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

I would have encouraged the vulnerable to stay at home and shield and let the rest of society carry on. I think protocols such as limiting physical contact etc etc be adopted but I don’t believe in harsh lockdowns due to the damage they have caused.

Well, my Dad had to die alone during Covid and then it killed my DH, so I could cheerfully brain Johnson and co. Their uselessness is beyond satire. But, it’s done and I can’t change a thing.

As for war and shelters, well my family all lived in London during the Blitz etc - trust me, you would go down a shelter. 🙄

An irony is that I’m seeing posters saying “nobody should be alone in hospital over the festive season”.

Did someone forget to tell Johnson and his merry men this?

I also saw signs saying “play is important for children” next to the “playground closed” signs.

That happened in China, when the protests started in Nov '22, the Party just abruptly stopped all zero covid, closed the mass testing stations, and pulled the barriers aside.

The virus had weakened by then, but withing a week near everyone was flat in their bed with it, hospitals full, and not a paracetamol or anti fever med to be had anywhere.

My DD had a temperature half a degree off the hospital zone, and we were terrified. And there was zero we could do.

The Party stopped reporting data to the WHO, but of course the state media said all ok, everything normal.

So yup, letting covid run free was not a good idea at all.

The glaring omission in the report is the fact that the Chinese disseminated late and incorrect information. Not one mention of that. Even the WHO in the early days were saying it wasn't airborne transmission.

Also no acknowledgement that every other country followed a similar pattern of lockdowns, circuit breakers etc etc and we all pretty much ended up in the same place regardless.

China is a very different country in terms of population density in the large cites (different if you compare the countries as a whole). There are 18 mega cites where people live in extremely close proximity. The uk is different and rural areas very different to cities, the lockdown was applied to rural areas where children weren’t allowed to mix yet there was plenty of space. The saddest site was where playground equipment was padlocked. We locked young people up , we sadly allowed the internet to become their companion and all the issues that brings as well. My view is that the government was being pulled in so many ways and was scared which I totally understand, they didn’t know what might happen so I don’t actually blame Boris Johnson for looking down and being worried as pressure mounted. I said at the time I didn’t think it should happen and I believe that all the way through the pandemic as the whole approach was confused, confused because people didn’t know what to believe confused because you can’t lock down a virus. You only have to look at norovirusand other viruses which are less of an issue and where knowledge is greater, again whatever you put in place is not perfect, basic hygiene, reasonable precautions and let the virus take its course to build up immunity.

I never saw any playground equipment locked up in China. But the lockdown was not the same across the country,

A lot of that was because local leaders were desperate to not have a positive test under their watch. And some were more zealous then others.

I don't think it's good to brush the pandemic under the carpet but I hate how any discussion (online at least) seems to bring out both the insane conspiracy theorists and those who advocated for a sort of worldwide hypochondria.

Our family did too, because my husband was vulnerable. We could see it coming a soon as the first reports came in from China, then of course Italy. That airports were’t shut down for months was reprehensible.

The Government dithered and dithered and the discharging of people into care homes without testing was outrageous. I hope there’s a class action brought for corporate manslaughter.
So very sorry for your loss, @BorisKilledMyHusband .

Many people who were hitherto fit and healthy died.

Had the country not locked down, the death toll would have been worse still.

Well, statistically I was at no risk from covid. Statistically, my kids had zero risk.

If you were over 60, overweight, smoked or had various illness, then you had the choice of shielding.

As it was, healthy people who had no need to sheild were forced to give up their jobs, lose livelihoods and suffer in order to sheild those who were at risk.

We could have had the majority of people carrying on as normal and we could have successfully shielded those who statistically were at most risk.

I believe the average death from covid (83) was over the average age of life expectancy. So why we all had to hide was beyond crazy.

Well statistically neither was l.

Yet here l am 3 years later with a life destroyed by Long Covid.

You and 1.9 million people with long covid - many of whom are young people/not in at risk groups

I think for me, it was some of the utterly bonkers rules that nearly sent me over the edge. You can walk your dog once a day but not nice twice a day. You can go to the supermarket to buy bread and milk but you cannot buy toys or hairdryers. You can go for a walk but you cannot sit on a bench during that walk…I mean, it was completely nuts.

Yep: vicars forbidden to enter their own churches, and roolz being made up on the spot, such as Michael Gove saying “no more than an hour’s exercise a day”, which quickly became gospel, including on mumsnet. The government failed to correct the record.

And I will not forget the government contemplating killing everybody’s cats. I genuinely feared for the safety of my cats then, in case vigilantes were out to kill any cats they saw, and given how mad people went, I think it could easily have happened.

The problem is the British people are both thick as shit and also won’t listen to people who are experts. And our government had no back bone. We should have locked down properly the first time.

Jesus Christ do you hear yourself?

I agree with you on this. My unpopular opinion is I don’t think we should have locked down at all but what’s done is done and the Govt were between a rock and a hard place and made decisions they thought best at the time.

What’s ‘properly’?

If they had not locked down at all, deaths would have gone through the roof given hospital capacity.

That's the thing with preventative measures. Because they prevent, it's easy for folk to say " that never worked". What could have happened, or would have happened, never happened.

I'm no fan of the way it was handled but I also think it was an impossible task.

Some people believe lockdown should have happened sooner, for longer and been harder. Others don't think it should have happened at all.

Some families'/individual's outcomes would have been better if it had happened sooner, for longer and been harder. Others if it hadn't happened at all.

Due to everyone's personal, family and work lives being different and widely varied, there was never going to be a single solution that benefited everyone.

Hindsight is a wonderful thing.

However, I do feel very strongly about the government not following their own restrictions.

This is not the focus of the enquiry. It is purely about the UK's response and decisions which were taken, not about what other countries were or were not doing.

And if I remember properly no one knew if the virus was going to weaken or if it was going to evolve a stronger strain.

Scarey times. not knowing.

Government reviews into the management of the pandemic are essential preparation for the development of protocols for the possible next time.

Can you not see that this was all about probability? They weren’t just arbitrary rules.