To find all this COVID chat reprisal in the news so depressing

[Pavementworrier]

The phrase "social distancing" just chills my bones

If it had happened thirty years earlier things would have been sensibly managed without the apocalyptic horror and uselessness

I don't know how they can talk about collective bomb shelters for ww3 planning with a straight face - who in London would march into the dark to spend time with a random selection of strangers now! You'd be safer above ground

But we weren’t working from the prepped plan. That’s the whole point.

What do you imagine would have happened without lockdown? The NHS was pretty overwhelmed as it was. You only have to look at the statistics to see that lockdown worked.

I totally disagree.
I think we should have had no lockdown at all.

The children I work with are still affected by lockdown.

It was obvious from the coffins piling up in Italy what was going to happen. An Italian friend told me our Prime Minister was a lunatic.

not all of Australia had ‘masks outside’ and certainly not for extended periods.

But what we did have was a very low rate death toll compared to very many countries.

The whole government coming out and saying whatever they’re saying about how the government at the time handled it is so pointless, they’re hardly going to say the opposition party did a great job are they.

Of course they would’ve! 🤣
www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-61271050

There’s video footage and photos of Johnson raising a glass at parties.

Morrison done well in ozz. Without a doubt. Short sharp full lockdowns as I recall.

And I also remember the thing about a pizza guy who ignored the rules and delivered to a quarantine place starting off another outbreak.

I know perfectly well plenty of people don't agree - it's one of the reasons I think we've all become so fractured on everything since. I think it is a shame there is no possibility for humour or light any more.

For me, the clear loss of the values we had before was worse than the disease. We can see the ramifications everywhere.

When I watched bits of the Inquiry, one of the strangest things was how witnesses and evidence would point to things like “we assumed it was a respiratory virus like a flu” or “we didn’t take into account long covid” or “we didn’t acknowledge it was airborne” or “didn’t take into account impact on children” or “should have used hepa filters as a fairly cheap tool to reduce spread” or “ability of NHS to cope” as though those things are openly acknowledged now or been addressed since, with the exception of maybe lockdown measures in children, but not e.g. the impact of long covid on children (latest figures “after covid” 2024, England of 1,000 new long covid cases per week in children), living with vulnerable family members, losing loved ones, becoming young carers etc. There’s still an assumption by some that previously healthy people are spared from health impacts of covid.

It was years ago I have moved on
In did not mind lockdown - saved a fortune
Bored with it now
I have moved on

Hindsight is a wonderful thing.

You have to weigh that up I suppose against the damage that would have been done to kids losing grandparents etc.

Did you not follow any of the science ?

Hospitals have finite resources. A major reason for the lockdowns was to preserve resources, to have spares ready, to keep medical capacity. Because once all the ventilators are occupied, the death rate shoots up.

Aren’t you lucky?

Hindsight is always 20-20. I don't really see the point in rehashing it all at so much cost to be honest. We cannot go back and make different decisions, next time there is a pandemic society will be completely different - as different as it was in 2020 from the 1918 flu pandemic.

A lot of navel gazing and hand wringing.

Don't you think the children you work with would have been even more greatly affected if their relatives had died or if they themselves had caught it and been left with long term after-effects?

Ah but that discounts that fact that their definition includes a fuck ton of people then, in which case it's still a major lockdown with a large impact on the economy. They are still assuming those clinically vulnerable people are not a significant part of the workforce.

I work in public health. I was a microbiologist, then epidemiologist. I'm also disabled and work with disabled groups. There are many people with chronic health conditions working in our economy. A whole lot of those people fall into the category of clinically vulnerable. A lot of them will be working in jobs that are essential during a public health crisis. Is it fewer than those furloughed? No idea, I guess it could be modelled, or we will find out if they try that strategy next time there's a pandemic (there certainly will be a next time, it's just difficult to predict when).

There is always going to be a significant impact on the economy during a major global pandemic.

Thing is that COVID really wasn't
very long ago. Especially for people who were directly affected.

Many people died, or lost people, or suffered during lockdown. Some people are still suffering.

The fact you expected it's something people should now only discuss with humour or light suggests you weren't one of them.

And with no lockdown you’d have been ok with an unlimited number of deaths - including potentially you?

We can learn from what happened and not make the same mistakes next time.

This always happens with new diseases or strains in a community. When they later trace back to the original infection, they always find it goes back a lot farther than they knew at the time. They've found new evidence of earlier AIDS infections in the US in just the last few years.

There was never any question though that they could keep covid out, or that most people would eventually catch it.

@TaurangaI agree totally, there should have been no lockdown. The impact on young people from infants to late teens has been huge, when people about loss it is those lost years that I am concerned about which has stored up issues not just for them personally but which has and will continue to have an enormous impact upon our society.

What would have been your approach - let Covid run free amongst the population?