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

I think that whilst wfh and things such as things being closed would happen, other restrictions would be ignored much more. A legacy of the response from the then Prime Minister who should be facing life imprisonment for the deaths his neglect caused, along with the then Health Secretary for sending older people to their deaths.

I hope there is never another pandemic.

I’m not a minimum wage worker so I can’t with certainty say what people would do. But I can guarantee that no matter what levels of PPE they gave me or how much they tried to convince me it would be organised, I would not be going to work (in my higher than average paid job) if the risk is death from the illness was higher than about 10%. So while I can’t guarantee it, I can’t imagine many minimum wage workers wanting to go to work either. Especially if they have families they will be going home to and potentially infecting.

I sometimes wonder how our pampered, entitled population would have coped in WW2.
Imagine the chaos and conspiracies? lol.

If that's the case, the alternative to lockdown still won't be the normal life that most of the people here who are saying they won't comply want instead. Normal life will still be ruined either way.

Thing is, there's a lot of steps before we get to that stage.

So if Ebola got loose in the UK, we'd be trying to manage it by tracking and isolating contacts initially.

If it got beyond that, there could well be a stage where the govt said, "ok, we need non essential workers to stay home so we only have to isolate a few contacts per infected person"

There'd be a miniscule chance that any person you met was infected, but the govt would be asking us to lockdown just for pandemic management.
Would people do it then?

Reality.

If the hospitals become overrun with patients with the disease, and the critical care medicines run any shorter than they did during COVID, there will be no capacity to care for patients with other diseases.

The alternative is to leave the pandemic patients who need respiratory support to die at home while still treating the trauma patients, those with strokes and appendicitis etc.

That’s not even taking into account the higher rate of staff illness through additional exposure, which also has an effect on capacity.

I don’t like the idea of lockdowns one bit, but some method of reduction of transmission of the disease is necessary.

Possibly improved respiratory protective equipment and ventilation should be a greater focus of pandemic planning.

Yes, the 'you'd have to lock down' crew don't seem to realise that with a disease sufficiently serious, there won't be essential services! Keeping out of each other's way actually involves a loooooot of labour from people who aren't keeping out of the way. That is not something that is guaranteed to anyone who wants to lock down, however strongly they might wish to comply.

Closing schools, big entertainment venues and working from home where possible is a sensible precaution. The total isolation was probably not and I think did contribute to poor mental health.

As someone said earlier, hindsight is wonderful. If in the next pandemic there was no lockdown, and huge numbers of young people died, everyone would be up in arms and saying they would rather have their child alive whatever their mental health.
It’s the same with the (understandable) distress about sending old people back to care homes and them dying. If your (younger) relative had not been able to get an ICU bed because ICU was full of care home patients in their 80s, there would be a huge kick off from the families of the younger ones who died. Unfortunately there is never an answer that is perfect for everyone.

Saying never ever going to do lock down again is ridiculous.

Surely it depends on the disease?

Those who say they wouldn't comply would change their minds in the event it was a virus that killed you in days and led to mass burials in plague pits.

It was inhumane on so many levels.

My poor MIL died in 2020, not from Covid but as a direct result of the pandemic (her medical treatment was postponed and her disease progressed rapidly). During the funeral the vicar had to lock us all in the church, her granddaughter who was late due for no fault of her own was not allowed to come in. She was devastated.

So who would you expect to serve you with all your needs

This.

Trust me, if it was the 'right disease' and it looked scary people WOULD lock down by choice.

The issue is people assume now that the next would look like COVID.

If the next one was affecting kids or had a really high death rate people would follow the rules.

One of the reasons people eventually started to ignore the rules was frankly because the rules became ridiculous - Christmas bubbles FFS!

Absolutely this.

If there was a new disease that spread and 1000+ children were dying every day people while absolutely comply.

No it would be extremely far from normal life, it would be societal collapse ultimately.

My point is that the set of circumstances that enabled a lockdown as we had with Covid are actually pretty unusual. I cannot see this particular response ever happening again.

If it was something like bubonic plague, people would happily and voluntarily lock down, I’m sure. For another flu type illness with a high rate of recovery for the average healthy person, no, I don’t think people would comply.

I didn't think you would.

Even then I don’t think people would comply unless they personally had children in the at risk category.

There could be, depending on the virus, but what was being discussed there wasn't Ebola. It was just a virus that involved 'bleeding from every orifice and dying in the street'.

Personally I don't think there's much point in that kind of example, because it would so obviously be something like a zombie apocalypse. I agree with you that the area of interest and relevance is with something less serious. But for whatever reason, the people keenest on the idea of another lockdown often try and make their point using examples where order would completely break down anyway.

I’m not surprised about the non answer in your pp either.

highly doubt it would happen again. If we lockdown it will be for certain age brackets (the old) and most vulnerable only the rest of the working population and young people will carry on

What about long COVID? Symptoms can last a lifetime!

That’s now, because of the vaccines and natural immunity built up from the virus being in the community. When Covid first hit there were no vaccines and alarming numbers were dying every day. Feeling like shit for a few days might be the norm now, but in the early days it was a killer.

My DH was admitted to hospital for essential treatment in the first 6 months after the pandemic hit. He had a LFT before being admitted and it came back positive, despite us both having isolated and taken every precaution because we both have compromised immunity. The protocol was to isolate and do a PCR test to confirm. That didn’t happen. He was put on what was referred to as ‘the Covid ward’ along with others who had tested positive on admission for treatment. A PCR test was done the following day but he was discharged before the results came back. He saw three people die on that ward during the four days he was in hospital.

On his discharge there were no precautions taken - he was discharged as soon as treatment had finished even though he had supposedly tested positive and had been in direct contact with others who had the virus. Zero fucks given as to how many people were at risk at home.

The day after he returned home the results of the PCR were emailed to him. It was negative. The LFT had been a false positive - he had never had Covid. By then it was too late - he had caught the virus in hospital because they hadn’t followed their own protocols and isolated him until the PCR test results came back. Within a few days we were both very ill with Covid, and l’ve never been so scared. We were left to get on with it because the only care available was via hospital admission, which at that time was a shit show. We both have ongoing health issues attributable to Covid.

That’s the reality of what was happening back then, and l dread to think how much infection was caused in similar circumstances all over the country. We can only hope that if and when the next pandemic hits, we have learned from the many mistakes made during Covid.

But they wouldn't skip off merrily to work to keep the food supply going, the electricity on, etc, etc. You'd have an entirely different problem on your hands.

Oh, ffs, OP. I think you have a lot more to be depressed about than the next pandemic and telling yourself how incredibly wise you are compared to Government on what makes life worse for everyone. Everything appears so simple when you don’t have to consider anyone other than yourself. Imvho, we are becoming a nation of simpletons…