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

Instead of a lockdown, what would you have suggested in 2020? Just to carry on as normal?

I think it is easy for those of us who weren’t significantly impacted by covid physically to say we won’t comply with a lockdown.

If you lost a loved one early on, if you are living with long covid, if you were one of the lucky few who survived being ventilated. I’m sure you may have a different view.

Im not sure that even a fully functioning, fully staffed and efficient NHS could have coped with the influx of patients being admitted to hospital during the early stages of the pandemic.

On this basis I would comply with a lockdown again if this was assessed as being necessary.

Bot locking down would have different consequences.

I think it would be approached differently if it were to happen again - bubbles of friends / family sooner or from the outset for example.

I'm hoping that those who say they won't comply are working useful jobs, so others can stay home if it is mandated to.

I think it would need to be pretty bad to have another lockdown - so ebola as people suggest, or a flu with a 50% death rate - the kind of thing you read about in fiction books about deadly viruses.

Tianamen Square and the Hungarian Revolution are both examples of short term protests in authoritarian states with vastly more security apparatus than we have in the UK. They are nothing like a pandemic that would at minimum last many months. For your examples to be relevant, they have to be lengthy.

You cannot possibly guarantee that in the middle of a necessarily very severe pandemic, with corresponding sickness rates, no soldier could possibly be on duty anywhere they have loved ones. Soldiers not following orders is also very much a thing that happens sometimes. It can't possibly be ruled out in a situation that none of us have direct experience of.

As for Paris, what do you reckon happened in all the places in France where there weren't roadblocks? Nobody is saying that where roadblocks exist, they won't stop people from driving through them. Only that it would be impossible for them to exist and be staffed everywhere in the UK. You are not going to achieve that with combined police and armed forces of 350,000, a population of 70 million and 250,000 miles of road.

So again, the population cannot be forced into lockdown by might. It would have to be behavioural messaging, like last time.

But also as a PP said - there are far more pressing issues to be depressed about. Maybe focus your time and energy on those instead of worrying what might happen in a future pandemic.

This entirely depends on the disease. If people are dropping down dead, young, healthy people, then most people would comply.
Whilst COVID was apparently awful, many of us didn't know anyone who died at all. Virtually zero young, healthy people died. I know it's harsh, but it makes a massive difference in many people's minds.

There's at least one essential food supply chain worker who wouldn't have been able to keep doing their job during the last one if not for my lockdown breaking childcare (didn't meet legal bubble requirements). I know I'm not the only one to have done stuff like this.

Nope, plenty of businesses near me operating quietly. Still had people round, bbqs, hosting friends, play dates etc. all was well! Oh I also still ran my business.

Some people don't seem to get the fact that lockdown wasn't just to protect those that were vulnerable to covid itself. It was more to protect the healthcare professionals and other people who have to work during lockdown some of whom might have been vulnerable to covid even if they didn't know it at the time. It also helped to reduce the impact on the NHS so that people could be treated for other diseases. In that respect lockdown wasn't as effective as it could have been because they did it too late.

I was vulnerable to covid and it wouldn’t have effected me personally if some people wanted to have parties. Some of those people would have become very ill though and that would have had an impact on healthcare professionals and other people you have to work whether they liked it or not. It also would have had an impact on all people who needed hospital treatment during that time whether or not they needed the treatment for covid.

How do you know I don’t work in a relevant field? 😂 the thing about science is it’s almost always subjective and there’s always a counter argument. Kind of how it works.

I very much knew how “dangerous” it was pretty soon in to the saga. I do have children and pets, our social lives thrived in lockdown as did my business which I refused to close.

It would depend on the disease wouldn’t it. If it was a disease that had a death rate of 50% that’s what the Ebola virus has or was not treatable at all who knows what would happen.

My friend and I were discussing how the world was due a pandemic a few months before covid. There have been 249 pandemics recorded throughout history. Obviously historical data is inaccurate on exact death levels. They are usually around 15 years apart but the nature of how we live and travel has changed so radically in the last 50 years those patterns will be more subject to change.

The descendants of survivors of the plague in Eyam in 1665 were tested and found to have unusual cell mutations which was why their ancestors survived when many of the self imposed quarantined villagers died. That village is a good example of people doing something incredibly selfless.

A very strong, sensible reply. It's awful that it happened but it's due to a virus. Of course would lock down again if needed and people would comply if they feared for their health or the health of their children. People have forgotten how terribly bad it got in other countries and the fact that we didn't have a vaccine for a long time. People have very cavalier about the large number of people who died.

Of course you would. These answers are just bravado.

I think this is where Boris parties have caused damage - people are aware of behavioral nudges as a technquie and a larger section of the population is now very cynical about it.

I think many were cycnial before but compliant I think that may not be the case next time - though large fines may help with complience.

The more obvious danger the next pathogen the more likely complience will be forth coming.

While the prime minister got a £50 fine (not even loose change to him) and said “I’ve paid the fine, pleeeeeeeeeeeeeease stop talking about Partygate”. And an extremely generous taxpayer funded pension. And millions upon millions since then, when he should be rotting in jail.

It depends on what it was, but I am extrememy unlikely to comply with not going to family members houses, particularly my parents. I complied last time and given the powers that be didnt, it would have to be a very severe virus that left me and mine housebound.

Of course lockdown is the plan if there’s another pandemic, historically and globally it IS the mechanism to stop transmission of an illness, how else would you recommend exerting any level of control over a disease spread by proximity to other people? We did it for flu and the plague and multiple other contagious diseases throughout history. The big difference this time was mobility, historically we were much more localised so a town would be locked down. Now we are on planes jetting around the world and travelling hundreds of miles every day for work so lockdowns have to be more extensive.

If a deadly illness spread by touch and/or breathing in proximity of others surfaces again then yes I’ll follow lockdown and the rest of you who don’t can take your chances.

Some of us were much less affected by lockdowns than others.

Worked in a pharmacy, we were bloody busy. Got shopping delivered as always.
Kids were working - one in a school admin position, they went to work as normal - key workers kids still needed school (though school is not childcare ... apparently)
Other was in tech support call centre for broadband company - very needed with everyone suddenly working from home.
Husband in civil service, still going to work...

We were earning good money, gaining overtime and spending next to nothing. So lockdown paid off our mortgage.
I would comply with lockdown 2 point oh.oh.oh because we were fine and did well from version1. Did not personally know anyone who died of/with it.

Others had different experiences.

Don't suppose we'll ever get reliable answers, but I'd love to know how many low paid people in essential, often shift work roles were reliant on unofficial, illegal care networks to keep working during the covid lockdowns. I'm very glad indeed that people kept doing that.

Yep. And I do think that without the parties, we might still now be seeing seasonal restrictions such as “masks in public from October to Easter”. For some mumsnetters, that would be paradise, but not for many of us.

@christmasnamechangeforthelotofthem ,

‘How do you know I don’t work in a relevant field? 😂 the thing about science is it’s almost always subjective and there’s always a counter argument. Kind of how it works.’

That paragraph tells me you don’t work in a relevant field!

Science is definitely not subjective. The whole point of it is a method that can be objectively applied.

That doesn’t mean that there aren’t alternative theories or that scientists don’t disagree. But that is why statistics is a tool of science. Papers are always qualified using confidence intervals and unknown factors are clearly laid out.

But that doesn’t in any sense make it subjective.

In the case of COVID, the SEIR model accurately predicted the rise in cases and the falls in lockdown. But, initially the confidence intervals were large. These narrowed as more became known about the virus.

Isolating yourself when you or a member of your household is unwell is the sensible thing to do.

The only reason we ever needed lockdowns were because people were too stupid and selfish to actually do that, and decided to "be heroes" and go to work/school/uni etc no matter how poorly they were feeling.

Pisses me off.

There would be no need for lockdowns if people just self isolated sensibly. They would need to spend a week at most away from other people, they could even go for walks if they felt like it! It would mean that the majority of people, for the majority of the time, would be able to act as normal.

Lockdowns were sadly never supposed to eradicate illness. Only to slow down the spread to enable the country to cope with infection levels.

I would comply.

Those saying they wouldn't comply I suspect may change their mind if faced with a high percentage chance of terrible illness and subsequent inevitable death upon contracting illness.

As others have pointed out: ebola.

It's not unreasonable to consider that another pandemic may involve a disease which has the same dire survival statistics as ebola, and presents in similar ways in which the body suffers before it's inevitable demise.

No thanks, but each to their own.

Lockdowns don't work 🤪

My god I despair.

Imagine a doctor who, when discovering that you have a bacterial infection, dithers for weeks before giving you antibiotics, thereby allowing the bacteria to multiply, then gives them in fits and starts, thereby allowing them to regrow but with new resistant strains, then finishes the course early before you're better.

When you die, the people of this country will infer, not that the doctor is incompetent and should be struck off, but that antibiotics - one of our most powerful, effective weapons against infectious disease - don't work and should never be used again.

If only there was a disease that selectively got rid of idiots.

But it is unreasonable to presume you'd actually be able to lock down in such circumstances, since the people we all rely on to keep the lights on might not be quite so keen to come into work.

Lockdown wasn't necessary beyond the first one. Robust public health messaging should've been the approach. Furlough was popular though, being paid to sit at home made lockdown a much easier sell. I imagine a lot of people returning to work today would welcome a lockdown! Hopefully though, those people are having a great day at work 🙂😉

The one good thing to come out of it is that us heroic key workers who work/worked in the public sector have become much more aware of our worth, and our pay demands since and going forward demonstrate that. Comical to think government thought at one point that a round of applause and some pots being bashed would be adequate.