To be depressed that lockdown would happen again tomorrow if there was another new disease

[Pavementworrier]

We talk about all the things that are worse "since the pandemic"but government prep is based on all the same mad nonsense that caused the worsening

Grim

Did anyone else notice when the daily numbers went from those admitted to hospital with covid to then include those who just tested positive (including many asymptomatic cases) to create more fear.

Thank you for your sensible level-headed and accurate response

Agree. I certainly wouldn’t. Not a chance.

Surely it depends upon the mortality rate and ease of infection spread.

If you were ill with COVID that ended up as Long COVID you wouldn't be in any state able to care for yourself, let alone your kids mental ill health. Long COVID may only have affected a small per centage of people out of the thousands who caught COVID (and the many who died from it) but it is ongoing.

Great post. Nail on head.

Am pretty sure they will never do a lockdown again - they will advise people who are vulnerable through age and infirmity to self isolate. Which is what they should have done last time. We may never recover from the social and economic impact of the last one, any government would be insane to enter that again now we know that the impact is.

The police were not complying either :) I remember the crowds sunbathing on the South Bank when it was illegal, with the police calmly standing by and not enforcing any "life saving rules".

If the infection spread was great and mortality rate was 30%? 40%? 50%?

Are you saying there isn’t a risk level which would mean you would follow guidelines?

Do people realise that if they pretend a virus doesn't exist it doesn't actually not kill people?

You're also not going to be send your kids to school if the schools are actually closed. You're not going to be able to walk into a supermarket without joining the queue, or visit a hotel/restaurant that isn't open. You won't be able to visit your relative in hospital or a care home if they won't let you through the door.

Your "non-compliance" will be wandering around without a mask which at least will enable the rest of us to identify a w*nker when we see one.

Nah, it stems from the well known fact that the gov that forced the lockdown on people were partying at the same time.
It wasn't an overreaction, it was a deliberate exercise of totalitarian control of the population.

The population seems to enjoy totalitarian state though so maybe deserves this.

Spot on. Lots of people assuming it will be just another flu/covid. We got lucky with an effective vaccine

If there was a mutation of Ebola or something similar then we would be in the shit.

A new event would need to be considered on its impact. We learnt a lot of the Covid outbreak which hopefully means we will be better prepared for Disease X.

Strangely I will always be thankful for Covid I found out that I had breast cancer during the second lockdown, if I had been working, chances are I wouldn’t have gone to the doctor until later as there is no history of cancer in my family and we were all convinced it was only a cyst.
But because I wasn’t working, stuck at home bored, I took the time to see a doctor, four weeks later, I was at hospital having the cancer removed.

Of course we'd all comply!!! All these posts saying people wouldn't! 🤣

There would be some staunch folk that would put their foot down and say no to masks and lockdown (same ones as last time) and the rest of us sheep would do as we're told and moan and point at those that didn't.

Let's not kids ourselves that in general, the British public have a backbone.

I would certainly be far, far more critical of any news and policies. During so-called lockdown I worked for the Civil Service. I worked IN THE OFFICE, despite my role not being "essential" and not being public facing. There was no WFH for my civil service department. That was the first red flag.

Then came the death figures, with deaths being counted as 'with Covid', not 'FROM Covid'. So people dying in car crashes were being counted as Covid deaths. That was another red flag.

Then came the changing narrative and gaslighting of the vaccines. It will stop you getting it, it will stop you transmitting it, it will lessen symptoms, etc. Yeah, no.

I also don’t think people would comply.

Shame really as I’d be in a much better position for it this time!

Well no, it'd also be things like ensuring socialisation in private for those children designated as collateral, and providing informal care networks so that loved ones who didn't qualify for free childcare places or needed elder care to work could keep their jobs. Like last time. Naturally, the people needing and engaging in this will be very bothered indeed about the feelings of those onlookers who are able to manage without such things.

Same - we would also comply.

But people complied on the assumption that those making the rules were also complying, which proved not to be the case.

They’d be not trust another time, even though it’s a different government.

When I say not comply, I meant we’d all keep seeing local friends and family if we wanted to.

So what you are saying is that restricting freedom didn't, in fact, appear to help things very much? That is one reasonable conjecture from the death rate (though of course we will never know why that high death rate was the case).

But for god's sake! "Still banging on about freedom"? We should not be willing to give up our fundamental freedoms without clear evidence (i) that it is necessary; and (ii) that there is no other suitable alternative. You seem to think that "freedom" as you term it is a "nice to have"; you are wrong. You may not be wrong about lockdown, or anything else, but you are so unbelievably wrong about that, that it is truly depressing. Lockdown to prevent a general election? (It's not likely but it's at least theoretically possible). "Digital" lockdown to silence a certain part of the population? Lockdown to prevent people meeting and discussing political ideas, organising political movements? Lockdown that prevents you having any form of family life? Lockdown isolating people from their religious communities? These are all fundamental freedoms protected by the ECHR. Now, they are qualified rights, so can be infringed upon if such infringement is both necessary and proportionate. All a lot of people are saying is, was it both necessary and proportionate, particularly for the length of time it went on; and what information should the public have in order to understand whether it is necessary or proportionate? It's not that we do it, it's how we scrutinise what we are doing.

Your post stinks of a "chicken licken/little" attitude.

@Dolphinnoises I don't know how to phrase this without sounding sarcastic but I'm genuinely interested - does deforestation have an impact on pandemics ? (I understand obviously how global travel does). Or is it just a factor illustrating that the world changes beyond what we can imagine in advance?

I disagree ‘no one’ would comply. At the end of the day, when people see others dying or severely ill around them, they will want to preserve their life. The survival instinct is very strong

This is true, and if countless people dying and/or kids severely affected was required to ensure compliance another time then this is what would be claimed, with social media left to do the rest

Given how comprehensively we were lied to last time you'd think more would have learned to treat such claims with caution, but with some it simply isn't the case

@GertrudePerkinsPaperyThing would you still visit friends if it was Ebola or similar or had a high death rate in children? Would you wait until it was known how deadly the virus was before breaking lockdown rules or break them and then possibly find out the hard way how deadly it was?

If there was ever a global pandemic or war, then I would absolutely comply, like I did this time.

If people did this during the black plague then over 100 million people wouldn’t have died.

If people stayed indoors and turned their lights off during the war then less people wouldn’t have died from bombings.

I don’t understand the need to ‘fight the system’ all of the time.

The lockdowns weren’t perfect and we waited too long which is why it was dragged out. An earlier 2 week lockdown could have likely been more effective.
But hindsight is a wonderful thing and we were not prepared.
Hopefully we would be more prepared in the future.