Illegal to sit in a park but ok to party on.

[Againstmachine]

I am not sure if timelines align but nonetheless we had a government at beginning of the pandemic Made it illegal to sit in a park. Bubbles for single people were only introduced in may.

But in may it was ok to have a party.

Its sickening.

Quite a lot of the measures back then were bonkers, but I can only say that in hindsight. I live opposite a park with a playground. There was hazard tape over all the equipment and notices up saying it was out of use because of Covid. There was an expert of some sort on the news saying that wet ropes of the sort used on playground equipment were perfect for hosting and transmitting germs. I can't believe we actually lived like that but it was scary at the time.

@Flyonawalkthis is the point for me. I don't care there was an outside party in Spring, the farce is that it wasn't allowed. Get mad at that and be glad we're past it. I'm no fan of his but am wary of the "get Boris out" calls, now that he finally seems to be holding his nerve on restrictions.

The possibility of further restrictions to deal with Omicron has now evaporated, thankfully. It doesn't matter who's in charge, it simply isn't possible. The parliamentary Tory party won't have it and neither will the public. That ship has sailed. Additionally, there's a good possibility Johnson's replacement will be someone even less inclined towards restrictions such as Sunak.

And there are plenty of people who loathe Johnson as well as being lockdown sceptics or at least having had reservations. Just because we aren't represented in parliamentary politics or really on the mainstream left, at least until very recently, doesn't mean we aren't there.

I agree with wreath

The lack of PPE for care home staff was gross negligence. It will be another thing brushed under the carpet I suppose and people will still say they all ' tried their best '.

I've never supported lockdowns - I think they do not much good and a lot of harm. I think, even for those who initially supported the rules, it is now very difficult to look back and retrospectively support the more extreme measures which did the most harm. No one should have had to die alone or give birth alone or be put in effective solitary isolation for months on end and it should never have been made illegal to see close family, particularly where that left people unsupported and often unsafe. There is another thread with heartbreaking stories about what people went through in May 2020 and most of this was completely unnecessary in retrospect. There is also the fact that we kept going with these rules even when cases were really low despite it being obvious by that time that covid would not disappear. And the fact that those at least risk from covid e.g children seemed to suffer the most loss and damage from lockdown in many cases but that the suggestion of a targeted approach whereby children and young people could have been allowed more normality was treated as a moral abomination so they had to endure the rules too despite not benefitting from them.

I can understand why people would continue to think that there should have been some sort of lockdown, at least initially, though I still think this opinion fails to take into account the long-term consequences of lockdown on the nation's health, quality of life and economy, which will not be known for some time if ever. But it is clear now (and actually should have been clear in May 2020 given what we knew at this stage about outside transmission etc) that it could have been much less draconian, shorter, more targeted etc and we never had to resort to such inhumane, cruel or pointless and petty measures.

I try not to speculate too much on the government's motivations. I don't think they were purely public health but doubt it was a conscious grab for more power either, though maybe it ended up being a sub-conscious one for some individuals. I do find the fact that SAGE recommended intentionally whipping up personal fear in the public to encourage compliance very sinister. I think the epidemiologists were always going to have a one-track mind in terms of controlling infectious disease and enjoyed their time in the limelight and sudden relevance and the government largely listened to them in the name of "following the science" as this felt like a low-risk strategy - i.e. your excuse for the fall out of these measures is always that the scientists told you to do it to "save lives".

I agree with a lot of (but not all) @Wreath21 ‘s posts.
It was like some weird competitive misery. Things shut and banned for the sake of it. You can’t go and play a solo round of golf because er.. oh never mind. You can’t drive to a beauty spot for a walk because er… And on and on and on.

[quote LadyPenelope68]@Wreath21
Cute was clearly a typo, no need to be facetious.
It should have been view.[/quote]
You typed 'cure' and someone else who disagreed with me had suggested I thought Ivermectin was effective against Covid. I did wonder if you had meant 'cult'.

@jgw I wish Priti Patel would resign anyway, she is a vicious monster with fewer principles than Johnson. And I am generally supportive of rule-breakers when the rules they break are unreasonable, and very much opposed to jobsworths snitching on others at the best of times.

I think chessie makes some good points: even for those who did and still do support lockdown, it could've been done differently and less cruelly. There've also been some incredibly obvious demonstrations of where priorities lie at various points throughout this, such as the way golf courses and hunting have been treated.

@VikingOnTheFridge

Lockdowns involve the state choosing to prioritise the welfare of some vulnerable people over that of other vulnerable people. There wasn't nearly enough understanding of this at the time.

This. And they chose to try and prioritise those most likely to die, which is those ending up in hospital.

@VikingOnTheFridge I totally agree with all you've said in principle - I just hope you're right in how it plays out. Scotland and Wales can't justify their current measures, but they remain in place because of their leaders. I wonder with Johnson if at this stage I'd rather the devil we know.

Thanks 55Jumbo.

@Chessie678

I've never supported lockdowns - I think they do not much good and a lot of harm. I think, even for those who initially supported the rules, it is now very difficult to look back and retrospectively support the more extreme measures which did the most harm. No one should have had to die alone or give birth alone or be put in effective solitary isolation for months on end and it should never have been made illegal to see close family, particularly where that left people unsupported and often unsafe. There is another thread with heartbreaking stories about what people went through in May 2020 and most of this was completely unnecessary in retrospect. There is also the fact that we kept going with these rules even when cases were really low despite it being obvious by that time that covid would not disappear. And the fact that those at least risk from covid e.g children seemed to suffer the most loss and damage from lockdown in many cases but that the suggestion of a targeted approach whereby children and young people could have been allowed more normality was treated as a moral abomination so they had to endure the rules too despite not benefitting from them.

I can understand why people would continue to think that there should have been some sort of lockdown, at least initially, though I still think this opinion fails to take into account the long-term consequences of lockdown on the nation's health, quality of life and economy, which will not be known for some time if ever. But it is clear now (and actually should have been clear in May 2020 given what we knew at this stage about outside transmission etc) that it could have been much less draconian, shorter, more targeted etc and we never had to resort to such inhumane, cruel or pointless and petty measures.

I try not to speculate too much on the government's motivations. I don't think they were purely public health but doubt it was a conscious grab for more power either, though maybe it ended up being a sub-conscious one for some individuals. I do find the fact that SAGE recommended intentionally whipping up personal fear in the public to encourage compliance very sinister. I think the epidemiologists were always going to have a one-track mind in terms of controlling infectious disease and enjoyed their time in the limelight and sudden relevance and the government largely listened to them in the name of "following the science" as this felt like a low-risk strategy - i.e. your excuse for the fall out of these measures is always that the scientists told you to do it to "save lives".

You put it very well.

There were probably a load of measures that did the lion share of the work in getting infections down so low by summer 2020 and then a whole raft of other measures that had only a negligible impact but just made people so miserable and that was just unforgivable.

I think this is why the successive lockdowns were slightly less strict and they worked nevertheless. But then you still had (and still have in some cases!) lots of people bemoaning that we never had a “proper” lockdown in the style of China or even some of Europe. If only life had been made even worse..! - sure we wouldn’t have saved many deaths considering just how low the death rate was by the end of lockdown 1, but that’s not the point when we could all have suffered more.

@VikingOnTheFridge

I think chessie makes some good points: even for those who did and still do support lockdown, it could've been done differently and less cruelly. There've also been some incredibly obvious demonstrations of where priorities lie at various points throughout this, such as the way golf courses and hunting have been treated.

What a lot of people seemed to have forgotten by the time the pandemic started was how obviously cruel, corrupt and dangerous the Johnson government already was. Remember when he illegally shut down Parliament (summer 2019) to get his own way? Remember the arrival of Cummings in 10 Downing St with his army of incels and eugenicists all busy with propaganda that was intended to divide and scare the public on a range of issues? The cruelty of most of the unnecessary lockdown measures was the point. With hard right governments the cruelty is usually the point. At the beginning of the pandemic, there were some bewildered, frightened people who were willing to accept a degree of government cruelty because they thought it was 'in the common good' (though these were mostly people who were not going to suffer the worst effects of it themselves); there were various unimaginative moralists and busybodies going on and on about what was and was not 'essential' (though these were always people with zero idea about the lives of others, people who didn't do much childcare or domestic work etc, the sort of people whom it wouldn't occur to that, actually, new clothes are essential for rapidly-growing small children, for example)...

And there were a lot of people who saw an excellent opportunity to profit from this fear and bewilderment, and so anything which increased fear and bewilderment (whether or not there were any public health benefits) was to be encouraged.

I agree with Wreath.

I've said it before on here, and I'll say it again - when the history books are written it will be clear that lockdowns were a colossal mistake.

Well you'd have to have a government who were competent and actually gave a shit about mitigating harms done by their policies, of course.

And it's not like the Tories were ever going to care much about the way in which the coronavirus regulations would inevitably be disproportionately applied to BAME people, that police would be more likely to take the opportunity to try and bully the working class with the new powers rather than people with better tools to fight back. That was hardly going to be a concern.

I do agree with you Wreath but I think "hard right" is a red herring. The socialist leaders are still obsessed with Covid measures, as we see in Wales in Scotland. And Starmer has backed Johnson all the way.

I agree 100 percent with Ereath.

I was shot down here a few times for pointing out what the actual law was - along with screen shots of the law and was told I was selfish for looking for loopholes.
I feel for anyone who could have helped a vulnerable friend or family member during that lockdown and didn't feel able to, or did so and were terrified and ashamed they were doing the wrong thing. There was provision in law but it was never publicised other than by a few human rights lawyers and the pressure not to use it was immense.

@ILookAtTheFloor Fully agree with you that lockdowns were a colossal mistake. Unnecessary, abusive and cruel.

At least now more people are starting to see this.

Yes, there's an important discussion to be had about the failure of the mainstream left to articulate the harms done by lockdown, the way in which already disadvantaged groups suffered. The best we've really seen is some insistence on adequate state recompense when there are restrictions, which is important but not enough.

@55Jumbo is spot on instead of getting f angry about some people having a drink after work in a garden we should be furious at the fact that we allowed them to dictate our lives to a point where this is something we need to be angry at. Restrictions never needed to be that harsh and they knew it! And as I said on another thread it is better the devil you know at the moment with Boris as it seems really hopeful that we will be restriction free soon and the chance of another lockdown now with him in charge is zero!

@Wreath21

It's clearer than ever that the Great Moral Panic was never about public health in the first place. I am terribly sorry for those who suffered because they were obedient and genuinely believed their suffering was necessary and would somehow 'save lives'. Terrorizing and torturing the public was never going to do that much good while they continued to starve the NHS of funds and put obstacles in the way of every other potentially transmission-mitigating method.

Of course lockdown was the right thing to do. Almost every country in the world did it, to some extent.

The people at those parties were all relatively young, a lot probably knew or thought they'd already had it (like Boris), they were in a privileged position and knew that if they did become ill they'd have access to high quality healthcare - no waiting in the back of an ambulance for them, with their connections. And politics - especially the current lot - tends to attract a certain type of person, who takes risks and thinks they're invulnerable.

@VikingOnTheFridge

Yes, there's an important discussion to be had about the failure of the mainstream left to articulate the harms done by lockdown, the way in which already disadvantaged groups suffered. The best we've really seen is some insistence on adequate state recompense when there are restrictions, which is important but not enough.

Yup. Unfortunately the loudest voices on the left were the ones representing a lot of the major problems associated with some left-wing views - the middle-lass do-gooder puritanical mindset, 'respectability' politics and an obsession with surveillance and punishment. About the only mainstream commentator to get anywhere near acknowledging the harm done to large numbers of people was John Harris.

Being angry about the restriction on socialising outdoors and being angry that the people responsible for it didn't observe it themselves is not an either/or. It's just plain wrong to present it as such.

20 May was not the "peak of lockdown". The first wave peaked in early April by cases (though this was limited by testing capacity and many believe it peaked in late March). By mid May there was never any danger of the NHS being "overwhelmed", or even being busy. The next wave started in late autumn as you would expect for a seasonal virus.

We had an early heat wave that year and most people wanted to head to the beaches/countryside by 20 May and hospitality businesses could have been making a killing.

Why were restrictions still in place?, because the government did not want the political flack of releasing restrictions so close to a considerable number of deaths in hospitals and care homes, such deaths lagging date of infection by some time.

That is basically it and each month of lockdown probably cost the economy £30bn- £40bn or so.

Notwithstanding the above - Johnson should definitely resign