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?

And who would have looked after these vulnerable elderly and ill people? It would have been impossible to keep them segregated if they need care multiple times a day. Those saying they should have stayed at home are basically saying ‘They’re worthless and should have been culled’ because that would have been the end result if we’d have allowed everyone else to go about their business.

I knew two perfectly healthy people who died of Covid in their 30s. It wasn’t just elderly or CEV people dying back in 2020/21.

How theoretical are we getting here? Because my view is that a lockdown was politically unavoidable in the UK. There's no government who could've avoided having one, due to most of the rest of Europe doing it. Johnson clearly would rather not have done.

Within that context though, there are still a lot of things that could've been done to make it better, both at the time and in the aftermath. The whole protect the vulnerable bit was terrible, because it made people think the vulnerable were one group who could all be protected. Whereas in actual fact, some people were more vulnerable specifically due to restrictions, and it was actually a choice of who to throw under the bus for who.

We should have had lockdown messaging that emphasised the importance and right to outside exercise. Police ought to have been told not to harass people who were sitting and resting outdoors either, because some people need to rest during exercise. Instead, the average person put on a few pounds due to lockdowns. And the rules in 2021 meant primary aged kids were functionally excluded from meeting a friend, unlike other age groups.

The curriculum should have remained suspended in the 2021 lockdown. It would have reduced the inequality somewhat. Instead, some DC got full schooling with much reduced ratios, and some got a recorded message a few minutes a week. Mine were at the latter end. I don't forgive or forget. Schools should also have reopened in June 2020.

We also didn't need to have such badly written legislation, bullshit enforcement and the highly problematic single justice procedure.

Not had so much that was all about "appearing" to do something: taped up benches, locked playgrounds, etc. Even some scientists have admitted that "two metres" was made up on the spot.

And not created so much plastic waste with signs everywhere, moments after preaching to us to use less disposable plastic.

Yes I agree with this. Schools never should have closed

I think we could safely retire the use of terms like this and also 'selfish' from the discussion, and lose nothing. Some words just make people stop listening.

The schools shouldn't have closed that had such a huge impact on both children and parents.

I think people should have been allowed at least one visitor per week in nursing homes following a clear test.

They shouldn't have stopped selling clothes in shops as they weren't deemed essential. It is when you have growing children!

Telling people they had to do the grocery shopping alone. What were single parents with no supports supposed to do.

The lack of humanity at times. The doctor who came to pronounce my mother dead shouted at me for hugging my aunt because we didn't live in the same house.

The ten people at a funeral. Our church made us all space out five pews apart.

It was pointless to insist on the continuation of work since global supply chains had essentially halted. The government did what it could during that time. Reducing nosocomial transmission was a crucial measure that kept hospitals from becoming overwhelmed. However, a tragic consequence was that vulnerable elderly individuals were effectively confined to other settings, leading to their deaths.
The pandemic was a live trolley dilemma experiment.

Make decisions based on balance of harms to different sections of the population.

For example, senior civil servants were trying to highlight to government that impacts were disproportionately falling on women and children, but it was ignored. The whole response was riven with misogyny. Women were more vulnerable due to the type of work they do, more likely to be locked up with their abusers, and more likely to be trying to both wfh and look after kids.

The problem was, they didn't ask anyone.

Kept parks open, and I also contraversially think schools should have been open for almost all of it, maybe on a reduced timetable to allow for CEV teachers not to be in the classroom and with HEPA filters. The long tail of the harms caused to children is insane, and all the handwringing about increased SEND costs could have been somewhat mitigated. Mine actually went to school after the initial period as key workers' children and I'm so pleased they could.

Total lack of appreciation for the conditions a lot of people in the country live in. No idea what it's like to live in an overcrowded flat with no money and no access to green space.

I'm not a fan of the idea that we could ever have protected 'the vulnerable'. It tends to get used as a shorthand for vulnerable to covid, and has been in this thread, but actually there were also people who were vulnerable due to restrictions. The vulnerable weren't a cohesive group with the same interests, and protecting some was going to mean endangering others. Whatever we did. Any discussion has to start from that point.

Yes exactly. A much broader definition of vulnerable instead of everything through the prism of covid.

@usererror99 what would you have had me do? CEV but with a healthy husband and primary school aged child?

I too was astonished at the way so many people just meekly accepted the constant round of useless lockdowns.

It's interesting mentioning the one a day walk thing as being a rule, it wasn't you could go out as many times as you liked, this rule didn't exist it was mentioned by a Minister.

The police majorly abused their powers during it, and the excuse was the rules keep changing so we can't keep up, but didn't expect the same by the general public.

Where did you work during the pandemic?

Make decisions based on balance of harms to different sections of the population.
For example, senior civil servants were trying to highlight to government that impacts were disproportionately falling on women and children, but it was ignored. The whole response was riven with misogyny. Women were more vulnerable due to the type of work they do, more likely to be locked up with their abusers, and more likely to be trying to both wfh and look after kids.
The problem was, they didn't ask anyone.

Exactly. There was so much expertise that needed to be in the meetings too, and wasn't.

Which is why the whole 'follow the science' nonsense was so insidious. There is no 'the science'. Even if you decide to completely exclude the social science aspects of the issue, which seemed to be implied, you also have to make a value judgement about which aspect of the science you want to prioritise. The epidemiologist is likely to have different views to someone specialising in alcohol abuse, or childhood obesity.

I think we should have been more like Sweden. Close indoor venues with lots of people in close proximity (like pubs and clubs) but allow shops to stay open and open air cafes.

Schools should not have been shut. It caused so much damage for not much benefit for the actual kids themselves.

Agree that the vulnerable and elderly should have been advised to stay at home and the rest of the population should have got on with it.

The tiers and rules of 6 and penalising people for meeting in the open air with a coffee was completely ridiculous. I thought so at the time and didn't strictly follow those rules. MN was completely bonkers though - hope some of the more hysterical posters are embarrassed about some of the shit they posted.

It wasn’t just the pensioners or CEV getting seriously ill and being admitted to hospital. Before the vaccine rollout started all age groups were affected

Yes, and I must say I was amazed by the people who didn't see that coming.

We chose to make a public health issue a criminal law one. We gave the police shit tools to utilise in the form of badly written and confusing legislation and guidance. And then what a fucking shock, the state exercised power disproportionately against those with least power and didn't do a very coherent or sensible job a lot of the time.

I am now 77 and disagree with you. The risks should have been clearly explained and everyone, of any age, should have been able to make their own decisions.
I still do not understand why I could travel on a busy bus, shop in a busy supermarket but could not sit in a pub or restaurant.
I do think we all.should have got on with life.

I agree with this @SilverGlitterBaubles
“Being better prepared for starters with adequate supplies of PPE and an actual plan for such events would have helped enormously”

Not being as prepared as possible, or - critically - failing to implement findings of reviews or exercises to test emergency - eg pandemic - planning is pretty inexcusable in my view.

Whilst the government in power is responsible for such major emergency planning, I think that emergency response plans for emergencies of Covid type (unknown virus) should not be partisan but should PLAN for being cross party, for the common good, and politics as such should stay out of it as much as possible.

Findings from the Covid enquiry and stuff on Exercise Cygnus relate to this.

https://news.sky.com/story/amp/bowl-of-spaghetti-uk-pandemic-preparation-to-be-laid-bare-in-covid-inquiry-report-13179534

What you propose might make sense re number of death but not in terms of « what is good for the country as a whole: the « young and healthy » are supposed to pay taxes for decades / work / have children, why would you put them at risk to protect others who (on paper) won’t contribute much to society in these areas??

Personally I found the 1st lockdown good, in line to what most countries were doing, it seemed like the right reaction at the time. However I think they went wrong when they tried to have us boost the economy (eat out to help out) but forbid us to socialise for free (invite people home, see groups of 3-4 friends).

'Keeping the old and vulnerable at home' is too simplistic.

Who are the vulnerable? Young people died too (in my own family) . And being overweight was classed as a factor increasing risk. In the early days there were a lot more young and more or less healthy people dying.

Police definitely abused it. Plenty of videos on YouTube and the like of this.Someone else mentioned earlier in the thread about people getting warned because they dared to sit down and take a break when out exercising. I remember speaking to an older lady who just before lockdown 1 had a knee replacement. Following medical advice she was gradually increasing the amount of exercise she did and took a break to sit down on a bench for all of 5 minutes before some berk of a policeman bollocked her. She explained she was post-op from knee surgery but it didn’t make a blind bit of difference.

I’m sad to say though that in Wales the wording of the Covid regulations specifically limited exercising outdoors to once a day, It was unenforceable tripe though.
In England however you are quite right. It was a throwaway comment by one of the Ministers - may even have been Michael Gove.

What could be done differently?

Not let politics determine the approach.

In February 2020, the Boris Johnson Government was still in love with Brexit and determined to show British exceptionalism from Europe by doing things differently even in the face of a pandemic.

It saw what was happening in Italy, in Switzerland, Germany, France etc, but instead of thinking “this will be the UK in two weeks” they thought “Righho, excellent opportunity to show Britain is different to Europe and can stand defiant against this pesky virus”.

Also inspired by the approach of their pals in the Trump administration in the US.

So any actions (public health warnings, staffing up, resources to hospitals, making equipment available, getting systems in place - eg coordinating with the regions and local authorities) eventually taken were too late.

Just like paying into a pension, you get a higher return when you start acting earlier.

Never underestimate how much politics and foreign policy played into the UK’s handling of the pandemic. Never mind the death toll if you can sock it to the neighbours. And many countries in the world know it.

Have we mentioned the tiers system yet? That was batshit.

It would also never have been implemented if the areas with highest rates in summer 2020 had been ones where people who are considered important live. There's a reason Leicester, Greater Manchester and Lancashire got to be the guinea pigs for this absolute dickheadedness.