To ask what we SHOULD have done during the COVID pandemic

[tunainatin]

So I realise the government made mistakes at the time of COVID. They also acted completely immorally by not following the rules they imposed on everyone else.
However, I suspect any government in this country would have been criticized whatever their response.

I was mulling over the rules and restrictions and trying to work out which ones were actually worthwhile. Some rules seemed so petty (e.g. the one a day walk) but there has to be a line drawn somewhere, otherwise the parks would have been full of people.

Once we were allowed to attend things with restrictions in place, I went to an event which was meant to have masks and social distancing but everyone kind of got carried away and forgot about. Everyone got COVID, including me, badly, and one person was hospitalised.

So if you were the government what would you have done during the pandemic. Which of the bizarre rules we followed do you think saved lives, and which just causes stress or distress?

I'm not sure what you mean here, or how it relates to my post. Could you do me a favour and clarify?

I had no problems about the rules (expect maybe the rule of 6 one which seemed daft as they would be 6 people from 6 different households but you couldn't meet 7 people from 2 different households).
Social distancing was necessary at that time and without making it compulsory it wouldn't have happened.
However I do think everyone should have followed the rules. Not just some people.

I’m saying that what you are saying about what Labour asked for at the time, and crucially why, doesn’t fit with my actual memories. People were saying they wanted longer lockdowns at the time and I was arguing that that was wrong. It’s still wrong. I remember it.

Starting earlier wouldn't have mattered, a virus like this will always come back once people start mixing again.

Places like NZ which are naturally isolated were able to try this to some extent, but in the end it's become endemic in all of those places.

But it's been admitted by authorities everywhere that social distancing rules were totally made up. People who study transmission say they make no sense.

If we had controlled amounts of virus coming in it might have helped. Plus earlier and harder for the necessary repeats would have helped limit them too. Instead of opening schools, letting everyone mix and then closing them the next day, for eg. When there had been stacks of medical advice not to allow them to open.

Citation required.

We were, and we did

Exactly. All you can do is slow it down a bit for a while but that comes at a HUGE cost as we have seen

The damage and harm wasn't communicated but the risk of the virus was ramped up, this meant the public demanded lockdowns but it was based on a skewed campaign

Boris was told by Macron that he needed to close the boarders as to wait would be too late. I would have taken his advice. In fact the borders were never properly closed. I would have attended the Cobra meetings and listened to the experts. I would have followed New Zealand's example. I would not have had parties when the rest of the population was dying or giving birth alone.

I would not have had Eat out to help out. I would have made sure that the police and councils were equipped to deal with those having parties, being ridiculously noisy, clubs being open.

But we didn't matter. He was willing to sacrifice us on his altar of being compared to Winston Churchill.

I think extra restrictions is a better way of putting it than longer lockdowns, as a lot of the statements made relate to things other than lockdown duration. Also Labour were totally rudderless in March 2020, so in practical terms there's not a lot they could have done. But there's no doubt that Labour called for restrictions on top of those the Tories implemented. Whether or not one thinks they were right is a separate point.

Labour would have delayed the successful 2021 summer unlockings

The West should've learned more from Asian countries like South Korea and Japan, who implemented excellent contact tracing and masking measures. In fact, we still have a lot to learn from them.

They said they would, but I doubt it. They'd have been subject to the same political limitations as the Tories had they been the ones in office, and the public were moving past it by that time. Opposition parties come out with a lot of things that aren't practical, it's the nature of the game. Similarly, whichever Reform politician it was who said they wouldn't have locked down in March 2020 is also wrong. Everyone would've, it was politically unavoidable.

@IAmNotAMorningPerson so many people on here complained they couldn’t wear masks for a variety of reasons and no way would everyone complied with Asian style track and trace

They did the best they could. That's it.

Because I think education is essential. Plenty of people had to go to work: nhs, police, supermarket employees etc. I think schools should have remained open as remote learning was pretty useless. I am a teacher so I wouldn’t have been asking anyone to do anything I wasn’t willing to do myself and I don’t think vulnerable teachers should have been asked to go in.

I do realise that plenty of people wouldn’t agree with me.

I can’t imagine ever trying or wanting to trace covid to a particular child. There was so much of it going round!

It was said by Mark Drakeford and the police applied what he said so, in fact, it was a rule.

I think there was never an actual 'no sitting' law, but if the police moves you on if you sit down, the end result is that you can't sit down outside.

I think they would've complied, Brits are rule followers. They grumble a lot but they do what they're told. And it's certainly a kinder system to implement track and trace, extensive testing and masking but you're still able to go out of your house, meet other humans, continue your education etc.

@IAmNotAMorningPerson many people refused to comply with the system we had, and I’m sure they would have been even more suspicious about Asian style one

There was significant non-compliance even with the less extensive track and trace scheme we eventually had, so that seems unlikely.

Hear, hear 👏🏻

An hour was never a rule, and was therefore never enforced. And actually, couldn’t be if you think about it.
I do agree about the sitting down - though that was in England too as I recall.

A very high percentage complied. Much higher than the government expected - because, yes, we are rule followers as a nation but also because people could see the point of staying away from someone who might give you a disease for which there was no treatment or cure.

Actually the British public was very compliant with lockdown rules in the first wave, even though official rules in the UK were much less strict than in other European countries (e.g. Italy). There will always be some non-compliance because people are not robots, but there was definitely widespread compliance with little dissent. Some data here:
theconversation.com/lockdown-mobile-data-suggests-europeans-may-not-have-followed-rules-as-strictly-in-the-second-wave-154815