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).

As for closing schools, that was nothing short of disgusting.

I don't want another lockdown ever again but I can't understand why we're not doing the things that will suppress transmission and will still let us do all the things that we want to do (I am talking masks, testing, ventilation etc).

Probably because two of the things you mention demonstrably don't do those things when faced with Omicron.

Now I'm all for better ventilation. Even if it did nothing at all to reduce the covid rates, we have far too many stuffy public places. But there's no real world evidence of masks suppressing Omicron transmission. Neither did testing, when we had access to widespread free LFTs and PCRs. Omicron still surged, which isn't surprising given that the testing and isolation system was in the process of breaking down when we got rid of it in England. People were simply opting out. And then we saw with Scotland, who kept both of those things longer than England, that they didn't suppress Omicron either.

The problem is that with a variant this transmissible and well seeded, there aren't any things that both suppress it and let us do the things we want to do. Another lockdown clearly isn't a possibility, we're not going to have one of those again during this pandemic, so we are where we are.

The answer is I'm not sure. Should Boris have been stricter at the start? Possibly.
I feel ok about it all though. Dh and I carried on, admittedly not affected that much. I was quite calm about it all, followed the rules, don't have anxiety, never really felt scared. I never did wipe down my shopping. Now I only wear a mask if really forced to.

Oh I've remembered something. The pettiness. Our local group criticising parents who took their kids to the middle of the open park , well away from anyone, and played catch with a ball, or kicking a football to eachother when I metre away from eachother. Saying they were only supposed to be walking? Were the rules at the time?
Do they look back and cringe at themselves now? I do.

I resented borders not being closed. Allowing flights in from highly infected countries. I was following the rules, I resented that at the time.

Yes, that sort of thing was disgusting. Looking back, many people needed to be told to fuck off at a much earlier point in the pandemic. I am lucky to live in a community where there was never much of that going on.

It was quite terrifying how people got worked up about others breaking the rules. It felt like "Nineteen Eighty-four" (the novel) for a while. And there were a lot of ridiculous rules that were never done away with despite improved understanding of the virus.

I don’t judge anyone who decided to get vaccinated, just like I don’t judge anyone who decided not to. I felt like the 2020 lockdown was justified and reasonable since we had no idea what to expect. The 2021 was unnecessary imo. I think people need to realise that covid affects everyone differently so where I caught it and only really had a high temperature and aching limbs, DH caught it and was bedridden for a week. Everyone is different.

I'd just add that we forget very easily how much more serious alpha covid was and that we were all unvaccinated at the time!!

Yep this is exactly the type of pettiness that was constant on local social media groups

and often people with their own big gardens/outdoor space criticising people who had gone out to kick a ball about on grass, there are lots of families in flats round here who genuinely wouldn’t be able to have a kick about or whatever unless they utilised some public green space. It didn’t mean they were inherently more ‘selfish’ than those in better housing situations who were smug about sticking to all the rules perfectly

ImplementingTheDennisSystem
I didn't mean like a Facebook post, I meant people at the school and around messaging me when I said on Facebook I was struggling. They were saying they had the same, the chest pains, and were worried. They wanted solidarity and to talk to people who were going through the same whilst listening to people say covid wasn't a thing. Statistics tell a different story to real life, a lot of people just struggle on without 'declaring' issues, and their doctors don't log it publically. My doctor's response was basically apologetic as they didn't have past experiences to help me and I was showing damage but there is and was no solution

Reminds me of that shit about all being in the same boat. It was always obvious that lockdown life was going to be infinitely worse for some people than others.

Denying what must've been hundreds of thousands of people, if not more, functional access to green space has to go down as one of the worst policies of the pandemic. The very opposite of what we should've been doing. People ought to have been actively encouraged to be outside exercising, getting fresh air and Vitamin D. That was clear even in March 2020.

I thought it was ridiculous at the time and still do now

I think we did what was necessary to keep our health services functioning (just). Mortality will still be 200,00..

I'm not bothered by individual rule breaking on either side politically because we/they are all grown ups and were properly informed of the risks. Boris nearly got himself killed (prat). Starmer got ill too.

The real mistake was discharging people to care homes. The individual who decided that was a good idea needs to accept how many lives he or she cost.

.

Yes my views have changed. Whilst I understand that there were a lot of unknowns about the virus I think closing schools and denying people access to loved ones and outdoor spaces was terrible. The pandemic has done untold damage to my mental health, and I know has effected my relationship with my family and friends. I was petrified of covid at the beginning. Did not leave my house - not one step out the front door for 3 months!
I washed / sanitised all my groceries. Had anxiety attacks when we first started socialising and had to leave family events because of it. I also had extreme anxiousness over the vaccine. Reading the posts on MN from women who believed the spread of covid was all down to the unvaccinated and that we should either be forced to get it or be locked up in our homes forever and denied access to holidays, restaurants and leisure activities and believed that the unvaccinated were basically a death sentence to anyone they came in contact with put me over the edge. The anxiety I had because of it all! I cannot tell you the number of days I've spent up in my room crying weighing out whether or not I should get the vaccine and stressing over it. I didn't get it, and I'm glad I stuck with my decision not to get it, but I can tell you that those nasty comments and views - some of which I'm sure will have been made by MN'ers on this thread or at least reading it, genuinely had me contemplating whether or not I take my own life at the time because I just couldn't cope with the beliefs that some people felt about me. I can see now that so many of us completely lost the plot, and I blame most of it on the government and their scaremongering. Once I finally got covid a month or so ago I was asymptomatic and didn't even know I had it, aside from sore ankles and my back for one evening. Other than that I felt great, and carried on WFH and going about my daily life. Most vaccinated people I know suffered far worse, and were in bed for at least a day or two and said how unwell they were.

On a side note, I would urge everyone to watch the miniseries Dopesick on Disney+. It's about the lies and coverups that the pharmaceutical compenies told medical sales staff, doctors and the public in order to get the highly addictive drug Oxycontin released to the public which is a highly addictive opioiod that killed many people and ruined the lives of thousands and thousands or others as a result of addiction. It's eye opening and a real life story as to what can go on with drug makers and what companies will due to make a profit. www.imdb.com/title/tt9174558/

I am not saying this was entirely the case with the covid vaccine, but it goes to show how easily people can be mislead when someone in power decides to skew the data...

To answer your original question OP, have opinions changed I'd take a look at this thread I started myself to gauge opinion on an issue I had:
www.mumsnet.com/talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/4547627-whats-with-specsavers-and-masks

I was told by SS on the phone that I didn't need to wear a mask to try on frames so I went along to the shop and was refused entry with out sanitising my hands and wearing a mask. I thought they were being unreasonable (as I don't want to spend hundreds of pounds on new glasses without being able to see my whole face when I buy them) and I wanted to know what others thought.

At this time, the majority agree with me but the thread has gradually descended into a massive hoo-ha and there is still a very vocal group who are still ranting about being selfish etc etc

In short, it would appear that no, at least on here opinions haven't changed.

@RedPepperJelly I'm so sorry that you had such a hard time. I too considered some pretty extreme things because of the intense pressure all around to be vaccinated against something that would be unlikely to make me that ill. I might add intense pressure in the media, not in in real life. In real life people don't go around asking about your vaccination status and ranting at you, well, not people I know anyway.

The threat of mandated vaccines almost tipped me over the edge. I'm still in shock over the countries that used this tactic. Many centre left leaning countries that I'd previously admired like Canada. The pandemic has certainly made me reassess my political allegiances.

I found the way some people reacted and behaved during the pandemic quite frightening. Grassing up their neighbours for going out more than once a day, the judgement on people for doing everyday things like going to the park with their children, the online bullying and ranting if you didn't comply or dared to question the narrative/the vaccine/the mask wearing etc. People lost their minds and many haven't regained them, or maybe they were always the sort of people who enjoyed bullying others?

Like you when I eventually had it last autumn I was only mildly unwell and made a full recovery.

I don't know if you can tell but I've even name changed for this comment because I don't want the nutters screaming 'selfish' coming after me. They are still there and I imagine they will be back in full force at some point.

Don't let the bastards get you down OP :)

That last line is meant to read @RedPepperJelly not OP :)

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?

this is generally where I am and I feel that my social circle is broadly similar. I certainly have a different approach since vaccinations have been widely distributed along with the virulence of omicron strain making it an almost certain inevitability.

I do think it’s important to remember events in context of the time and what we did/didn’t know. The novel factor of covid is what made it so dangerous; there was a period where everybody was vulnerable because we simply didn’t know enough about it and how it behaved. There was zero residual immunity from previous infections like you might see with known viruses like flus.

I think we’ve made vast gains in knowledge, treatments and preventions so covid isn’t the same unknown entity it once was. It’s a similar progression to HIV once being a death sentence to something that can be managed and lived with for a large number of sufferers.

I am particularly struck by the fact that the spectrum of acceptance that covid is here to stay includes an extreme end that it’s not and never has been an issue, it’s a disease that will be added to an array of ones that we’ve dealt with for eons but for some reason it’s less acceptable to point out the serious consequences it can leave in its wake. Given the timescales involved treatments and vaccinations can only be improved on from this point but to talk to some you’d think there was no need. Yet if you were to talk about the rare, but serious, outcomes from chicken pox it would be received in an entirely different atmosphere. I just find it odd.

It's always easy to say things should have been done differently when you have the benefit of hindsight.

On the whole, I think the government's handling of the pandemic was chaotic and there were a lot of mixed messages - ranging from giving an impression there was nothing to worry about to making people think there were strange rules like only being able to exercise one hour a day.

I'm more disappointed it doesn't look like anything has been learnt for future pandemics. And the covid hasn't gone away. There was an article on the news earlier about the situation and low vaccine rates in developing countries and the risk of a more deadly variant emerging there if the virus is left to spread.

Well, I've only recently admitted that I continued to see my long term partner and my parents and siblings during lockdown and not felt like i was going to be judged negatively.

I agree @hepaticanobilis . This government never wanted the kinds of restrictions we saw imposed and had their hand forced pretty much every time and capitalised (often prematurely) on withdrawing them.

For me at least, that’s pretty strong evidence that, for the situation we found ourselves in this country, there weren’t many available choices to make.

it’s interesting to note that the initial wave of covid highlighted that emergency planning advice had been ignored and our supply of PPE and ventilators were non-existent. This certainly added to our problems and the urgency of measures. I was vaguely aware of the UK’s lack of preparation for respiratory issues because I’d seen a report previous to the pandemic that focussed on the fact we were unprepared for a large scale terrorist gas attack. If I’d had to put a bet on at that point I would have bet on a terrorist attack highlighting the PPE/ventilator issue over a pandemic.

I think the measures were necessary at the time, but mainly so that the essential systems were in some way protected, like the NHS, social care, police, fire etc.
I do think though that if we'd been better prepared, reacted quickly and had properly functioning services in the first place, those measures wouldn't have needed to be so harsh.
That's what I'm annoyed about really, that if the services we needed to protect were in better shape, the measures that were intolerable for some would not have been needed. Ultimately though, that's the place we were at when covid hit and we couldn't do much else but try and work with what we had.

I also think that everyone will have a different view based on how they were affected.
If you got covid, were mildly affected but lost a lot financially from lockdowns you might feel they were too harsh, but if you were in a position to not be too affected (or it saved you money) but were negatively affected by the virus itself, you're going to probably feel the restrictions were what were needed or maybe not enough.
Thousands dying a day could be an acceptable price to someone - until it's someone they love or themselves, and so many people losing everything could be an acceptable price to someone else - until it's them that face it.

The blame though was something else all together, I saw a lot of people expecting others to understand and adhere to what they thought was right without giving the same back. That for me, was the main problem.

you mean - didn't kill anyone THAT YOU KNOW OF, you seem very flippant about your refusal to obey rules. It's people like you that contributed to all the restrictions going on for so long, you must be so proud of yourself.