Have people's opinions changed?

[MassiveOverthinker]

Just wondering really, if the last few months have changed people's opinion on how we managed covid in this country.

Anyone wondering if maybe fewer restrictions would've been better and if more draconian ones (often called for) were unnecessary. Anyone wondering if we needed to close schools, swab and isolate our kids, test and trace etc etc.

Or do people generally feel we did what was necessary at the time and are only okayish now because of weaker variants and higher vaccination levels?

Anyone feel less angry at the rule breakers, those who don't want to be vaccinated etc?

If it all happened again, do you think your response to restrictions would be the same, or would you be a bit more inclined to think "sod that for a laugh".

(Asking for a friend).

'But it means we have to have proper emergency and contingency plans. This is the responsibility of government, including through its own pandemic planning and how it funds and supports the NHS and social care.'
V true. Govt also needs a realistic plan for dealing with how to support the growing number of people with long covid too, along with the associated impact of that on workforce and economy.

It's a fair question.

I read that part of the issue was the pandemic planning had historically been better resourced, under both Labour and Tory governments, but then in the last few years the focus has been on Brexit planning and policy, which has led to fewer resources elsewhere.

@Everanewbie @HesterShaw1

Interesting thread.
twitter.com/nikkijfox/status/1529520351524311041

Oh, only a matter of time before the loooong covid

For there to be a decent quality government plan on dealing with the effects of long covid, they're going to need much better data than we currently have too. It doesn't do anyone any good to lump in people who have serious and life changing symptoms with people whose cough hasn't fully disappeared after a few weeks.

Looking back now...

1. Kids' playgrounds padlocked and covered in yellow 'do not touch' tape
2. Toys/clothes sections of some shops closed off as being 'non essential'
3. Police roaming parks with loud hailers and drones, fining people for sunbathing or sitting solo on a bench with a cup of coffee
4. People in need of urgent medical attention declining to go to A&E for the greater fear of 'catching covid'
5. People reporting their neighbours for having 7 (not 6) people in their garden
6. Some people spray bleaching all their packaged goods before putting them in cupboards
7. Hiring specialist cleaning crews to go into offices and 'deep clean' once a Covid case was identified
8. Holding your breath as you walked past someone in the street
9. Hugging people through plastic sheets or planting kisses on windows just to try and feel a tiny bit closer to the people you love but were told you could not see

And then, as a result of all but shutting down the country, we forced domestic violence victims into living in cramped conditions with their abusers, countless businesses lost, suicide, a mental health epidemic (particularly among young people), many others forced to say goodbye to their loved ones via video call, weddings endlessly rescheduled, devastated people at funerals forced to sit 6 ft apart...the list goes on.

I think we lost our minds. But I felt that after about 3 months when things just didn't stack up. FWIW, I had 2 vaccines and got Covid. I have decided against the booster for now.

Originally I went along with things, thinking that we were dealing with something akin to the black death.I think it was about the end of April 2020 when I lost the fear. I started to see alternative points of view from various academics and statisticians with strong backgrounds (i.e. not conspiracy nuts) who outlined with verifiable statistics that not only had cases peaked prior to the LD, cases had fallen quite dramatically and that to the vast majority people, it was not really any more dangerous than the flu. It was then that i concluded that LD was a forgivable mistake in the first instance, but became criminal beyond mid-May 2020.

Again, Jan 2021 when cases went bananas but we had a vaccine about to be rolled out en mass, I can see the logic in a LD, but all the statistically vulnerable had been jabbed by early spring, and our first great release was being allowed to sit on bench in March. It wasn't until late April that we were allowed to shiver our tits off in a beer garden. Its just unforgiveable.

Except there aren't accurate case numbers for April 2020, because testing was only available in very few circumstances.

Testing was increasing week on week so you'd expect to cases increasing, not decreasing as tests and testing capacity increased. we saw the opposite. plus case trends can be extrapolated from triage, hospitalisations and deaths

Don't people always say something like you ave a 99% chance of surviving COVID 19?
So the 30,000 covid deaths in April 2020 were 1/100th of the cases in March.
So 3 million people had covid in March 2020.

The survival % has improved since the beginning as medical management worked out what drugs to use etc. Also being vaccinated helps with survival. It is better than 1% survival now.

I was just talking about March and April 2020. There were no vaccines then.

@ItWillBeOkHonestly I feel exactly the same (including on the booster front).

The first lockdown I could understand. On a personal level I felt OK as I'd just had and was recovering from Covid, but from a societal standpoint it felt like the apocalypse. But once we got into drones, and numberplates being checked to see where they came from (as if no-one had ever sold a car...) the sheer lack of common sense (making people walk along 60mph pavement-less roads to access open spaces rather than allowing them to drive half a mile...) and police looking in people's shopping baskets, never mind the bullying and the setting-your-own rules-that-you-demand-others-live-by batshittery, I thought we'd lost our minds. I said so, and was roundly shouted down for it from several quarters.

And I'd add to your list above - we're still encouraged to sanitise our hands all the bloody time like Lady Macbeth on steroids. How much harm does that do to people with conditions like OCD? What volume of chemicals is being pumped into our environment? How much packaging has gone into the waste systems?

Just as bad as aaaaallll of that is that we now find ourselves in a situation where some people see lockdowns, restrictions and legal requirements as a way of dealing with any public health issue. Honestly, you'd think it was enjoyable in some way.

And I wish to fuck the NHS leaders would shut up with their endless whining. The NHS is their for our lives, not for us to live around the NHS. I have a huge amount of respect for the majority of people who work in it, including a number of friends who are front-line clinicians, but it's a health service not a religion.

*there, not their

The 1% is at population level. It was much higher among certain groups, in particular older people - and one of the reasons the death toll was so high in March/April 2020 was because it was rife in care homes.

Its impossible to know the true fatality rate at that point however as testing was so limited.

The first lockdown I could understand. On a personal level I felt OK as I'd just had and was recovering from Covid, but from a societal standpoint it felt like the apocalypse. But once we got into drones, and numberplates being checked to see where they came from (as if no-one had ever sold a car...) the sheer lack of common sense (making people walk along 60mph pavement-less roads to access open spaces rather than allowing them to drive half a mile...) and police looking in people's shopping baskets, never mind the bullying and the setting-your-own rules-that-you-demand-others-live-by batshittery, I thought we'd lost our minds. I said so, and was roundly shouted down for it from several quarters.

@GrannyWeatherwaxsHatpin

I thought we were talking about whether Government restrictions were reasonable? How many of those ridiculous things you've listed were Government mandated restrictions?

It's a difficult one, because these things genuinely weren't in the legislation in England, but the police didn't pull all those ideas out of their arses either. The instances where people were fined or told off for having driven to exercise, for example, stem from the guidance about staying local. And that was because the government chose to have guidance that was stricter than legislation.

There's also some shit that was just plain the fault of the police too: I will hear many things about the poor quality of the covid regulations, but it isn't Boris Johnson's fault that Derbyshire police were moved to tell some women that a cup of coffee constituted a picnic.

Basically, it was a toxic combination. Bad legislation and poor policing combined to make each other worse.

And I wish to fuck the NHS leaders would shut up with their endless whining. The NHS is their for our lives, not for us to live around the NHS. I have a huge amount of respect for the majority of people who work in it, including a number of friends who are front-line clinicians, but it's a health service not a religion.
Isn't the point that if we keep the NHS so overloaded it won't be able to be there for our lives?
There'll be an unsafe ambulance wait, or a too long waiting list or inadequate care because they have more on their plate than they can safely deal with.
It's not whining, it's warning.

I just assume that the covid death toll in April and May 2020 must be higher than we know because of the low testing back then. They must have missed a lot back when doctors weren't allowed to go into care homes and care workers were told not to call ambulances.

I've some sympathy with that, up to the point when NHS leaders start advocating for restrictions again as they did over Easter. That was ridiculous. They should be talking about the resources they need, not presuming to suggest the government attempt further and futile legal controls on public behaviour. That's where their advocacy needs to focus.

local police were also driven mad by local busy bodies ringing and complaining and demanding this and that was done about so and so breaking the rules. So it was a perfect storm of a demanding terrified public (whipped up by a hysterical media who were generally awful - remember piers Morgan and his daily rants and screaming matches with whichever politician was unfortunate to be on his show) all putting pressure on both politicians and the police alike. Individual officers probably were confused as to what the rules were and were overzealous in their interpretation.
I hope we never see anything like it again

I still can't believe how crazy some people got about it, especially on here. Bleaching all their shopping, quarantining their post, reporting neighbours, everyone was a selfish granny killer for buying non essential chocolate with their food shop ect.. some people really left me gobsmacked. I know a lot of it stemmed from fear but I do hope the 'you're so selfish' poster's look back and realise how ridiculous they were being now.

I tried at the start to stick to the rules but the longer it went on the more loosely I followed them and I genuinely believe a lot of places and people began to use it (and still do) as an excuse to not provide service, see people, go to work and so on.

I know now I will never ever put my DC through that ridiculousness again, not seeing their family, missing their education, missing their friends. They all had Covid at one point or another and it was nothing short of a sniffle and that's if they had any symptoms at all. I can't believe their childhoods were put on hold and they were separated from those they loved for that. It won't happen again in our house anyway.

“Lady MacBeth on steroids”

@GrannyWeatherwaxsHatpin Love this

It's not whining, it's warning.

Then they need to expend their energies in a more productive manner. Lobby the government for better funding, make sure the funding they have is being used in the most effective way, etc etc.

Not demanding that the population is forced to live more restricted lives.

I thought we were talking about whether Government restrictions were reasonable? How many of those ridiculous things you've listed were Government mandated restrictions?

You are right in that they weren't directly mandated by the Government, but I'd argue that they have their roots in the laws enacted by Government and that the Government did nothing to tamp down the lunacy.

The Police were given powers under the laws which the Government enacted and there was huge abuse of that power at times. Now, I'm sure there were discussions along the lines of "What the fuck are you doing?!" behind the scenes, but rarely did I hear a formal public statement clarifying what people were allowed to do as opposed to what they weren't. The Government acted as if people imposing harsher restrictions on themselves and others was a good thing.

In a similar vein, comments became - in some minds - guidance which was assumed to be law. If I had a pound for every time I heard the "1 hour restriction on exercise" mentioned I'd be a rich woman. It was never law, it was never even official guidance, it was (IIRC) just a comment by Gove in an interview. It was then used by people to police themselves and others (I know someone who tied herself up in knots because she'd been out for 1hr 10 minutes and was convinced she'd be reported), and the Government did not counteract it. Or if they did, they did it so quietly I never heard it.

Whether it was nudge theory gone rogue or the Government saw it as in their interests that we all turned on each other, I don't know. I remember reading a statistic saying the Government expected 50% compliance with lockdown but got over 90% and I suppose they couldn't stuff the genie back in the bottle else they'd have to admit that they overdid it to get a reasonable level of compliance, at which all rules would probably have been disregarded.

One thing that definitely was Government mandated and which I meant to add to my list above, was that fucking app. People I know got pinged through walls and had to isolate (or certainly felt that they should) and this was completely ignored - isolation was treated as a minor inconvenience for which we should have been grateful (after all, you just sit back and watch Netflix for 10 days, right?) as opposed to being mentally damaging, never mind financially damaging if you couldn't WFH. So many of the restrictions were treated as if they had no downside.