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?

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?

The latter. The spectre of an overwhelmed nhs (ie scenes from Italy) terrified them and care homes were sacrificed to that cause.

[quote Flyonawalk]@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.[/quote]
Not just interesting, but absolutely necessary. Because this isn't going to be the last pandemic. Lockdown wasn't part of our previous pandemic planning, it was something very new. There's a lot we need to know, not simply assume, so we can do better next time.

This certainly will need to include an acceptance that lockdown caused harm and deaths also. At cultural level that's an acceptance process we're still going through.

@Flaxmeadow

maximum suppression/zero Covid.

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

Still a possibility to you? Even now with omicron and each country accepting it

Where is achieving this and at what cost?

On the vulnerable I’m sad re how much we had to suppress any message there were other costs, huge ones, for some groups who were also vulnerable.

Also economic impacts that will hit most of us harshly and our dc

There was no allowance for this, no discussion, and still you see the overhang of this on here re the words ‘selfish’ etc when all the expectation is towards people behaving according to one group still.

We did a huge amount, and we should have balanced it more.

@VikingOnTheFridge Yes, very necessary to acknowledge the harms of lockdown.

On an individual/ family level that is starting now, with people becoming so much poorer as we start paying for lockdown.

It is going to be horribly painful for millions.

@TheKeatingFive We didn’t all support lockdown or shout for more.

I didn’t and nor did many on this thread. Some of us were appalled from the start by the wilful stamping on the young, poor and marginalised.

@MarshaBradyo Totally agree with you.

We didn’t all support lockdown or shout for more.

Sure. I meant the leadership

@TheKeatingFive that is true. Enthusiastically echoed by almost all media, sadly.

@TheKeatingFive

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.

I agree - I found it absolutely shocking that they appeared to be no opposition party at that time - felt like we'd slipped into some weird and dystopian dictatorship! I've always seen the left as more caring and supportive of the poor and weak in society but their behaviour throughout this has made me rethink and I will never vote for Starmer now.

(Putting these quotes in reverse.)

Do you really think they are lacking the intelligence to weigh up all the factors and scrutinise research/evidence?

There's a few things here.

In raw intelligence terms, the situation is mixed. SAGE, SPI-B, etc. are very capable. Many ministers are, not all. It turns out Borris does not have an analytic, probing, mind. (To be clear, I'm not saying folk are 'stupid', but virology, epidemiology and stats are fields that are not accessible without quite some mental effort for many.)

Could they weigh things up? This is what politicians should be good at. But we found economic analysis missing. No matter where you stand on the importance of money, this should be weighed. Yet they avoided even having the information to weigh! What else was not weighed?

What of the research/evidence itself? Prior to Christmas, backbenchers revolted, and so many did because it emerged that SAGE modelled 'what they were told', without really looking broadly at other scenarios. Research/evidence isn't made by "the internet" —it has to be created by universities, labs, pharma companies, etc.. Turns out that the weigh of evidence we created was for scenarios that would be supportive of measures. No-one in an authority position seemed to have even though that was a problem.

It's funny, in a way, because you'd think it's the scientific complexity that'd make good decision making hard. But in the end it turns out to be the age-old "I thought you did it!?" / "No! I thought you did?!" fuxxup.

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?

They should be. And I do believe they can again be. We will learn from this.

But in order to learn, we must look back critically. Dismissing the question as unnecessary or unimportant is not going to help us learn.

There are studies out there on years of life lost.

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

Yes but if the first Lockdown didn't happen and we carried on as normal the healthcare system could not have coped. Hospitals were having to ration oxygen even with Lockdown.
The last person to have and transplant in the Hospital featured in Hospital just before Lockdown caught COVID and was in ICU for months. Very nearly died. This was a young man.
COVID is dangerous for cancer patients which is of course why most cancer treatments continued in Private Hospitals contacted to the NHS.
I also was invited to and attended all my regular screenings. I also had a two week wait referral which happened as normal.

I've always seen the left as more caring and supportive of the poor and weak in society but their behaviour throughout this has made me rethink and I will never vote for Starmer now.

The left has been overly dedicated to lockdowns above all else.

Chicago is a good example of what happens in schools when this becomes too strong. That response is more concerning to me - a disregard to all else.

We should be very wary of the idea that the limitations of SAGE's work are due to lack of intelligence or even any bad faith on their part. Because that's not what the issue is.

SAGE have the expertise they were chosen for and model what they're asked to model. It's not the fault of anyone on their committee that, for example, they haven't provided expert analysis of how state power is exercised against citizens and which groups were going to be most targeted by the decision to criminalise a public health crisis. That's just not their lane. The problem is that policy was only informed by some expert opinion. There was a lot missing.

Chicago is a good example of what happens in schools when this becomes too strong.

What happened in Chicago was an absolute disgrace

I really worry about the long term impacts of school closures on racial inequality in the US. That kills too.

@nojudgementhere

@TheKeatingFive

You need to look beyond left wing politics/Keir Starmer in the UK, and look at left wing politics worldwide. Left wing governments globally have pretty much unanimously supported measures and lockdown.

Then you need to ask yourself why that is.

Then you need to ask yourself why the ONLY party advocating what you suggest is reformUK, and the very far right parties.

You need to ask yourself IF the various social media groups etc that you have been swayed by, at source level - actually DO have the best interests of the vulnerable at heart.

I’ll say it again you CANNOT cherry pick mental health issues. You need to consider each and every mental health issue faced by people on a global level. You cannot focus purely on the mental health of children/low income in the UK - low income issues here are very different to other counties worldwide, and thus is a global pandemic. You cannot ignore that 5.4 million people have died/people have inadequate health care globally and the expense of easing only certain mental health issue here in the UK. The issues you speak of are hugely important, but there is a whole tsunami of other issues too.
Children/low income etc cannot operate without healthy adults to support them. We ALL interplay as a community. And then globally - we ALSO all interplay.

I realise I sound patronising, but this is just so fundamental. I actually DO believe you care very much, but I think you need consider a great many other factors.

Then you need to ask yourself why that is.

Oh I do yes. Unfortunately the issue became very politicised from the start and counter opinions silenced. That was pretty unforgivable.

I haven't stated what I think should have happened on this thread, so I'm not sure where you're getting your information on that from

Some of this stuff was just another way to silence posters.

Eg as often happened on here - you are talking about education and you will be barraged with insults connected to political organisations.

In much of the globe, the people most likely to bear the brunt of lockdown are people with less power, and this becomes a vicious circle because lockdown exacerbates inequality. In democracies, they're also people less likely to vote for various reasons.

Naturally, political parties wanting to get elected responded to this. Although it's noteworthy how many leading Labour figures in the UK began moderating their stance on restrictions in December 2021 when it became clear which way the wind was starting to blow.

Some of this stuff was just another way to silence posters.

Exactly. It's a tired tactic. 'Oh the only people who think that are right wingers'. Well I'm not blinkered enough to think that the right wing might not have it correct on some issues, some of the time.

Schools being key. The official (global) left wing stance on schools has been absolutely appalling in my eyes, impacted them poor the most, exacerbating racial/poverty divides. If it makes me right wing to say that, then fine.

@TheKeatingFive

You can’t just dismiss as a tired tactic, you need to think why.

It boils down to individualism v’s collectivism.

A collectivist response IS the correct response to a global pandemic unless you want an unfathomably high death toll globally and hospitals worldwide unable to function.

Life comes first.

Left wing and right wing governments agree on this worldwide. Except I suspect our lovely right wing government care less about life then they should.

If you want - and want to encourage others to vote for a government that advocate what you want. Who are you/they going to vote for? Like I said - it’s almost word for word - reformUK manifesto. Or slightly diluted by the likes of the right wing Telegraph.

And I certainly DO NOT want the UK moving in that direction. So YES I will speak out against it.

@MarshaBradyo

Some of this stuff was just another way to silence posters.

Eg as often happened on here - you are talking about education and you will be barraged with insults connected to political organisations.

I called some of them on it in the end, asked them exactly what their evidence was for their accusations that posters didn't actually care about child welfare, were U4T members etc. They blustered a bit then shut the fuck up, obviously.

It goes back to the point of us having been in a cultural climate where some people genuinely struggle to see any deviation from orthodoxy as being well intentioned and in good faith. It's not enough simply to disagree, the person making the inconvenient point has to be disingenuous, part of a cabal, a group of bitches, weaponising something or other.

A collectivist response IS the correct response to a global pandemic

You can state that in capital letters all you like, but it doesn't acknowledge the fact that the collectivist response asked far more of some people than others and in most cases, the people who it asked the most of had the least to gain.

So I understand completely why they people who were sacrificing least and gaining most from this collectivist response don't want a conversation about it. But I don't think it's going to be that easy im afraid.

In order to protect the covid vulnerable, lots of other vulnerable were comprehensively shoved under the bus. We're only starting to talk about it now, but I for one am having that conversation now and think we need to tease out the real moral complexities of what went on.