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?

This is what exh did and he might as well be a victim of the pandemic as he wasn’t the same again

His brain now doesn’t function properly. He won’t get assessed but he definitely has some form of dementia.

I just think that we tested for Covid each day and then just went about our business as usual

I worked throughout the pandemic where I could. My issue was I was shoulder to shoulder with lots of other people during a work day but once finished we had to keep 2M apart. We couldn’t gave a chat or do anything together because “we would be spreading the virus”

It was ridiculous

I know, all countries are different. But the UK politicans could also have admitted to not being experts and leave it to your state epidemiologist (I assume you have one?).

The thinking on type 1 prior to covid was that you are born with the propensity to develop it and at some point it is triggered by a virus. It makes sense that diagnoses increased at that time. I guess the longer term research will be interesting - did covid just trigger the same people who would have triggered at some point anyway or has covid itself triggered type 1? Baring in mind that diagnosis was, inexplicably, on the increase anyway. It will many years, I suspect, to begin to unravel it.

So, we drove to a remote nature reserve once a month to walk with my mum. Halfway between our houses, 30 mins in the car. This was absolutely vital for everyone. We didn't do it during the really hardcore April - June 2020 bit, but from summer 2020 onwards. My mum was in an abusive relationship at the time and a lifeline for her, plus she's DS's only really involved grandparent and he was at an age where he'd forget her. I truly believe this was a sensible bending of the rules but if I'd posted on here at the time people would have just been like you're not supposed to travel to exercise, what part of stay at home do you not understand, you fucking idiot, etc. If we'd done a supermarket shop on the way home from meeting my mum that would have somehow made it fine because you were allowed to travel to shop.

There was so much emphasis on petty, irrelevant stuff like whether you were holding a coffee when you were walking. I think the main problem with the lockdowns was that the tories' internal division led to these weird contradictions, and a push-pull between authority and liberty. The tiers, the scotch eggs being a substantial meal etc. A more balanced approach would have led to e.g. schools being open but pupils attending on alternate days, with social distancing, most learning outside, windows open etc.

The virus has changed through mutation as all viruses do. It was a new virus, that's why it was so deadly. This is pretty basic stuff!

What would you have had happen to all the additional people that would have needed ICU care? Would you have been happy to see the Nightingales used, with all that that would have meant?

Or are you one of those people who doesn’t believe that ICUs spilled over into theatre recovery areas and that there were no shortages of medicines and other equipment?

But we had this. We had 4 weeks of lockdown, masks were not introduced in UK initially. The vaccine was not around ( it can't be magic'ed up in 4 weeks).
And the death toll was rising - fit, healthy, young people too.

So how would we have realised it wasn't required, when the death toll was still going up?
People say track and trace - but again that is what was done in February when the ski holiday folks brought back the virus into UK. It very quickly got untenable. If people are going about their day without social distancing then how do you track and trace in a packed tube train?

ah yes that deadly the people giving you the rules weren’t adhering to them themselves. Which one was it that went on a couple hours drive to test his eyesight again?

Made it easier for retired nurses to come back to work and not paid them the basic £12.70 per hour when they did return (to work in vaccine centres).

Paid them for the 80 hours of training they had to do.

Yes, that might've helped a bit!

There was a lot of stupidity over NHS staff during the pandemic. See also, the attempts to enforce vaccination as a consider of employment. Regardless of whether one thinks that would've been a nice to have, it wasn't one of the options on the table.

Nope, absolutely not! I'm not sure what your point is in relation to my comment - I was being critical of an apparent attitude of "fuck the government, I'll do what I want, regardless".

New Zealand being an island managed to keep its cases and deaths very low with good leadership. Tories used Covid to further culture wars, undermine science and plunder the public coffers with friends and family for personal gain.

But a society that would necessarily be much restricted in it's freedoms if 1 in 10 people were dying (including young people, children and babies).

My point to the pp was really: "would you still be so blase about following government instructions in such circumstances, or would would you still believe that you know best?"

Presumably because they had to be coupled up together anyway like some huge and horrific bori-bubble. (Shudder at the thought of being trapped in close proximity to Boris Gov or Cummings!). I’m glad your father had funds to get the treatment he needed and could find someone to do it.

I don't think you get my point.

You've chosen an example where society wouldn't be functioning. It would be anarchy. People often default to this sort of scenario when they're trying to come up with something that involves people being scared enough to behave. But they leave out that people can also be too scared to behave, and to do the work that keeps the lights on, shelves stocked etc. Restrictions, if they existed, would be moot because it would be like something out of Walking Dead. There's a good chance anyone you address this question to would be out looting/being looted.

This is important, because a lot of us, and I know that includes @TheKeatingFive who you quoted a minute ago, are sceptical that a disease exists that would be serious enough to scare a critical mass of the population into observing restrictions whilst also not being scared enough that basic services and order break down. The sweet spot, if you like. That existed in 2020-21, but it doesn't now and we've no way of knowing when it could again. And if it could, a disease that would mean many more than 10% dying of starvation and violence isn't it.

So if we'd had the vulnerable isolating, those living with the vulnerable shielding, and everyone else testing for COVID before going to see vulnerable friends and family that might have worked? Still some impact on workforce, schools etc but maybe still manageable.

Many people do not take into account this was a novel virus. Scientists have done a great job at tackling it in record time. This virus did not behave like others. Standard virus modelling did not work. SARS Covid attacked multiple organs and could cause permanent damage. Infection and later inoculation provided very limited immunity. So you had more chances to get it and the more you got it the more chances you got to have permanent consequences. It evolved very quickly and each new version was different. People forget about asymptomatic transmission and the "herd immunity" experiment. Tories did not follow the science. They failed the UK in multiple ways, it was criminal what they have done.

Lockdown was made superfluous for several reasons, it was done 2 weeks too late for political reasons, betting lobby got their Cheltenham super spreader race. Also by allowing the influx of thousands of entirely unchecked passengers from abroad, the "eat out to help out" harebrained scheme made things much worse etc.

There are 2 million people living with debilitating Long Covid and successive governments are surprised so many workers exited the job market, over 50's women, main at risk population for LC. Many did not exit by choice, they are ill. Doctors suffering from Long Covid are suing the government in a landmark case. 115,000 children have long Covid because they were used as vectors in schools. Headteachers at some point were threatened if they closed schools there would be consequences.

What people also forget is Long Covid. Early on we knew that Covid causes long term organ damage yet the government prioritised the economy. Those who say only the vulnerable should have been protected rest of us back to normal forget Covid did not discriminate. There was the rough statistical probability but beside that you had no idea who will get it bad or who will have long term damage. People who had asymptomatic Covid ended up having Long Covid. 10 yrs old kids cannot go to school and are wheelchair bound because of LC. To me this is unforgivable.

The only way lockdowns work if they are done in time, swiftly and completely. UK never actually had a proper lockdown. They allowed unchecked passengers at ports and airports in. It was utter madness. New Zealand had a proper lockdown, they had very few deaths as a result, their economy suffered much less. UK never properly had it.

Johnson and his cabal of criminals failed the nation, caused mass deaths and incalculable damage to people. They used children as vectors in a "herd immunity" experiment. They deliberately undermined science to further culture wars and cover their own backside for the lockdown breaches. Court cases for lockdown breaches will go on until 2025. People actually went to prison for it while the Tories partied. Johnson and his Bullingdon mates are the most inept and openly corrupt public school generation of politicians this country has ever had.

Tests weren’t available to the public straight away

115,000 kids have Long Covid. 2 million adults have it too. Covid does not discriminate and limits itself to the "at risk" groups. Statistically poorer people, overweight people, ethnic minorities had higher incidences of hospitalisation and death. Age and being at risk is not a reliable predictor. Many disabilities that predispose people to catching illnesses are not recognised as at risk. I had Covid 5 times so far because I have ME. I am not considered as disabled for many things like the flu vaccine or Covid vaccine. More you get Covid the more you have s chance of permanent organ damage. People with Asymptomatic Covid got Long Covid. The 2 million missing from the labour market did not leave by choice. Many are seriously ill. Doctors with LC are suing the government and the NHS for failing to protect them.

Lucky you to have had such a mild case.

I have a good friend in his early thirties, fit and healthy, who almost died. His wife called me in bits when the doctors told her they’d done all they could and she thought she’d be widowed with two toddlers. Luckily, he pulled through but suffered the effects long afterwards.

There are many stories like this one and worse. Goes to show that you never know how one’s body would react.

To be fair, contact tracing might have worked if PHE (now UKHSA) had led it, but it was outsourced at vast expense to Dido Harding who was worse than useless.

I'm not sure any Western country pulled off Track and Trace. It was much more suited to Asian societies with different attitudes to data privacy.

Quite. It was late 2020 before they were in use, around the time of the first vaccines.

True. But chucking a whole load of money at Harding instead of using existing knowledge was indefensible.

@Aggie15 and all that still happened with schools and playgrounds shut.
With children's education and mental health absolutely shot.