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?

I would love to know if Nanny and John / NutNuts are real people or trolls.

I suppose if anyone of them are real, the reality of people sitting at home for months/ years alone prophecising about the end of society as we know it online would actually be incredibly sad.

@HarrietteNightingale

Well, people have different ideas for what ‘learn to live with it’ means. You might disagree with the idea that ‘learn to live with it’ should mean ‘learn to accept the remaining covid risk as we go back to normal’, rather than ‘learn to change things about how we live’, but that doesn’t make it inherently wrong.

I think "learning to accept that mandatory restrictions are ending and other people will make their own risk assessments which you have no control over" might be a good lesson for some.

Yes, I think that's true.

@Butteryflakycrust83

I find people like to shout 'we need to learn to live with it' without actually demonstrating any actual LEARNING.

What they really mean is they want to pretend Covid doesn't exist.

^this!

And I suspect it’s because they’re the ones who’ve been scared of covid and just can’t admit it. So would prefer to going back to hiding that fear and “manning up”.

It takes courage to say “yes this virus is scary, but thankfully we have vaccines and medication in place. It has been awful and we aren’t out of the woods yet. It may happen again with another virus requiring measures and we should put in place protections now, so that we don’t suffer so much*.

Better than “it’s just like the flu, let’s crack on as we did before”.

The irony is, cracking on as we did before just means we will end up in a bad place when it happens again.

It isn’t over. It’s nearly over but it’s not done. Instead of being ignorant, let’s learn and do better.

I’m starting to realise why we had two world wars in close succession. People didn’t learn after the first time and it took another one. Although we didn’t really learn as we look at the state of the world now.

@HarrietteNightingale

I think 'learning to live with it' is a societal conversation that's happening right now.

It's something on which the public will lead the politics on, not the other way around. At the moment people have lots of different ideas about what it actually means.

Yes.

Personally I’d rather we had an informed discussion, not the thoughts of people who’ve been armchair scientists thinking they know more about a novel virus because of a bit of Google/Facebook/Twitter.

If scientists tell me that we need to take a certain approach, then we sit up and pay attention. There’s a reason that countries like South Korea are doing better than us.

It takes courage to say “yes this virus is scary, but thankfully we have vaccines and medication in place. It has been awful and we aren’t out of the woods yet. It may happen again with another virus requiring measures and we should put in place protections now, so that we don’t suffer so much*.

We do have vaccines and measures in place, yes. What are these protections we should put in place "so that we don't suffer as much" from a different virus?

Medication not "measures"

The problem with that view is that even if there were one single 'the science' it couldn't operate outside of people's actual behaviour and willingness to accept any intervention.
Public health doesn't involve just saying ok ideally this would be best to get X under control so let's just do that. The best epidemiologists get this, and understand that how people, society and the state all function is a vital part of any planning too.

Personally I’d rather we had an informed discussion

I would too @Iggly and I think that is happening in many quarters. When you filter out the noise there is interesting and nuanced debate here, and elsewhere.

But we can't escape the fact that many people aren't 'informed'. Not everyone can be, and at so many levels that's OK. If you wait for the entire world to be informed you'll be waiting until the heat-death of the universe.

And there are enough of them that what they do informs how society functions, at least in part.

@HarrietteNightingale

It takes courage to say “yes this virus is scary, but thankfully we have vaccines and medication in place. It has been awful and we aren’t out of the woods yet. It may happen again with another virus requiring measures and we should put in place protections now, so that we don’t suffer so much*.

We do have vaccines and measures in place, yes. What are these protections we should put in place "so that we don't suffer as much" from a different virus?

What measures do we have in place for the long term? Fuck all as far as I can tell.

Look at the hysteria when it comes to masks and the silence when it comes to ventilation/air filters in schools? The vitriol when it comes to having hybrid working models?

And we don’t yet have a long term vaccination plan. Children are not being vaccinated. We don’t have a plan for tackling long covid. Covid does more damage than the flu yet people are comparing the two.

As for future measures - I don’t know because I don’t know what future virus is out there. Hell, covid isn’t even finished with us yet, despite what some may think. It’s worth listening to some actual experts on this.

I am not qualified to state what measures and neither are you. I can listen and see what experts are saying though and want us to do what scientific experts recommend.

What I can see though is that any mention of measures are being ignored by this government and plenty of posters on this thread.

Do I want a perpetual lock down? No..

Do I want people to stop thinking that the moment restrictions are reduced that it's a case of "COVID? Completed it mate" ? Yes I do.

If you want to take risks for yourself, fine. But please do not infringe on my personal space, please don't choose to take your own interpretation of the thin shreds of guidance that remain, and for the love of god, don't come anywhere near me with COVID-19 symptoms and declare "It's okay, I took a lateral flow" when they are for asymptomatic individuals. It's the human equivalent of your dog bounding up to me and you shouting across the field "It's okay, he's friendly". I caught COVID-19 this way after someone announced hours later that they had a temperature but a negative lateral flow so it was okay.... I now have crippling post viral fatigue on top of my disability.

Case in point - my husband has returned to his office two days a week from this week (for no reason other than his manager is a micromanager - whole other story), and is also recovering from COVID-19. The rest of his office are all in similar positions either recovering from, or being vulnerable to COVID.

His manager has a positive case in his household, is perfectly capable of working from home, yet has chosen to come in to the office and be in everyone's personal space. Trying to shake peoples hands, putting his hands on their desks and belongings, and telling them that they will be going for a team meal out. Government advice remains that household contacts should work from home if they're able to, should limit contact with those outside of the home particularly in unventilated or crowded spaces, or those who are increased risk. But his selfish manager doesn't give two hoots and has a major case of FOMO.

That to me is no more acceptable that someone coming into work with a raging cold and sharing their germs when they're capable of working from home. It goes against the concept of "Trusting the People", and remains firmly within the territory of presenteeism and "fuck everyone else". I can't get on board with that no matter whether it's related to COVID-19 or any other illness.

@NightmareSlashDelightful

Personally I’d rather we had an informed discussion

I would too @Iggly and I think that is happening in many quarters. When you filter out the noise there is interesting and nuanced debate here, and elsewhere.

But we can't escape the fact that many people aren't 'informed'. Not everyone can be, and at so many levels that's OK. If you wait for the entire world to be informed you'll be waiting until the heat-death of the universe.

And there are enough of them that what they do informs how society functions, at least in part.

I think what I actually mean is I would like those in government to have an informed discussion and I really don’t see that now.

I don’t trust those in our current government and that fills me with dread.

Personally I’d rather we had an informed discussion, not the thoughts of people who’ve been armchair scientists thinking they know more about a novel virus because of a bit of Google/Facebook/Twitter.

But these are political decisions that affect everybody, so everybody should get a say in what sort of trade offs need to be made. It’s more than just what specific specialists think.

That’s why we do, generally, believe that a democracy in which elected accountable politicians make the decisions is probably the best way to go. We don’t go “here, random virologist, you get carte blanche to decide what you want to happen with society and we’ll do that and everyone else will shut up.”

When we talk about experts, we need to understand that the expertise we need isn't solely scientists. There needs to be, for example, expertise in how the state functions and how measures are applied against groups and individuals with more and less power. These things affect people's behaviour. We can see that now. Part of the anger that would make implementation of further restrictions in the UK so completely impossible at the moment is due to that very thing. These issues are all interconnected.

@GoldenOmber

Personally I’d rather we had an informed discussion, not the thoughts of people who’ve been armchair scientists thinking they know more about a novel virus because of a bit of Google/Facebook/Twitter.

But these are political decisions that affect everybody, so everybody should get a say in what sort of trade offs need to be made. It’s more than just what specific specialists think.

That’s why we do, generally, believe that a democracy in which elected accountable politicians make the decisions is probably the best way to go. We don’t go “here, random virologist, you get carte blanche to decide what you want to happen with society and we’ll do that and everyone else will shut up.”

I disagree.

Public health is not politics. Decisions about measures to protect the health of the public living are not political IMO.

There are plenty of things which the public do not decide on (the obvious things being seat belts, speed limits, alcohol while driving).

I think what I actually mean is I would like those in government to have an informed discussion and I really don’t see that now.

I don’t trust those in our current government and that fills me with dread.

Well I can't blame you there.

And obviously, I am fine with virologists getting to make the calls on what we can realistically do with vaccine design, or doctors getting the main say on what sort of drug treatment we need to invest in for immunosuppressed people who get covid.

Letting virologists decide on how we run schools or letting ICU doctors decide on whether we restrict household mixing indefinitely, though? No.

Public health is absolutely political. I think what you mean there is you wish it wasn't.

@VikingOnTheFridge

Public health is absolutely political. I think what you mean there is you wish it wasn't.

How is it political? Deciding what would be the safest course of action to protect the health of others should be decided by those who know what they’re doing.

There are plenty of things which the public do not decide on (the obvious things being seat belts, speed limits, alcohol while driving).

Yes the public does decide on those. Those are laws made by elected politicians in Parliament. The laws are made based on advice from relevant specialists, of course, but the votes to get them through require enough people being okay with them, as represented through the MPs we elect.

Are you actually saying you would prefer replacing our democratic structures with a benevolent dictatorship of scientist philosopher-kings when it comes to anything with ‘public health’ on the label? Have you quite thought this through?

Re some of this it has been decided by experts eg age range for vaccinations

Also more and more the cost of social restrictions is being acknowledged

Personally I’m pro vaccination so have had all three but I think mentions re SD earlier ignores cost

But these are political decisions that affect everybody, so everybody should get a say in what sort of trade offs need to be made. It’s more than just what specific specialists think.

That’s why we do, generally, believe that a democracy in which elected accountable politicians make the decisions is probably the best way to go. We don’t go “here, random virologist, you get carte blanche to decide what you want to happen with society and we’ll do that and everyone else will shut up.”

Yes, and politicians have to try to see the whole picture, particularly what is going to make society function. Virologists are able to focus on their specific remit. It's not their remit to manage the NHS to clear its backlog of elective surgery or protect the economy. If cases are now dropping, obviously restrictions will be relaxed so that these things can take place, not kept in place with all the attendant costs to society. These are emergency measures, not business as usual ones.

@GoldenOmber

There are plenty of things which the public do not decide on (the obvious things being seat belts, speed limits, alcohol while driving).

Yes the public does decide on those. Those are laws made by elected politicians in Parliament. The laws are made based on advice from relevant specialists, of course, but the votes to get them through require enough people being okay with them, as represented through the MPs we elect.

Are you actually saying you would prefer replacing our democratic structures with a benevolent dictatorship of scientist philosopher-kings when it comes to anything with ‘public health’ on the label? Have you quite thought this through?

I think I would like a separation of politics from public health matters. You sort of see it at local authority level - so public health directors will tell schools what they need to do locally when there’s a high outbreak of covid. Local politicians don’t decide, public health directors do.

So I guess that sort of thing on a grander scale. The measures aren’t endless because they’re designed to reduce incidence and then the need for measures should go away.

That’s what I mean.

Public health is not politics. Decisions about measures to protect the health of the public living are not political IMO.

They are when they restrict people's lives and the functioning of society.

It’s either that or we need a check to stop our politicians making decisions on public health which have disastrous consequences for which there is no accountability until an election. Which they can move.

Take Boris Johnson. He’s ignored scientific advice on measures and lifted Plan B for his own political gain. As a result, cases will increase, and we end up in a hot mess.

There’s no accountability to the public. None. The next election is too far away.

Public Health experts are well versed in the link between health and the economy - they understand having a well balance health economy, where everyone is in good wealth, suits everyone (for example).

I think some posters on the thread have argued themselves into a frankly bizarre position, which does nothing to contradict the idea that there are people who want restrictions to exist in perpetuity.