Anyone want a perpetual lockdown

[beentoldcomputersaysno]

I often see posters accused of wanting continual lockdowns, despite their post not suggesting it. I often assume it's done to deflect or antagonise posters who suggest a health measure(s) to adapt to life post-2019. However, is there anyone who posts on this board that does want perpetual lockdowns?

Don't you mean 'group bitching' session? (And you've been doing that for many pages between yourselves now.)

Weird. Not sure why talking about financial impact from Covid is ‘bitching’ I suppose sexist insults help.

We have been largely cushioned from implications for two years but the economic reality will hit many hard.

@Puzzledandpissedoff
It’s early yet, but I believe as I have from the start that, apart from the first (perhaps understandable) lockdown, they'll come to be seen as an appalling mistake

There obviously were some appalling mistakes, but what happens in your alternative reality without last winter’s lockdowns? I didn’t look at Mumsnet till quite recently.

@QueBarbaridad I have thought from March 2020 that lockdowns were a dreadful mistake.

My alternate reality was the same as the usual reality for people vulnerable to viruses and infections, ie the UK’s two million plus cancer patients every year. That the vulnerable take steps to shield themselves and everyone else carries on as normal.

The media screamed for lockdowns and the public agreed. The costs will strike the youngest and poorest for decades, and the effects for them will be catastrophic.

Thanks, people, for voices of reason!

The rank hypocrisy of the lockdown bellowers is astounding. Nail on the head about it is selfish, nay evil, to go to the local shops but perfectly fine to relax indoors whilst Amazon serves you, and some nobody on minimum wage delivers it to your door.

@DottyHarmer Exactly! and those little people who kept the country going will be crippled as wages stagnate and costs rise while we pay back the money spent.

@Againstmachine

Fuck knows how much Jeff Bezos made out of people using Amazon for things they'd otherwise have got from 'non-essential' shops.

Wonder who they thought was bringing stuff to them

Ah yes, Amazon who were 'doing their bit' by...

Remember what Amazon did to help?...

Come on...

Was it 'provide their staff with PPE and a pay rise?'

ARE YOU OUT OF YOUR MINDS?

Amazon did a far, far nobler thing than that. They announced all over the media that they were prioritizing essentials over non-essentials in terms of deliveries, so if you'd ordered, say, art supplies to keep your frightened kids occupied, or some form of mental health advice book for yourself, you would have to wait longer for it, but Amazon would still keep your money.

Lockdowns TERRIBLE idea.

What happens in your alternative reality without last winter’s lockdowns?

Probably the same as happened in those countries which didn't have them; they worked through the cases, took whatever other precautions seemed sensible and otherwise got on with it

Of course none of them have a sacred cow NHS, for which so many seem prepared to sacrifice almost anything, which may have made a difference - which reminds me that nobody's ever offered an explanation for why so much of it remained resolutely shut in summer 2020 when cases were in the low hundreds, if that

[...] but what happens in your alternative reality without last winter’s lockdowns?

Not only were there appalling mistakes as you seem to agree, but the advertised premise of lockdown was mostly wrong most of the time — deaths limited to 20k, three weeks to flatten the curve, and so on. Even the huge success of the vaccines is tainted — remember vaccinate the vulnerable and then cry freedom? And then we realised they would not be sterilising.

Maybe we were not sold a deliberate lie, but turns out we were mis-sold.

Was it the best we could have done? I don't think anyone thinks so. Were we even playing in the right park? Given the costs we have incurred, it must be a topic for discussion.

It is really important to look at what those alternative realities could have been.

I didn’t look at Mumsnet till quite recently.

Unfortunately there's no point looking back in the archives hoping to find thoughtful discussion and critical analysis of the alternatives. As in most mainstream and social media, it was off limits. That's why there's no catalogue of "we could have done instead" responses —it was forbidden thought until recently. Research in academia would not have found funding, and publication was probably career limiting.

That's why it's also so heartening to see this discussion. Finally, we're starting to process the data as we should have done from the start.

there's no catalogue of "we could have done instead" responses - it was forbidden thought until recently. Research in academia would not have found funding, and publication was probably career limiting

Another nail on head moment. Time and again we see research money flung around in pursuit of a chosen agenda, and ridiculous claims about "independence" on behalf of those in no position to be so

I'd ask whatever happened to genuinely objective research, but that's increasingly hard to come by these days

Look, whatever any governments did, a novel coronavirus was always going to kill quite a lot of people. There was no magic solution that would mean no one died of it - or of fear, or of poverty. The moral panic definitely made everything worse and TBH a government that tried to resist it would have been felled pretty quickly with accusations of 'not caring' (Fucko the Clown hung on because he and his mates are motivated almost entirely by hanging on to power and stealing money. The other thing they were doing - and the reason why Cummings and his nudgebots ramped up the moral panic as much as they did in Spring 2020 - was putting stuff in place that was going to make it almost impossible to remove them from office. )

The puritan aspects of the panic (call everyone selfish! Fetishize 'hard work' ,suffering and sacrifice! Other people were having too much fun and this is a punishment) meant that stuff that would have been useful to roll out quicker (masks, ventilation, air scrubbers, less hysteria about hand gel) didn't get a look in.

At present, and since last summer, the UK government has been doing mostly the right things - but for mostly the wrong reasons. They want to avoid putting more money into the NHS and they absolutely want to avoid giving any more money to poor people, so they are getting on with their own agendas while hoping the pandemic has gone away. It is pretty much goingaway now - most people who get it are getting a mild dose, death rates from Covid are plummeting - but now we have to work out ways of getting over all the other consequences.

The moral panic definitely made everything worse and TBH a government that tried to resist it would have been felled pretty quickly with accusations of 'not caring'

That's one of the tricky truths of the time, and it certainly complicates the analysis of possible alternatives. Not only do the alternatives have to be better, but also politically achievable.

The other thing they were doing [...] ramped up the moral panic

This is I think the critical action, and I genuinely believe it was well-intended at the time, albeit misguided, and probably not thought through.

But it made the having of a grown-up conversation infinitely harder. And for a government already demonstrably not capable of ... well, it turns out they were well-capable of organising a piss-up ... but perhaps that turns out to be about the limit of their leadership capabilities.

It was always going to be hard, as you say @Wreath21. But those initial actions pushed many of the more pragmatic approaches entirely off the table.

Definitely not. But some things about lockdown were good, mostly pollution. I’d be interested in the government changing employment law to a presumption of right to wfh unless the company can say why it’s required to be in person.

Not only were there appalling mistakes as you seem to agree, but the advertised premise of lockdown was mostly wrong most of the time — deaths limited to 20k, three weeks to flatten the curve, and so on

Er. 'Three weeks to flatten the curve' was very successful. Infact more successful than they'd hoped. Cases plummeted steeply and the R number was greatly reduced.

What is wrong is that people misinterpreted it as the end. It wasn't and Gov't and science never suggested it would be

@puppetere

The moral panic definitely made everything worse and TBH a government that tried to resist it would have been felled pretty quickly with accusations of 'not caring'

That's one of the tricky truths of the time, and it certainly complicates the analysis of possible alternatives. Not only do the alternatives have to be better, but also politically achievable.

The other thing they were doing [...] ramped up the moral panic

This is I think the critical action, and I genuinely believe it was well-intended at the time, albeit misguided, and probably not thought through.

But it made the having of a grown-up conversation infinitely harder. And for a government already demonstrably not capable of ... well, it turns out they were well-capable of organising a piss-up ... but perhaps that turns out to be about the limit of their leadership capabilities.

It was always going to be hard, as you say @Wreath21. But those initial actions pushed many of the more pragmatic approaches entirely off the table.

Ah no, the moral panic in the UK was a) deliberate and b) fuck all to do with Covid. It's a tactic the Tories (and many of their paymasters) have favoured for a long time; it was the tactic that got them Brexit and re-elections - convince the public that their neighbours are to blame, must be spied on and denounced.. and keep them busy while you get on with whatever you want to do. If you frighten the respectable enough they will willingly eat shit and demonize those beneath them who have (understandably and rightly) less trust in 'authority'.

So it's public 'selfishness' and disobedience rather than systemic underfunding which is tanking the NHS; it's a couple of kids sharing a six pack in the park who killed your grandmother, not the home care worker who couldn't take time off without losing his own home...

I genuinely believe (ramping up the moral panic) was well-intended at the time, albeit misguided, and probably not thought through

Very much agree with this, which is why I had no objection to the first lockdown when we genuinely couldn't know what we were dealing with

But it offered too many opportunities to too many, not least getting noses in the trough, avoiding work and embarking on moral crusades beyond all reason, and because some very much enjoyed these opportunities we ended up with a perfect storm of destruction

And as ever, those who shout loudest for these things are noticeable by their absence when the consequences start to roll in

My DM would like everyone in permanent lockdown due to her fear of Covid, and then everyone would be as miserable as her and she’d be happy about that too.

Same for my MIL sadly.

@SomewhereOnlyIKnow

@puppetere

The moral panic definitely made everything worse and TBH a government that tried to resist it would have been felled pretty quickly with accusations of 'not caring'

That's one of the tricky truths of the time, and it certainly complicates the analysis of possible alternatives. Not only do the alternatives have to be better, but also politically achievable.

The other thing they were doing [...] ramped up the moral panic

This is I think the critical action, and I genuinely believe it was well-intended at the time, albeit misguided, and probably not thought through.

But it made the having of a grown-up conversation infinitely harder. And for a government already demonstrably not capable of ... well, it turns out they were well-capable of organising a piss-up ... but perhaps that turns out to be about the limit of their leadership capabilities.

It was always going to be hard, as you say @Wreath21. But those initial actions pushed many of the more pragmatic approaches entirely off the table.

Yeah, this is very true. It became an article of faith that lockdown was the only way. Because China had done it, after all.

And we can still see that now, people whose belief is so deep that they genuinely don't comprehend how anyone might disagree or at least be sceptical about it in good faith. It's on display in this thread.

The reality of course being that it's likely to be a good while yet before we can make even educated guesses about what was the least worst choice, not least because it's not over. That's going to involve a full and frank appraisal of the harms of lockdown as well as the benefits. Not just things like all the years off lives that are lost when there is increased obesity, but also more complex stuff like how much more you alienate black, Asian and working class people by disproportionately subjecting them to covid related criminal laws and what impact this has on engagement with health authorities down the line. That's going to be some complex modelling and we've barely started.

@DottyHarmer

Thanks, people, for voices of reason!

The rank hypocrisy of the lockdown bellowers is astounding. Nail on the head about it is selfish, nay evil, to go to the local shops but perfectly fine to relax indoors whilst Amazon serves you, and some nobody on minimum wage delivers it to your door.

Haha, yep. I work in a factory and it was astonishing the amount of people on here who were lambasting people like me for grabbing a takeaway coffee on the way to work because it's "NON ESSENTIAL" but they're happy for us to go out to work so they can get all the non essential stuff they ordered online.

What was the alternative to lockdown?

Even with Lockdown and shielding which was far stricter than Lockdown hospitals struggled to keep up with Oxygen Supply in March 2020
As much as I hated Lockdown with a passion the alternative in my mind was fad worse.
Seriously if shielding the vulnerable was ever going to work than I am sure they eould have fine it but sadly the ECV need more access to health care than your average person. They often have family members who WOH, they often WOH and they often have kids who need an education. Without some Covid suppression tactics before we had vaccines it would have been disastrous for everyone who needs access to any sort of health care.

@Waxonwaxoff0 that is truly awful! The hypocrisy has been astounding.