How can we show our dissent?

[Downtown36]

Feeling so desperate after the announcement today that essentially has us all in this level of lockdown for another 6 weeks weeks at least.

Rates of infection on a steady decline and already so many vaccinated. I wholly disagree with it continuing at the is level. What can I do about it?

OP

For what feels like the millionth time, the primary purpose of lockdown is NOT to prevent deaths.

It is to stop the NHS being swamped - there are too many patients and not enough beds in ICU's, staff levels are down because of Covid and ambulances are overrun. Covid is causing massive numbers of hospitalisation, far far more than in a "normal" flu season (and christ knows they are bad enough)

Whitty, Van Tam et al have explained this over and over again. Posters on this thread and others have explained it repeatedly.

What don't you understand about it OP? What do you propose to do about the tens of thousands MORE that will need hospital treatment that will not be available? If lockdown is lifted too soon the R rate will rocket, of course. Thousands will be calling for ambulances that cannot come, and there would be no hospital able to take them.

Not just for Covid of course. Could be babies with meningitis, Mums giving birth, child broken leg, your loved one having a heart attack.

Are you simply not able to comprehend how close we are to this nightmare scenario NOW, let alone how it will escalate if lockdown is lifted?

@addicted2spaniels

100,000 dead out of a 66+ million population. 0.15%.

Denying children education, thousands of businesses going under - all so we can save catatonic elderly people so they can suffer in their chairs for a few more years because their relatives can't accept the concept of mortality.

I'm so fucking over it. And I'm over reading posts on here from those who will never leave their homes again. Keep your kids at home by all means, stay indoors quivering but shut the fuck up seriously.

YOU are another who simply hasn't a fucking clue. Totally brainless.

@thefallthroughtheair

I wish I knew OP. It is horrifying to me how any questioning of restrictions is shut down with simplistic and short-termist virtue-signalling. There really does have to be a discussion about the costs of this in terms of everything from mental and physical health, through social inequality to loss of basic constitutional rights. And I am equally horrified, as a left-leaning progressive, to find that the only people questioning the current trope are right-wingers I would usually despise. In the days of Brexit etc, I was part of the "metropolitan elite", one of those middle-class woke hippies caring about things like social justice and the environment. Now, if I were to stick my head above the parapet, I would be called a Covid-denier (even though I've had it, as have 90% of my friends), anti-vaxxer (I'm not - DC vaccines all up to date and I am a total hyperchondriac myself), granny-killing (not that I'm aware of) fascist (nope). I am very concerned about a pandemic response which is going to kill and impoverish far more people than Covid ever will. I write to my MP; I complain to news outlets when reporting is innaccurate; I try to add my voice to support others being shouted down for daring to stand up for the vulnerable. I don't know what else can be done.

Oh look, another brainless prat.

@Fizzybottle very sorry to hear this. I hope you get the treatment you need soon

If I said what I want to say right now I’d be banned.

@Cairnterrorist

If I said what I want to say right now I’d be banned.

Some people are thick as mince.

I actually have no words for the stupid.

And the Gazillion threads about "why is it so bad in the UK/why are other counties doung so much better?" is answered right here.

Some brightspark thought this in round 1. Got a bit of traction. Cue round 2 and so it goes.

For fuck sake - people are dying. (Yes - to avoid a drip feed my Aunty died day before yesterday). STAY HOME!!!

Well @Downtown36 obviously they are doing this to piss you off and not because there is this really annoying virus circulating in most countries and killing people or making a significant number require hospital treatment.

Now stamp your feet and scream a bit , then grow up and calm down and perhaps realise it's not all about you.

@AlexaShutUp

Eye roll. Jeez a deadly virus that has a 99% survival rate without a vaccine. Thousands and thousands of elderly and weak were dying every year of the deadly virus, Influenza but yet we haven't shut the country down. Yes we are all doomed as it were. Meanwhile theres been 3,000 less cancer referrals and people with cancer are at home cant get appointments or the care that they need - but you know, Covid is all that matters.

Bit tone deaf @DuchessofHastings1 when an NHS worker has just finished a shift and posted about a 35yo dying from the virus. Have you read any of the posts from medics and nurses about the situation that they're facing in hospitals right now?

And yes, of course cancer patients will suffer, as will many other patients with many other conditions, not because covid is the only thing that matters, but because our hospitals are overwhelmed. What do you propose we should do about this? Leave the covid patients to die at home without treatment instead, while everyone else gets back to normal? I'm afraid you'd see quite a sharp increase in the death rate if that's the route you would choose to take.

People die, in hospital wards all the time, of all different things all the time, it's called life.

The NHS has been overwhelmed for years, sometimes its reached a peak. NHS staff at breaking point, people laying down in the corridors.
Did we shut down the country then? Did the public get guilt tripped into saving the NHS then? As if it's our responsibility.

I'm not saying Covid isn't killing people, it is, I'm not saying our hospitals aren't over run because they are...but they have been in the past over other things and will be in the future.
Shutting down the economy, no social interaction, no education for our children, people reaching poverty cos of lockdowns isn't a proportionate response to virus that the mean age of a death is 82 when our life expectancy age is 80, when 9 in 10 deaths have underlying health conditions and a survival rate of over 99%.

Young people are in ICUs and will have long term effects from Covid. It’s not just about the very frail elderly who die.

It’s not been anything like this other years. It’s been bad, but this is next level.

Indeed people like the OP will make this last oh so much longer than necessary

If you actually believe that tripe, away and volunteer in hospital.

Chain yourself to the Houses of Parliament. Everytime the fire brigade arrive to cut you off, quickly grab another pair off cuffs from your bag and chain yourself to another part of the metalwork.
Might get you the attention you crave.

You're right to talk about this, OP, even if the lockdown zealots are trying to shut you down. I talk about this sort of thing regularly, and I don't care who tries to silence me. The forthcoming carnage to the economy, people's livelihoods and mental health must be talked about, even though the government and much of Mumsnet are trying to shut this discussion down with cries of "VIRUS!!! DEATH!!! VIRUS!!! DEATH!!! VIRUS!!! DEATH!!!".

In the short term, I think the only realistic thing we can do is to keep trying to counter this cult sentiment of "lockdown at all costs", which has been spun by the government, and which many people have bought right into, because the reality of economic destruction hasn't bitten yet, while the government keep throwing money at the problem. Unemployment (now 2.6 million; Thatcher would be proud) is being hushed up. Write to your MP. Get it on their record that there is disapproval of lockdown, and we intend to hold the government to account on how they intend to rebuild lockdown-ravaged Britain. Don't cower at home, use any freedom given. Exercise regularly, and travel to it; it's guidance, not law. Only wear a mask in places where it is mandatory. These things might feel like pissing in the wind, but they are baby steps to bend the statistics more against lockdown. Unless Boris is playing a very clever game (which I doubt he is capable of, even he doesn't want lockdown, and imposed this one under duress.

Much as I would love to see some overt public red-hot fury, because I think the public were much too ready to accept lockdown (turkeys voting for Christmas and all that), even I think that now is not the time. I think the government is very aware of the simmering public anger, they are realising that the game of brainwashing will soon be up, and they are timing announcements carefully to try to quell public unrest. Yesterday and today were perfect examples. As a temporary break from the campaign of fear, we had a token grovel yesterday from Saint Boris about the deaths (which complements the fear campaign), and the merest shred of hope about schools today, even if it's totally meaningless, because we know how Saint Boris likes to U-turn on somebody's whim (not his own).

There are lockdown sceptics out there, but even the most hardened of them are keeping their powder dry for the moment. As Nick Hornby would put it, it's hard being right when the rest of the world is wrong. Even the "Covid recovery group" of MPs are keeping quiet, as is Nigel Farage, who has toyed with "the anti-lockdown party" (I'll believe in that when I see it). Everyone is giving the vaccine the benefit of the doubt, because it just might be the game-changer.

Crunch time will be if the vaccine shows signs of effectiveness; the government are underselling the vaccine, because they don't want people to fight over it. If nothing has changed in March - if Saint Boris delays schools yet again, tells us no roolz will change in spite of rapidly falling infection rates, or tells us that freedoms will only be given to those who have been vaccinated (thus making it compulsory by stealth), then will be the time to start getting angry, and for the overt disobedience, seeing family members regardless, businesses opening anyway.

Probably the most important time to be angry is after the worst of this is over: the next battle will be preventing lockdown becoming a normalised fixture of our lives, ready to be wheeled out every winter whenever the government bleats "alas, the NHS is starting to struggle". Before then, when the shit really hits the fan, furlough stops, unemployment is through the roof, people are losing their homes, suicides are happening regularly, that is when the public red mist will descend. Saint Boris and his merry men are trying not to think about that right now, or they're all planning to resign just before then.

@LondonJax

You could train for 7 plus years after your A levels, work your way up the line into a place of authority with years of medical experience, spend hours in meetings trying to work out how to give people some form of freedom whilst trying to keep their health intact and the NHS from collapsing. Then you can replace Chris Whitty etc at the stand and explain to uncomprehending fools who think everything revolves around them, why the restrictions are in place.

Then you could come on here and read how, just because things you recommended are beginning to work, people who know absolutely nothing about how viruses work, think things should start to re-open. Because we tried that in June-September with eat out to help out, kids going into schools when the R-rate fell and people started bleating in the same way, spend Christmas with your granny because (boo hoo) people hadn't seen their family for months and look where that got us.

Alternatively, you can just knuckle down for a bit longer and stop whingeing.

Because, unlike my aunt, who went into hospital for a broken hip and is now battling Covid or my friend who is making funeral arrangements for her mum as we speak or the woman featured on TV today, who went into hospital aged 37 with no underlying conditions, eight months pregnant unable to breathe and died, you have the privilege of being healthy enough to moan about it. I bet that young mum would have loved the opportunity to lockdown - just safe in the knowledge that she was still alive.

Brilliant post. I hope people will read and realise that the medical experts are not doing this to annoy us. 🙄

Goodness, there is absolutely no need for all the personal attacks. You don’t know anything about me or my circumstances.

This is a forum for debate. I’m glad I started this thread as it’s shown me differing views and opinions, it’s made me think and it’s given me some good suggestions.

@wanderings - fab post

Also I will ever forget the poster that on another thread said
lockdown is when rich people stay at home and poor people bring them things. It is soooo true!
Those that don’t have to worry about money or how they are going to feed their kids are just content to sit tight! Others are very very frightened and not of the virus.

@DuchessofHastings1 I agree the NHS had been systematically destroyed over the last ten years and winter bed pressures precede my adulthood - but the current situation is the fulfilment of that not proof that it’s not a problem.

The NHS is crippled by covid patients right now. The system has collapsed - this is exactly what previous years headlines have warned us about. If we attempted to run it anything broaching normal procedures and capacities it would simply implode.

Conversations about what we need and whether the NHS can exist in its current form will take place in the future I have no doubt, but that means nothing practically right now. Patients are still turning up at the doors of the hospitals and that needs controlling before anything else. Any changes to healthcare take time that we haven’t got.

This is a slow moving disaster but make no mistake it is absolutely a disaster.

But OP as I posted upthread, Whitty & Co have explained over and over and over again re the primary purpose of lockdown, and numerous posters have explained it till we are beyond exasperated!

So, you tell us, if lockdown is ended prematurely (before majority of population at risk of hospitalisation are vaccinated) - what do you propose to do about no more capacity for hospital treatment?

What would you do with the thousands that need medical intervention that is not there?

Those that don’t have to worry about money or how they are going to feed their kids are just content to sit tight! Others are very very frightened and not of the virus

And some still have to go out to work for peanuts to feed their kids despite worrying about infections but support restrictions because they’re concerned about what kind of healthcare provision will be left if their kids need it.

There are more than two sides.

@Cornettoninja
Good point

I think we’re all fed up of it. You’re no different or special. I’m at screaming point.

But I’ll just get on with it. To save lives and protect the nhs.

And actually, I’m a little bit sick of people moaning about it. We ALL hate it.

@DuchessofHastings1

God. What sarcastic bitchy remarks on this thread.

The OP is clearly some one who is fed up of it all and her last tether, I'm sure she knows theres nothing she can do, it's just that feeling helplessness.

People are out there still spreading a deadly virus around

Eye roll. Jeez a deadly virus that has a 99% survival rate without a vaccine. Thousands and thousands of elderly and weak were dying every year of the deadly virus, Influenza but yet we haven't shut the country down.
Yes we are all doomed as it were. Meanwhile theres been 3,000 less cancer referrals and people with cancer are at home cant get appointments or the care that they need - but you know, Covid is all that matters.

Seriously?!

I'm losing my temper with people who think if we just stop lockdown it'll all go away.

How much care do you think anyone will get fir anything if we just let the virus go it's thing with no lockdown

It's NOT lockdown causing the hospitals to be too full & too unsafe to do other treatment.

Use at least the brain you were born with ffs.

@WitchesBritchesPumpkinPants

How have I suggested it will go away once we stop lockdown?
When have I suggested the hospitals are not over run with patients who have Covid?
I don't think I'm the one who needs to use my brain.

This virus will be around for years and years. Cases will fluctuate.
Hospitals are full of Covid yes, but they've been full and over run for years. Winter of 2018, there was no beds and people sleeping in corridors, nurses and doctors over worked and exhausted.
People have died and the NHS have overrun before Covid and it will after Covid.
Should we do these lockdowns each time theres something new? Do this every winter? Crash the economy, people with more serious conditions not getting appointments, more suicide, more mental health rates, more children out of education each every time.

Come on, use the brain your born with.