took the measures we did (although I reckon many would have implemented their own), but for those it was going to kill (and still kills) it’s not a quick illness and it’s unpalatable to most societies to not provide palliative care for the sickest.

it’s unlikely that another pandemic in our lifetimes would require such dramatic action be taken, there wasn’t for Swine flu in 2009/10 nor any other pandemic going back to the Spanish flu. It’s something that sits in the background constantly, we got unlucky with Covid because it’s not what any population on earth was prepared for. They were all busy looking out for a strain of flu.

Some people were badly affected by the vaccine I'm sure they probably regret getting it

So noone should say they regret it? Not even those with severe vaccine injury?
This is exactly the attitude I refer to, 'who cares how it affected you.... 'the greater good' (I.e me and mine are OK, sod everyone else we're all that matter'?

I wonder what would happen if you were on holiday, I mean if you couldn't get back into your country where would you go?

I got a severe vaccine injury.

I don’t regret it. I wish l could have more.

Look at what happened with New Zealand. There were people who couldn't get back in for ages! I don't know what would've happened if a lot of other countries, the UK included, hadn't permitted NZ citizens to stay for sometimes lengthy periods though.

As I said, @Iwasafool, they could use quarantine on arrival - in hotels, as they did later on in the pandemic.

I think we should’ve done this. It was frustrating being told our movements were monitored and I was at risk of being fined if I was walking outside in south London without a good reason, while people were getting off planes at Heathrow then getting on the tube and buses with essential workers.

They could, but that requires being admitted to the country first. I think the question was about what happens if people aren't allowed to get to that stage.

I didn't know that. How awful to basically be a refugee because you went on holiday at the wrong time.

My sister was stuck in New Zealand due to this UK would let her in but NZ didn't let her out so she stayed. So presumably. People would need to stay where they were

I wasn’t an arch lockdowner so to speak but was an ICU nurse / student nurse in the first and second wave. I supported the first lockdown, was on the fence with the second.

We did see a reduction in covid ITU admissions, we were still overflowing but it reduced. However, I feel on the flip side non covid patients got sicker at home and treatments cancelled etc. It was a horrible time in the NHS and I’m sure the anti lockdown brigade would have expected to be intubated and ventilated and in ICU for a few months if they got covid, and I looked after a few who quickly changed their minds.

The fact the scum in Downing Street partied whilst my patients died without relatives will never leave me, and despite what I’ve just said I would not support another lockdown. In the event of another pandemic we should learn from covid, there were so many we intubated and ventilated who were never going to survive.

What I completely disagreed with was vaccine mandates. The attempts to bully and coerce NHS and social care staff into getting the vaccine with the threat of job losses disgusted me, I am vaccinated x3 and would not get anymore but it is nothing to do with me whether others do or do not get the vaccine, should be personal choice and certainly nothing to do with the govt. I also disagree with enforced mask wearing, should also be personal choice and with the exception of FFP3 I’m not convinced of the evidence.

I do feel our civil liberties have been encroached but they did so with 14 years of Tory rule anyway.
It was a strange time and I hope we don’t see a time like it again.

I was never in favour of lockdowns, there, I've said it.

I could see the logic in the first one so that the NHS wasn't overwhelmed but after that I couldn't understand why the restrictions couldn't just apply to those statistically most at risk.
We'll never know of course, but it wouldn't surprise me if greater damage was done BY the lockdowns than if we'd have just taken sensible precautions to help avoid spreading it. How do you count/measure up all the people that never had their medical screenings cancelled, vulnerable children/people who were forced to be with their abuser 24/7 for weeks in end, the long term effect on the economy from closing down, opening up, closing down etc?
btw, you can't have good public services, like a national health service, if there's no money, via a healthy economy, to pay for it.

I was amazed at the compliance shown by the citizens of this country (including many family and friends) - it was like they couldn't see the wider, long-term picture.
My SIL looked at me horrified when I suggested in August 2020 that the national focus should shift to getting the economy going, repairing kids damaged education/mental health and so forth.
but then SIL is high risk (very overweight) and had a state-funded secure job and income....oh, and the weather was lurvvvvly and they'd enjoyed so many fab family bike rides (FFS).

I could see the logic in the first one so that the NHS wasn't overwhelmed but after that I couldn't understand why the restrictions couldn't just apply to those statistically most at risk.
@MumOfTwoLittleOnes24 I'm sure it was because the government felt they could not possibly backtrack on the fear messaging they had used so far. "Anyone can catch it, anyone can spread it", "we will do whatever it takes to eradicate the virus", "nobody is safe until everybody is safe". In the end, they resorted to implying that lockdowns could only be fully lifted until almost everybody was vaccinated, hoping that people would believe the lie "vaccines prevent transmission".

We'll never know of course, but it wouldn't surprise me if greater damage was done BY the lockdowns than if we'd have just taken sensible precautions to help avoid spreading it. How do you count/measure up all the people that never had their medical screenings cancelled, vulnerable children/people who were forced to be with their abuser 24/7 for weeks in end, the long term effect on the economy from closing down, opening up, closing down etc?
btw, you can't have good public services, like a national health service, if there's no money, via a healthy economy, to pay for it.
This was what people like me were trying to to say at the very beginning. But the screams of the "don't kill granny" brigade were louder, especially on Mumsnet. It was as if the government hadn't even thought of this. "We've locked down. Oh, we have destroyed the economy. Now what? We can't admit to this."

And as for the country rebuilding after the damage caused by lockdowns: yes, this will be a massive task for Labour and beyond, but no party will admit that, since they were all cheerleaders for lockdown, and many were baying for more of it. There was a tacit agreement between the parties not to say a word about the lockdowns which they all cheered on, even though they all knew how much damage they caused.

wasn’t an arch lockdowner so to speak but was an ICU nurse / student nurse in the first and second wave. I supported the first lockdown, was on the fence with the second

Do you mean the November 2020 lockdown cos that was the second one

Depends where in the UK you live. Our second was September ‘20 till the start of December. When the rest of the country went into lockdown in December we were let out.

This is a false narrative.

We knew quite a lot, or could make good guesses, based on the type of virus it was. And it was fairly quickly that many of these guesses began to be confirmed.

Many people including medical people pointed this out and were ignored. People pointed out consequences of the restrictions, and were ignored or even punished.

That was one of the craziest things. The right to enter your own country and be there is the most basic right of citizenship. Even people who have a dread disease are allowed to enter their own country.

No where else is obliged to keep them, had others not stepped up the people affected would have been effectively stateless.

I also disagree with enforced mask wearing, should also be personal choice and with the exception of FFP3 I’m not convinced of the evidence.

Well there is none, is there.

The evidence that masking doesn't work with respiratory viruses has been accumulating for 30 years. The Cochrane Review published just recently says that the research still supports that, and that nothing from COVID tells us otherwise.

It's all just wishful thinking.

@TempestTost
As there's no evidence proving that masking doesn't work with respiratory viruses, does that mean surgeons don't need to use them any longer?

Nope, was more than happy to comply seeing as I have very vulnerable people in my family that COVID could have killed, still could.

I was also pregnant, high risk pregnancy, and eager to protect myself and my baby.

So, no. I have zero regrets.
The conspiracy theorists won't let it go though, it's getting very boring listening to them prattle on about it, just DESPERATE for something to validate them being selfish arseholes.