For those who were/are against lockdown

[CarlaH]

I have just sounded off a bit in another thread when I should have started one of my own really.

I would like to ask the vocal critics of lockdown, the ones that state that vulnerable people should just stay at home how they would have handled the complete overload of the NHS.

Even with the lockdowns and restrictions we have had the hospitals have been overwhelmed. The staff must be on their knees with it all.

With no lockdown at all I have to assume that there would have been even greater numbers of very sick people needing hospitalisation.

Would any of the people who are so opposed to the lockdowns been prepared to personally stand at the hospital doors and turn the sick away to possibly/probably die at home?

No. What I would have liked though, is borders tightly monitored from last Feb half term when it was all being brought here via Italy, track and trace to have been working well early on and after the first lockdown, all our efforts not pissed away.

The anti lockdown argument is nonsensical. Living without access to healthcare would be horrific for so many people. Not to mention all the unnecessary death and suffering.

the idiotic "shield the vulnerable and the rest of us crack on!" brigade are strangely silent when asked any questions about healthcare if millions of people were just allowed to get virus and even if a small percentage needed hospitalisation then hospitals would be overwhelmed rapidly.

The hospitals were never overwhelmed as such. Very, very busy - definitely.

Spilling out into corridors like we saw in Italy at the start- no, that didn't happen here.

Agree with @Quit4me
I was very supportive of an initial lockdown about a week earlier than it happened. We should have stopped all the half term skiers going back to work and school and introduced stricter quarantines.

I actually then think we should have got the kids back to school in May and taken advantage of the seasonality of the virus and the quieter hospitals over summer. There is evidence to show that as we were so late at locking down the peak was actually just before the first lockdown. So cases would have naturally started to come down in late Spring Summer anyway. I agree we needed to protect the NHS however so had to do the first lockdown.

Lockdown was never meant to be a strategy to keep pursuing. There needs to be another plan.

France hasn’t been in lockdown since November. Their hospitals have not been overwhelmed and cases have remained highish but steady.
Mind you the Kent variant was a huge issue over here.

I also find the California versus Florida situation interesting. Similar death rates but Florida had their last lockdown in July. California have been in and out of lockdown. Lots of spikes in the rates after they come out of lockdown like we have seen here.

We kind of have the worst of both worlds, multiple lockdowns and a high death rate. Somethings not working!

I’d have taken the billions we have pissed down the drain with very little effect and thrown it entirely at health and social care.

We shouldn’t be held hostage in our homes to protect an institution. It’s bat shit crazy.

And yes I know training takes years but not every job that needs doing is highly specialised. The money could have expanded building and manufacturing items too and created lots of employment.

@SonnetForSpring

The anti lockdown argument is nonsensical. Living without access to healthcare would be horrific for so many people. Not to mention all the unnecessary death and suffering.

I am not against lockdown - although I would have done a lot of things differently - but I am in agreement that things need to start opening up again. But your point is entirely ridiculous. Despite having lockdown(s), over the past year millions of people have been living without healthcare; and with unnecessary deaths and suffering. And that's without including Covid! The poor state of our hospitals and health care service, and our lack of any preparation for a potential pandemic despite warnings, are the result of us allowing our health care to be destroyed by the government over the past two decades - the same government that is now telling us that it is our responsibility to save the NHS! If Covid disappeared without a trace tomorrow people will continue to suffer and die unnecessarily because that was already happening before coronavirus. It is just going to be worse for many years to come. And whose fault is that. Well yes, it is the governments. But the people of the UK let it happen.

Well considering an awful amount of transmission of covid takes place in hospital, I would have like perhaps an old fashioned approach, similar to when TB was common in the UK. Separate hospitals for covid patients, maybe even those nightingale ones. Then anyone who needs hospital care is not petrified of catching covid when they go in for treatment.

I know of a family where the father was discharged having had a covid test, which later turned out positive. Then went on to pass it to his entire family as his elderly wife and children had to care for him.

Meanwhile anyone who has the audacity to have cancer or any other life-limiting illness must forgo any face-to-face medical treatment because covid is obviously the worst way to die of all.

Meanwhile we lock up the population and force covid to mutate so it spreads even faster/easier to overcome our preventive measures and making vaccine efficacy weaker.

The economy tanks and people kill themselves because they have been placed into social isolation, and have lost employment and are struggling to cope.

Children fear that they will kill their loved ones because they might go to school and catch covid.

I say this as CEV mother, whose father received a cancer diagnosis in 2019 and is only just getting to see his consultant again for further biopsies.

It’s absolutely ok to not want to continue with lockdown and want to try a new strategy after one year. People are allowed their opinions on this, and it doesn’t make them heartless for doing so.

@Quit4me

No. What I would have liked though, is borders tightly monitored from last Feb half term when it was all being brought here via Italy, track and trace to have been working well early on and after the first lockdown, all our efforts not pissed away.

We missed the chance last February to close/control our borders.

We missed the chance again last Summer when our numbers were really low and we could have brought in border controls etc., but instead the Govt encouraged people to fly abroad.

Now numbers are coming low again, we have the final chance to control our borders, and are actually making a start towards that with the quarantine in hotels etc., but it's still half hearted and probably won't achieve anything.

We kind of have the worst of both worlds, multiple lockdowns and a high death rate. Somethings not working!

We don't really have "proper" lockdowns though - just half hearted efforts that the Govt don't police and people don't comply with.

"Shielding" doesn't work because it seems most people who've died of covid actually caught it in supposedly safe/shielding places like care homes and hospitals. The "shielded" can't live in a vacuum. Even if not in hospitals/care homes, they need deliveries (potentially made by infectious people), they have workers in their homes for various reasons (repairs, meter readers, carers etc) who again are potentially infectious.

The "shield the vulnerable" brigade havn't a clue about the reality of a "shielded" life.

I haven't changed my mind at all. I still believe that we should have shut or at least very tightly controlled borders (not just red countries - everyhwere). I also firmly believe that a large proportion of deaths are from infections inside care homes and hospitals and this is still continuing now. So I think large events should be banned, but not meeting family and friends.

@ILookAtTheFloor

The hospitals were never overwhelmed as such. Very, very busy - definitely.

Spilling out into corridors like we saw in Italy at the start- no, that didn't happen here.

Actually I think we did hit “overwhelmed” this January.

Not last spring - and with hindsight the lockdown then did not need to be so long or so strict. But this recent one has definitely been necessary. Hospitals were beyond full.

Thankfully hospital admissions are now dropping rapidly.

@ILookAtTheFloor

The hospitals were never overwhelmed as such. Very, very busy - definitely.

Spilling out into corridors like we saw in Italy at the start- no, that didn't happen here.

Only because they cancelled all non urgent treatments.

We don't really have "proper" lockdowns though - just half hearted efforts that the Govt don't police and people don't comply with

We've had one of the longest, strictest lockdowns in the world with remarkably high levels of compliance.
I don't know where these mythical places are that have "proper" lockdowns and don't include authoritarian communist states.

I am very very anti border closures but the one thing I'd like to have seen done differently was negative test requirements introduced much earlier on.

We'll only know in the future once the long-term impacts of this period of restrictions become clear if it can be considered "worth it".

Ilookatthefloor - Covid patients were being treated in ambulances in hospital car parks because the wards were overflowing with patients, I would call that pretty overwhelming - wouldn't you?

Why do you have to assume that with no lockdown there would have been even greater numbers of very sick people needing hospitalisation OP?

What scientific evidence and data do you have for this? And I don't mean anecdotally, or assumptions that people in closer proximity transmit more etc etc. I mean actual scientific evidence and data.

I probably would have fucked up badly if I were in charge, OP. Are you happy?

Then again, why is France not melting down when they allow indoor multi household visits? Why are Spain, Germany, Italy back from the brink - as bad as things got in most of US, do we know which states had health systems that were truly fully overloaded?

It's almost like when things got bad, people living in those places found voluntary ways of avoiding the virus, without it having to be legally compulsory to avoid each other and destroy the economy & mental health & children's education all at same time for long periods.

Well I would have spent last year getting a "world beating" track and trace going not spunk billions to my mate who doesn't know their arse from their elbow. This would have enabled cases to be properly tracked. I would have ensured that people were fully compensated for having to stay at home and not having to make the choice between doing the right thing and being able to afford to eat.

I would have also compensated those that needed to shield. I would have worked with schools and not let that shit happen.

But most of all I wouldn't have got us into the situation where significant numbers of NHS staff needed to be redeployed meaning that other services effectively shutdown (fall services etc)

There is a massive middle ground between lockdown and letting it just go as it was. But I certainly would not have made it illegal to see family.

I currently live in France. Yes there was a tight lockdown last March-May but since then no further lockdowns and I can tell you for an absolute fact that the vast majority of french people have not given up anywhere near as much family contact as uk citizens have. For example, when a new baby is born, grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins all come to visit, people meet up in their houses all the time for lunch, dinner or coffee and even though all the restaurants, bars and cafes are closed, there are quite often Facebook posts from the “anxious” few highlighting massively crowded streets in the city where everyone has met up and got a take away beer and hot snack and are happily socialising out in the street instead. Supermarkets are rammed on Saturdays with no queue system and schools remain open.
However, since the end of last November when there was a further natural peak of cases (and admittedly when they did introduce a nighttime curfew of 6pm to try and discourage people meeting up after work) the average case rate per day has been absolutely stuck at around 20,000. Many people don’t work from home and lots of people are currently on unrestricted holidays in whatever part of france they fancied visiting. My limited understanding of science but keen observations of the different approaches would appear to suggest that indoor mixing is not making much, if any, difference and that lockdowns only kick the can further down the road.

I think at this stage - a year down the line - a bit of component analysis might be in order to see what is actually working, rather than just a blanket ban on anything other than sitting at home. Ok so schools and offices closed because higher rates of transmission/indoor mixing - but does outside gym equipment need to be fenced off as well? If lots of people catch covid in the pub, does that mean outdoor swimming pools are the same risk and need to be shut too?

I’m not anti-lockdown as such, but I don’t think lockdown is the way out of this, and I am not supportive of ripping away people’s civil liberties and not being held to account for that. Lockdown has a hideous human cost as well, and it may turn out that repeated lockdowns caused more problems than they solved (eg schools not going back in summer last year when rates were very low - but sending them back in the autumn when seasonal viruses tend to flourish).

We walked by a busy kids playground today (great).

Right Next to playground is the solar powered eco-gym -- all taped off. FFS. 13yo DS quite likes to 'play' on the outdoor gym. Most outdoor adult gyms have teens on them ime, not adults anyway.

@longtimemarried

Ilookatthefloor - Covid patients were being treated in ambulances in hospital car parks because the wards were overflowing with patients, I would call that pretty overwhelming - wouldn't you?

Fairly normal winter peak in the NHS? Not the first time. Doubt it's the last either unless the government/ NHS actually have priductive reform and expansion of acute services.

The Blair years move towards super hospitals probably hasn't helped. Also there is a long standing issue with "bed blockers" awaiting social care. We need more "cottage hospitals" providing non-emergency care.
I don't know if it would be viable to segregate emergency and planned care more to avoid the regular postponment of planned surgery due to lack of beds. Obviously staffing is the critical logistic on that.

But ultimately the NHS has been limping for over a decade by cutting beds despite an aging population.
The move to daycase was great...as long as people don't end up staying in with complications...

@Lostinacloud

I currently live in France. Yes there was a tight lockdown last March-May but since then no further lockdowns and I can tell you for an absolute fact that the vast majority of french people have not given up anywhere near as much family contact as uk citizens have. For example, when a new baby is born, grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins all come to visit, people meet up in their houses all the time for lunch, dinner or coffee and even though all the restaurants, bars and cafes are closed, there are quite often Facebook posts from the “anxious” few highlighting massively crowded streets in the city where everyone has met up and got a take away beer and hot snack and are happily socialising out in the street instead. Supermarkets are rammed on Saturdays with no queue system and schools remain open. However, since the end of last November when there was a further natural peak of cases (and admittedly when they did introduce a nighttime curfew of 6pm to try and discourage people meeting up after work) the average case rate per day has been absolutely stuck at around 20,000. Many people don’t work from home and lots of people are currently on unrestricted holidays in whatever part of france they fancied visiting. My limited understanding of science but keen observations of the different approaches would appear to suggest that indoor mixing is not making much, if any, difference and that lockdowns only kick the can further down the road.

The Kent variant had caused the current situation in the UK. I'm not aware that France have a similar highly transmissable strain?

Has France had our Kent variant in large amounts?