You only have to look back at the threads at the beginning of lockdowns to see the smuggery smug posters who were advocating hunkering down for as long as it takes .
I wasn't 'smug' but I was willing to put up, well maybe not even willing, but resigned maybe? To having lockdown for as long as it was deemed necessary by those who are in possession of far more facts and education around the subject than me, because I do think that a virus does what a virus does, and by preventing it skipping as much from host to host, would hold back the tide and spread it out enough to ensure that services coped, not just the NHS, but anything really that relies on humans to function. By its nature a virus, as I understand it, especially a 'new' one with no natural immunity in the population, once in a setting (any setting) would infect nearly everyone in that setting within a 2-3 week timeframe, with a range of reactions from no symptoms to death. Which would have meant many places grinding to a halt, quickly, with no warning or support and causing many of the issues we've seen with lockdown anyway. We'll never know if not locking down and going with that would have caused more or less problems in the long run, because we can't go back, change it and see. I do think on a personal note, that it would have been even more chaotic than lockdown has been. Your favourite restaurant closed because everyone is infected and not enough staff to run it, isn't a massive issue (for wider society) but when it starts to get to schools, shops we need for food, care homes, gp practices etc, things that we rely on, there would have still been closures of these services due to not enough people to run them.
Rarely did they admit that they had secure jobs, or were on a generous pension, had nice homes with big gardens and either small children or no children. There was lots of baying about staying home - with the exception of delivery people who were a covid-infested necessary evil.
I didn't have a secure job, or any of those things, but I don't think my job would have been any more secure if the sector hadn't been closed either. If we'd simply run out of staff well enough to work, and customers well enough or 'brave' enough to venture out, which was a possibility, my job still may well have gone, just sooner and without the initial support of furlough and things like payment holidays, which would have seen me further up a certain creek, without a paddle and with a hole in the boat too.
I did stay at home apart from the essential stuff, because work took up so much of my time, I had very little else to occupy me outside of work, it was normally blitz housework and sleep. The first 3 weeks after hospitality closed, we're good for me. After a busy Christmas period, and the scrambling to sort everything out, catching up on everything at home, and sleep was great. In the same way that having a couple of weeks annual leave are. There was literally nothing I could do about my financial situation, I had no idea if, or what amount or conditions would be attached to any furlough or anything, and although I worried, I quickly came to the conclusion that I needed to see how the land lay before making any big decisions regarding anything. I just hunkered down and did my best really.
I agree that if lockdown suits you - own it. Don't dress it up as faux concern.
As I said in a pp, lockdown didn't really change my life an awful lot this time around. That doesn't mean I can't see it has for many, and the effects it's had though, or that I want it to continue. Fully open or locked down, it won't really affect me.
I do wonder though, why concern expressed for the effects of covid are seen as virtue signalling and 'faux' but concern for the effects on the economy and education, business and mental health are valid?
I'm touched a little by all of that, there's a middle ground where you can be concerned about the possibility of the NHS being overwhelmed by covid patients that it can't function any more, but also worried about what closing schools means for children's futures, closing industries means for businesses and the economy and the effects on people who have been isolated and whose mental health has taken a battering.
Why does it have to be one side or the other, with derogatory comments and remarks being flung around? Both sides accusing the other of selfishness and not seeing another pov, while not accepting an alternative pov themselves.
I don't think that most people, off Mumsnet, have such polarised opinions either way. You're likely to be swayed by your personal circumstances, and what you've experienced through this, but does that make either side totally incapable of seeing a different effect?