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?

But what’s the shocking cause they are driving (no pun) for?

If it’s to oppose the mandate, that seems quite a reasonable cause — even if you disagree with it, presumably you see it’s not a marginal position to hold.

And if it’s their methods, are you really aligning yourself with our Tory friends in making disruptive protests criminal?

If it’s only their choice during a time of pandemic, then you have surely to reflect — though not necessarily agree — that there is now a wide spread of opinion to the question of whether it is now “over” or not.

@puppetere I linked Guardian, CBC and NBC articles which all veer towards left wing bias. Did you read the articles?

I did, but only scanned. But obvious left wing bias, I agree.

Apologies but I'm not getting the point you're making I think.

No worries!

I could link article after article…

www.google.co.uk/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/uk-news/2022/feb/08/cultivating-conspiracy-how-boris-johnson-amplified-the-far-right

It’s best just to read them I think, I can’t articulate it any better.

www.google.co.uk/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/sep/22/leftwingers-far-right-conspiracy-theories-anti-vaxxers-power

@Emergency73

I have not said that at all. I’ve said continually - in almost every post - that lockdowns cause harm.

WHO etc don’t recommend lockdown, only in a desperate situation. Yes the pandemic is ongoing, but there is a way to control severe symptoms and hospitalisations. I doubt further lockdowns will be necessary, and I think only a minority of governments in Europe thought they were needed to control Omicron.

It is ethically right to save lives.

There are groups out there who are very much in support of extremist politics and exploiting the pandemic - I think it would be naive to ignore. Look at Canada.

Further lockdowns outside of states that exert a considerable degree of control over their citizens will not happen, that's a given. That ship has sailed, and the popular support has gone. We are in the UK seeing our mainstream party and parliamentary politics reflect that too, which is a positive thing. The Tories were never going to go along with Indy Sage's desire for further lockdown a few weeks ago, but it's also telling that Labour didnt. The Overton window regarding lockdown and restrictions has shifted, which was necessary. That mainstream party politics did such a poor job of accommodating left wing and even centrist concerns about the impact of covid measures for the first 20 months of the pandemic was not good for any of us.

But there is still much more to do. Because there'll be other pandemics, and because saving lives is so important, that will require us to investigate not only why pandemic and disaster planning shifted so radically at the start of 2020, but how many years of lives lockdown cost and the negative impact of the messaging that was required to get the population to buy in. We need better than people's guesses.

@VikingOnTheFridge

I agree with what you are saying there. Mostly.

But a major shift in disaster planning must have come about because of the vaccine, better knowledge on how to treat seriously ill patients, that hospitals could cope (although I do think this was on a knife edge).

And it’s not just guessing, but educated prediction based on data, statistics, likelihood. No one had a crystal ball, and it’s very easy to criticise with hindsight.

But definitely agree, we must learn from the mistakes of this pandemic and plan better for the future.

The shift I'm talking about occurred in early 2020 ie prior to vaccines and when hospitals didn't have that knowledge you mention. There is still a lot to understand about why. Also, the opinions being ventured at the moment are guesses, sometimes educated depending on who's venturing them, and they can't be otherwise, not just because the pandemic hasn't finished yet but because there is so much that hasn't even come to light yet. Much less given rise to any data anyone could analyse. I mean, there's still a coroner's inquest backlog in the UK, for starters.

Lastly, it isn't hindsight that harms would come from lockdown, it just wasn't considered politically expedient to acknowledge this much at the time. To give a couple of examples, DV charities in the first lockdown knew that violence was going to increase if victims were made to stay at home with abusers. In some of our disaster and pandemic planning as far back as the 00s the detrimental impact of school closures on children was acknowledged (possibly earlier I dunno but I don't know anything about that). This were not new or surprising concepts. Only the messaging was.