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?

@Flaxmeadow the alternative could have been focussed protection, as the Great Barrington scientists suggested.

Not all countries locked down.

the alternative could have been focussed protection, as the Great Barrington scientists suggested

Hindsight is a wonderful thing and all that and less was known back then, but the main problem I see with the BD (Oct 2020) is that it seemed to very much rely on the idea of herd immunity. That we should shut millions away and the rest would develop some kind of natural resistance to the virus, either lasting for at least a year, or even for life. Sadly, we now know this is not possible. Even at the time it was started to be supsected that it would not be possible, with the shock of Alpha and everything Alpha implied. So the BD was out of date as it was published. Not the signers fault I suppose but things were moving on

*signatories? signers? Not sure what the correct word is but anyway.

Without some Covid suppression tactics before we had vaccines it would have been disastrous for everyone [(ECV)] who needs access to any sort of health care.

But doesn't this get to the nub of it...

The argument was that we needed measures in order to keep virus levels low enough to make it safe for ECV to access essential services (including health).

Yet that proved extremely hard when levels were climbing, and when levels were low, it was not possible to sustain for long.

So, most of the time, we ended up with levels that were never truly safe for those that it really mattered to.

By concentrating on population-wide measures, rather than focused protection, we let vulnerable segments down — they either slipped our minds entirely, or we piled on measures with good intention, but ultimately did not meaningfully help them.

The suppression of Delta was probably more important than previous measures for previous variants. Delta being more transmissable AND more virulent than the previous, but thank god by then we had the vaccines.

If you look at the graphs you can see that the whole summer and up to Omicron was suppression of it. A huge long but very squashed wave. Vaccines playing a big part in that

[quote Flyonawalk]@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.[/quote]
Some ideas just go against the grain so much for so many that it hardly matters whether they are right or wrong. What you suggest just wasn’t going to happen.

@puppetear
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.

How was it off limits?

The main schools of thought, as far as I remember, were: sacrifice the weak; shield the vulnerable; and maximum suppression/zero Covid.

I don’t think it was feasible to ‘shield the vulnerable’ the way that was often suggested as a solution. It’s quite hard to wall off ‘the vulnerable’ from society in a way drastic enough to be effective without being incredibly harsh and often impractical (eg, what if you live in a house with 6 people and only one of your vulnerable? What if it’s one of your kids? How do you keep services open if a ton of the workforce are being focused-lay protected?) I do t think it was wrong to discuss it, but I never saw a suggested model that would have worked.

Also think we’d have been hit by an economic fallout even without lockdowns. Like the virus, you’re just going to end up with some degree of harm to the country no matter what you do or claim to be doing.

But with all that said - I think lockdowns should only ever have been in place for very short periods and should not have been as harsh as they were even when in place. It really worries me how fast they came to be seen as the default mode of society, and just dragged on and on and on, with all the ensuing harms.

Posters saying it isn’t practical to shield the vulnerable…what do you think happens the rest of the time?

There are millions of people every year who are clinically vulnerable to infections which are trivial to healthy people. We don’t lock down every winter because the vulnerable could be made severely ill through flu or colds.

‘The vulnerable’ for covid pre-vaccines is a much bigger group than ‘the immunosuppressed’ though. So either we’d have had massive deaths anyway mostly among the over-70s, plus massive impacts to hospitals, or we’d have had to set up a system where they all could be shielded and it wouldn’t be horrific and impractical. Or we could just have shrugged and said “they can take care of themselves” I suppose but then that isn’t really the sort of thing I think anyone meant by ‘focused protection’.

I am newly CEV and most certainly do not want another lockdown. I will do what I can to take sensible measures, my family, friends and colleagues are being very supportive but the world needs to start recovering.

We live opposite a primary school and really missed the sound of them playing when schools were closed. They were all on the playground yesterday making a fabulous amount of noise.

@Flyonawalk

Posters saying it isn’t practical to shield the vulnerable…what do you think happens the rest of the time?

There are millions of people every year who are clinically vulnerable to infections which are trivial to healthy people. We don’t lock down every winter because the vulnerable could be made severely ill through flu or colds.

But we are not in 'the rest of the time'. We are in a pandemic, a world changing crisis, a very serious situation and at February 2022, it is STILL serious.

What for the future? Who knows. Maybe it will fizzle out, hopefully, and this Omicron is the end of the bloody thing. Or maybe, God forbid, this is just the beginning of the onslaught.

This is a brand new virus and so much is still unknown. How it will mutate, how it behaves in the future, how effective vaccines will be in the future, how will we cope with repeated infection and how will our immune system cope with that.

Isn't it better to proceed with with at least some caution and not just throw our hands in the air and say ' oh well, it seems like just a cold right now, yay, so lets all just crack on as before'

Do we really believe right now that we 100% hold all the cards? Feel 100% sure to roll those dice?

maximum suppression/zero Covid.

The way things are going, this might not be such a bad idea

@PuzzledandpissedoffProbably 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
Which countries? Countries with our health inequalities, age profile and obesity rates? Countries that closed their borders in time?

@Flyonawalk

This is what I have an incredibly massive issue with is. There is a MAJOR difference between
1)supporting and shielding the vulnerable (which takes into consideration their well-being)
AND
2) segregating off the vulnerable, ‘ring fencing’ and treating them as if they CAN be excluded. They form a very, very valuable part of our society. They are not ‘expendable’. Their mental health is ALSO very important.

Vulnerable people work, have families, support children and are an integral part of our community.

No other country worldwide has followed a ‘ring fence off the vulnerable and let the rest of us crack on with any restrictions’ because it is a morally abhorrent idea.
It is not supported by our left with OR right wing government. Although I think our right wing government show scary signs of having that agenda.
The ONLY political party in the UK who have mentioned ‘Great Barrington Declaration’ in their Covid manifesto, or suggest this ‘ring fence’ idea is reformUK.

And if you look - at source level, at a lot of the disinformation/let’s not consider the rights/mental health of the vulnerable - it is ‘think tanks’ with politically extreme ideas, and pretty extreme thinking economists who are very willing to put money in front of people’s lives.

What I also have a massive issue with is the ‘cherry picking’ of mental health issues.
Lockdowns cause harm AND an out of control virus caused harm.
You have to take ALL mental health issues into consideration. Not ‘just’ children, not ‘just’ those who have lost their jobs due to Covid, not ‘just’ those who have been lost social contact - but ALSO the 5.4 million worldwide who now don’t have mental health because they are dead, the families of these people, also the many, many millions of people who can’t access adequate medical treatment because their hospital are overwhelmed. And then globally - countries were AIDS is prevalent, access to vaccines are poor etc etc.
There appears to be a theme on social
media that those who reject the vaccine, also reject restrictions, masks etc.

Does it really not make sense that the tens of thousands of BEST medical minds globally/WHO - have the consensus of opinion that vaccines, masks - and in an extreme/critical situation - lockdown - are our best defence? Do you really think they are lacking the intelligence to weigh up all the factors and scrutinise research/evidence?

So, most of the time, we ended up with levels that were never truly safe for those that it really mattered to. By concentrating on population-wide measures, rather than focused protection, we let vulnerable segments down — they either slipped our minds entirely, or we piled on measures with good intention, but ultimately did not meaningfully help them.

I agree with this.... We have been in some kind of "reverse Goldilocks zone" where we have enough restrictions to have a negative impact on society and the economy, but not enough to really make the CEV feel safe.

With regard to the CEV, what would Covid levels need to be to be regarded as acceptably low to remove all restrictions? And once we're established that, what actions would be needed to achieve that goal?

These are key questions that don't seem to be being addressed, with the result that people understandably think that those pressing for keeping or enhancing restrictions such as mask wearing, regular testing and isolation, are expecting these to be permanent features of society moving forwards. Many people bristle against this...

Once the winter has passed, I think we probably need to accept the need for largely unrestricted waves that follow typical epidemic curves of sharp rise followed by a sharp falls (the kind of which we've seen in the past - the 1918 pandemic curves being good examples) with lulls of some months in between.

This would enable the CEV to take extra precautions during periods of high infection, and then be much safer the rest of the time, rather than the interminable period of peril that current exists for them.

1)supporting and shielding the vulnerable (which takes into consideration their well-being) AND 2) segregating off the vulnerable, ‘ring fencing’ and treating them as if they CAN be excluded

The irony is that the measures and restrictions which are called to be put in place to protect the CEV actually just flatten the curve and extend the period that infections are above an acceptable or "safe" level for those with CEV, extending the period over which they feel need to exclude themselves from normal activity.

Restrictions that flatten the curve are helpful in the context of ensuring that healthcare isn't overwhelmed. It's not really a strategy that helps the virus get to low enough levels sustainably for the CEV not to feel excluded.

I agree that we probably couldn't have completely protected all the vulnerable under any system, but it's worth looking at care homes, where we've had lengthy and distressing restrictions on visits but also discharging people into then without proper testing meaning Covid really did rip through a number of them. Here was a group of vulnerable people we really did stand a chance of protecting, and we did a very poor job. Did we drop the ball on this because we were too focused on locking everyone down? Or because we were too focused on NHS capacity? Or for some other reason? For that matter, did we pay enough attention to the residents' own wishes about what risks they wanted to take?

I'm not sure what the answers are, but I feel strongly that it needs investigation, and a plan putting into place for any future pandemics.

We seem to be moving back towards saying 'the vulnerable' when what we actually mean is those vulnerable to covid. There's a vast distinction and it's important to be aware of it. Lockdown was of benefit to some vulnerable people and deadly to others.

@VikingOnTheFridge

We seem to be moving back towards saying 'the vulnerable' when what we actually mean is those vulnerable to covid. There's a vast distinction and it's important to be aware of it. Lockdown was of benefit to some vulnerable people and deadly to others.

To clarify that further, when we talk about vulnerable, we mean "those that remain highly vulnerable to Covid even after being fully vaccinated and boosted."

At least that's how I've been using the term.

@VikingOnTheFridge Exactly. We supposedly prioritised those likely to die of covid over everyone else.

We may have saved some lives but at the cost of who knows how many others.

It would be interesting to count years of life lost and not just lives lost, to covid and to the response to it. So someone dying with covid at 83 may have lost one year. Someone aged 33 whose illness cannot now be cured may have lost 50.

@treeflowercat Yes indeed, and we are long overdue some conversations about that. The one-sided focus on people who might die of covid has led to so many young and poor being ignored.

I find it staggering that we sidelined vulnerability to poverty, neglect, abuse and so much more.

Depressingly, I suppose this is what society does the rest of the time.

I find it staggering that we sidelined vulnerability to poverty, neglect, abuse and so much more

What I find staggering is that the left not only went along with it, but called for more and more of it.

We prioritised a functioning emergency health service.