Why are we not allowed to be adults?

[Mumlove5]

Throughout these forced restrictions, this is what has been the most troubling for me. SAGE has written that citizens should be treated as “rational actors”. We as people have been allowed to take personal risk during past pandemics. My grandfather and other family members became very ill during the 1968 pandemic. In the end, all survived thankfully. However, everyone went on with their lives and took common sense precautions. They were treated as adults. What has happened?

unherd.com/2020/06/was-the-two-metre-rule-one-big-lie/?tl_inbound=1&tl_groups%5B0%5D=18743&tl_period_type=3

In a pandemic, as new understanding emerges by the day, clarity is even more important. As early as February, scientific advice to the government about how to handle the Covid-19 pandemic included the importance of being clear and definitive, coherent and consistent, not only to improve compliance with helpful actions, but to discourage pointless or counterproductive ones.

But this is no excuse for dishonesty about the basis for official advice or rules. Where the scientific basis for policies was uncertain, it would have been far better to say that the science was uncertain, but the government had made a decision for these reasons: erring on the side of caution until more was known, or recognising that human life is about more than medical health.

When the WHO switched its advice to one metre, what was the rationale for sticking with two? Fear of looking indecisive? Lack of faith in British people to know what a metre looks like? In mid-March, the UK’s scientific advisory group, SAGE, was invoking behavioural science to argue that the public is mostly rational and altruistic in a crisis:

“The behavioural science points to openly explaining to the public where the greatest risks lie and what individuals can do to reduce their own risk … Greater transparency will help people understand personal risk and enable personal agency, send useful signals about risk in general and build public trust. Citizens should be treated as rational actors, capable of taking decisions for themselves and managing personal risk.”

Of all the expert advice given to the government, it’s a pity this paragraph has been so often ignored.

I have some relative who remember that flu outbreak. Although there were not lockdowns, it was not the case that is was not disruptive.

"In Berlin, the excessive number of deaths led to corpses being stored in subway tunnels, and in West Germany, garbage collectors had to bury the dead due to insufficient undertakers. In total, East and West Germany registered 60,000 estimated deaths. In some areas of France, half the workforce was bedridden, and manufacturing suffered large disruptions due to absenteeism. The British postal and train services were also severely disrupted."

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hong_Kong_flu

This was also a flu not coronavirus and they thought at the time that previous influenza immunity may have helped some people. It was still very severe and killed one million people worldwide

Right, understood. But there were no restrictions. Schools weren’t closed, etc.

If you extrapolate the number of deaths during the 1968 pandemic to today, it would be even higher due to population increase.
It was more of a killer than covid.

And didn’t Woodstock take place later that year??

We don’t behave as rationale adults. Lots of examples demonstrate this.
The experts will tell us that most transmission happens indoors between family members or people in close contact. Risks are lower outdoors and we don’t interact with strangers.

The government states it is ok for households to be outdoors 2 metres apart. We then get endless posts about why can’t I have granny over for tea if it’s ok to sit next to a stranger in the park. There is no equivalency and the rational has been explained. But so called adults don’t get it. This happens in enough numbers to put other people’s lives and the economy at risk. Hence government direction on what we must do.

Cummings a great believer in behaviour science couldn’t even get it right.

I used to live near a railway bridge. The base of that bridge was used during various epidemics and WWII to store dead bodies.

I learned, from someone who did the cleaning, that back in April the storage spaces were cleared of cobwebs, municipal machinery etc and made ready to be morgues again.

THAT is why the government needed to consider sociological reactions to it's advice. Read the threads here and see it in action.

We are not, as a societal whole, trustworthy, sensible or consistent. So the rules were made to ensure enough compliance to make a real difference.

If you don't like it, can't see past your personal affront, then you are possibly part of the problem.

I am not particularly compliant myself but have been throughout because I can understand the global nature of a pandemic and the disaster strategies that have to exist - including the way in which information is dispersed.

Given how additional information and situation led changes in reporting were seen by many as u-turns or sheer stupidity surely you can see why?

Previous pandemics also had a different population demographic, there are many more people living with compromised immune systems because of health developments, which is a very good thing.

And if I'm honest thinking back to when I was a young adult I wouldn't have stuck to the guidelines.

Because a large amount of people are incapable of behaving like adults. My family have been "bending" the rules all along. They would have done this whatever the rules were. Like a PP said the government will have planned for a certain amount of non compliance

Just to be clear, the 1968 flu pandemic Killed under 5,000 people in the UK
Globally it was considered a relatively moderate pandemic, largely because people had some immunity based on the pandemics of late 50s
europepmc.org/backend/ptpmcrender.fcgi?accid=PMC2130729&blobtype=pdf
So, to be clear, COVID is not the flu & that is why the global response has been so very different.

There is an article in the telegraph telling us we shouldn't have locked down.

But people on Mumsnet were locking down before the government locked down.

Remember the panic buying?

So we would still have had the same amount of damage, but it wouldn't have been effective.

Just like anti vaccine people make vaccine useless, anti lockdown people would have made lockdown useless. So at some stage the government would have needed to step in. But by then, the damage would have been much greater.

I agree OP. I've been pregnant for all the pandemic. I stopped going to the office when it looked like going on the tube was too risky for me, and did so on the basis of my own research and understanding, rather than waiting for the government to make the decision for me. I've been making my own risk assessments for the entirety of this thing (as I have since I got pregnant, tbh... I don't need the government to make eating sashimi illegal for me in order to make the decision to give it a swerve).

Now that we're allowed to go to the pub again, I'm not going to - for starters I'm not drinking so it's a bit pointless, but also I'm not comfortable with the risk level. But I'm perfectly happy that others who aren't in the same risk bracket as me go. I feel like we've been infantilised throughout this thing.

Some people argue that there's a deficit of common sense among the population, I'd argue the deficit of common sense has come as a direct result of the population not having to use its critical faculties. We've forgotten how to think for ourselves and make our own decisions, so the government have to make them for us.

Yes! Large cohorts require the government to tell them what to do, when and where to do it; another cohort assumes the rules are for other people and some think about things and do what is the sensible thing: comply as much as is humanly possible for them as individuals in specific circumstances.

Because asking individuals to take certain actions for a group effect only works on cohesive groups that are working well together.

Britain in 2020 is not that.

By the way I do agree that there should have been more transparency from the v beginning. Then we could have spotted they were modelling the wrong disease & their insane herd immunity plan, again based on their misguided influenza assumptions.
In terms of treating us like adults, the big thing in public health communication is simplicity & clarity so that everybody understands what is being asked of them and why. This entire episode has been a case study in what not to do.

We could have spotted, could we?

Epidemiologist?
Behavioural modeller?

Or just an armchair expert who has read a lot of reports and opinions but none of the extant raw data?

I think people are fairly motivated to mitigate risks against themselves and close loved ones but less motivated to mitigate risks on behalf of strangers. Im not saying they think 'i dont care about someone i dont know in a care home with dementia ' but they might not see all the possible connections and links.
There are other circumstances where people arent treated like adults - eg wearing a motor cycle helmet.

Maybe we should stop comparing covid to flu and start comparing it to polio - www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2012/10/16/162670836/wiping-out-polio-how-the-u-s-snuffed-out-a-killer?t=1593007567797

Especially given the long term damage that the vascular effects of covid may be leaving people with?

@mac12

By the way I do agree that there should have been more transparency from the v beginning. Then we could have spotted they were modelling the wrong disease & their insane herd immunity plan, again based on their misguided influenza assumptions. In terms of treating us like adults, the big thing in public health communication is simplicity & clarity so that everybody understands what is being asked of them and why. This entire episode has been a case study in what not to do.

I think they could have had localised lockdowns, but Cummings would have shattered that idea.

@CuriousaboutSamphire happy to be an armchair expert, it’s not an insult to me. The ‘poor data in early March’ that our govt & its scientific advisers have since blamed for their inaction was actually all pointing in one direction in February. I’d already contacted MPs on this at Feb half term & begged them not to use flu for their assumptions. So yeah, totally armchair but also not totally incapable of reading clinical reports & applying critical thinking. I wish more people had done so, then we still wouldn’t be wasting time on the same old ‘it’s just flu’ arguments

Because loads of people think covid just affects people who would die anyway, is why.

@Dollywilde
“We've forgotten how to think for ourselves and make our own decisions, so the government have to make them for us.”

Exactly, Dolly. This is what scares me. I mean, are we steps away from becoming like the CCP? Lockdowns were a cut and paste following them.

I wish Whitty and others would have made a chart evaluating risk so people can see the majority will get this mildly or even at all.

On the 11 May 2020 Downing Street Press Briefing, the UK’s Chief Medical Officer, Professor Chris Whitty, confirmed:

“Most people will not get this virus at all. Of those who get symptoms, the vast majority will have a mild or moderate disease. The great majority of people, even in the highest risk groups, will not die.”

evidencenotfear.com/evidence/

I'm sure the government will apologise to your personally for not having listened to your superior knowledge however even a stopped clock is right twice a day.

So I have no way of knowing whether you were an inspired genius who had spotted something significant or just a regular moaner who hit lucky.

Experts are often wrong, that's why they modify their stance and advice as they get more / better data.

Hindsight isn't a help until after the event.

I was really surprised at my relatives who took the PM's words/actions to the letter.

They've started sentences with "Well Boris says/does"
"Boris has it under control"
"Wash your hands"

They went to packed pubs on the final night, didn't see a problem with Cheltenham and probably shook hands because the PM said it was OK.

That's what I find scariest, blindly following a Govt regardless.

That's why we are treated as infants because some have lost the ability to think for themselves.

@CuriousaboutSamphire
Sorry? Why the need to be snarky?

I’m perplexed why now Free Will has been taken away, especially given the fact that this pandemic is at the bottom of the list of pandemics.

I don’t want to hear about “oh hindsight is so lovely”... we had the data in January and February. We/they knew this virus is skewed towards the elderly and those with co-morbidities. Instead, the NHS sent covid-19 back into the care homes where it spread like wildfire. But Boris put tens of millions of healthy and young people on house arrest for months AFTER peak transmission when the transmission rate was actually declining... where is the logic in that?!

There are some who felt that back in 1968 more could have been done - in fact there was some reporting at the time that information had been kept from the public so as not to frighten them.

Maybe it is not only recently where it seems that the public have not been 'treated as adults' but possibly in a different way. Maybe there is a balance between informing people and making lots of rules and frightening them too much with adverts etc.

My friend in Holland says there approach has been a bit more like that. Information without rules and asking them to take care rather than telling.

It’s alright @mumlove5 the snark is aimed at me. I can take it as I love the idea that reading clinical reports & following the news in other countries & using basic critical thinking makes me ‘an inspired genius‘. Gawd, it’s a low bar. But armchair expert & inspired genius in one day - I’m retiring happy

My apologies. If you give me the bullet points on how to answer your posts I will comply.

But, that post wasn't a response to you

I don't really like all the work is me, Boris got it all wrong, the UK/England has the very worst outcome, we're all doomed style threads.

The truth still is that we don't know the real data, won't for a long time.

This isn't going away quickly, we all have to work out how we individually can balance our need to work, live our lives and protect ourselves and others from further infection.

I'd rather concentrate on that, in the short term. The blame game can wait until more accurate global data is known.

Not because I trust, or vote for Johnson, but because I do trust a wide variety of health specialists, SAGE or I-SAGE, and am fully accepting that there never was 100% consensus amongst any of the scientists involved and most decisions have been made through a political lens. That seems inevitable to me.