For a lot of people, it took BorisWineGate before they were able to feel any compassion for those who suffered due to some of the OTT restrictions of 2020

[greenteafiend]

Because there are a number of people (on here and in other places) who are now finally happy to show sympathy for those who gave birth alone, died alone or were unable to say goodbye to loved ones or hug a suicidal friend, even though they spent most of 2020 supporting even the most insane measures, repeatedly calling for even harsher ones, and saying the most horrible things to people who tried to talk about how desperate they were feeling. And then spent most of 2021 demanding more and tougher restrictions too.

You know who you are. And you can sod off with Boris, frankly.

I see that ghastly Owen Jones (the eternal barometer of weasle-word turncoat politics) is now trying to pivot in this way on Twitter. I'm happy to say that he's being mocked soundly.

Autocorrect and a small keyboard are out to get me.

@Nellodee

We had 3000 hospitalisations a day last winter before everyone was vaccinated. Can I please see our all knowing OPs projections of what those figures would have been without a lockdown.

You could take a look at Sweden for some insight

Are people deciding that the restrictions were wrong in 2020 based on what we know today in a period of time we have a weaker variant and vaccinations?

Corona has been a disaster, an actual global disaster. It’s not unsympathetic to recognise that actions that would definitely have harmful repercussions were required because the balance was always that huge numbers of people would be damaged either by covid itself or the consequences of tackling it, it was a case of prioritising the largest group that required an immediate solution. That’s what an emergency forces - decisions that can’t wait.

There were/are no ‘good’ choices just ones that allowed more people a chance to get through this with that chance to recover in tact.

I agree that the government is largely ignoring their responsibilities for proper recovery in the sense that they don’t seem to have cottoned on that things have changed and we’re not going back to 2019 and the mood of that society just because covid is a smaller threat. There’s no plans I’m aware of to increase support for mental health or rebuilding community support services whose resources have been severely depleted because they plugged a lot of gaps (granted not always successfully) during restrictions. There’s no mention of increasing NHS capacity long term to cope with the demand endemic covid will almost certainly make - those waiting lists aren’t going to get back to 2019 levels, which weren’t exactly great, without the recognition that the health of a population is fundamental to the running of a society. Which is madness given we’ve just had a health disaster wreck havoc in almost every area of our lives.

I think lockdown was needed. I think earlier timing would have given us more bang for our buck - less overall pain, more gain. I think very few people didn't suffer in some way. It was shit. I think you can empathise, whilst also acknowledging that it was needed. Some of the rules were OTT and some people made horrific sacrifices. Some of the lack of protective measures now are also OTT. There is a trade off for every measure from doing nothing to full on lockdown. There has been minimising of impacts and overstating of effects on many sides - again from full lockdown to doing nothing.

There is an amazing amount of ignorance of science on Mumsnet. Opinion is no substitute for facts.

Yet this thread is full of people with little or no understanding of why the measures were necessary.

Who to believe? A virologist or a random ranter on here?

Not a tough choice.

It's not whether restrictions were needed full stop, that's a different debate.

It's about having compassion for those affected by the restrictions as well as those affected by the virus. And being able to debate the trade-offs resulting from measures, so that harms from them could be minimised while still managing infections.

It's kind of the point, isn't it - you couldn't say "there are harms from restrictions, we need to have compassion for those affected" without someone saying "so restrictions aren't necessary? Should we just let it rip? Why do you know more than virologists? Don't you care about the vulnerable?"

It's not whether restrictions were needed full stop, that's a different debate

I don’t think that’s entirely clear. When some people say things like ‘how x was treated because of x was disgusting’ are you saying they actually mean ‘how x was left unsupported because of x and is still being ignored is disgusting’?