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).

How reminisent of the VE Day parties!
Yet not a blip was caused in the data from low community rates and outdoor mixing in May 2020

Given that Jubilee celebrations are most likely to be outdoor events and not greatly affect levels of indoor mixing compared to usual life, I doubt somehow that we're going to see a major change in data trends in 10 days.

Meanwhile the catalogue of post-Covid backlogs affecting society.

Completely agree re Platinum Jubilee parties which are either going to be outdoors or held in very well ventilated venues round here. And we are all vaccinated now anyway, pretty much.

The March 2020 national lockdown was unprecedented, and doesn't become less so because humans have tried quarantine and shutting some businesses and schools in one part of a country before. That isn't an accurate description what we did.

The article you posted before didn't do what you wanted it to do, because it didn't address full national lockdown. Closing many businesses was only one small part of the 'dilemma'. It completely leaves out the restrictions on socialising and leaving people's homes, as well as not having anything to say about doing this across a whole society. Which of course it couldn't possibly, because it was about something completely different to the March 2020 lockdown. That's not a problem with the article, obviously. It's a problem with your argument.

Thanks mmmmmmghturep! Definitely think there's no chance of the same level of cooperation from key workers this pandemic in the event of another lockdown. The sweet spot mentioned by another poster upthread isn't there and the ingredients for it aren't coming back in the short term. Harder to call for the future, although I do think if we ever see anything where the majority of the population, especially the young, genuinely feel threatened we will probably have significant social unrest.

I agree that some aspects of the 2020 lockdown were "unprecedented", as everyone keeps saying.

It doesn't change the fact that

• the term "lockdown" was previously used to describe pandemic management, see link


• some aspects of lockdown had been implemented previously


• some of the discussions around personal freedom vs public good had taken place previously

Another live one on the TV now warning that Platinum Jubilee may cause a rise in cases.

Apparently everything may cause a rise in cases, according to the talking head they wheel out every single damn time. Christmas, the Jubilee, a sunny day, it being Thursday…

Of course, the idea that we can’t live our lives around avoiding an uptick in cases, escapes them.

You are not going to turn this into a semantic discussion, though if you were you'd have to do better than one article citing one obscure source from 2018.

March 2020 style lockdown was unprecedented. Constantly mentioning parts of it that weren't is a strawman: what we had was entire countries placing restrictions on whole populations even in their own houses, for lengthy periods, as an addition to other older practices. This was unprecedented.

Of course there weren't the same levels of lockdown in 2018. (There was no internet shopping for one thing) And if levels of Spanish flu had reduced to the levels of Covid after the end of April/early May 2020 at any point, there's no way they would have continued with restrictions which affected people's ability to work and shop and eat, simply because they would have justifiably thought there was no flu around. For example in my area in early summer 2020 the dashboard told us that there were less than 2 cases per 100,000 people. Yet we were forbidden to meet with more than six people. There is no comparison to 1918.

I find people's attempts to try and twist meanings of words and phrases to try and justify hanging onto their entrenched positions of the last two years a bit odd and disturbing.

Lockdowns and continued restrictions were hugely damaging for vast sections of society. There is no getting away from this.

And no bloody way have the police thought it was in their remit to surround two women walking with coffee, or order a group of siblings to go inside when they were playing in their front garden before.

Can you imagine that in 1918? I can't.

Shanghai has just come out of a two month total lockdown, for what has essentially become a cold virus. That hasn't happened before either.

"Of course there weren't the same levels of lockdown in 2018"

Now you see guys, that is a straw man argument. (I assume you mean 1918 by the way).

I am not saying there were "the same levels" of lockdown in 1918 I am saying that there were elements of the same thinking.

A straw man argument, people, is where you re-write what the other person was saying, in order to try and win a point, because you can't actually win the argument any other way.

Thanks for illustrating it so well.

I bow to your superior intellect.

Silly me I genuinely thought Spanish Flu was in 2018!

I find people's attempts to try and twist meanings of words and phrases to try and justify hanging onto their entrenched positions of the last two years a bit odd and disturbing

I must admit I find the reaches quite entertaining.

A huge thanks to everyone who responded to this thread (my first, as someone pointed out, and possibly last!). For anyone who is interested, here is some apparent evidence that a lot of people's opinions really have changed.
dailysceptic.org/2022/07/04/most-people-say-their-country-limited-freedoms-too-much-during-the-pandemic/

I saw this graph on Twitter today. If so many more of us died of covid than in some other countries then surely we should have been doing what they were doing?
Our economy seems in far worse shape than most other countries in the G8/G20 too.
We're having another disruptive wave right now. My childminder's got it again.
I'm completely sick of it and think of we had done better things or acted sooner we might be down the bottom of this graph rather than at the worst end.
Does anybody know how many people have actually died of covid in the U.K.? We must have reached 200,000 by now.

According to your graph, Britain is only slightly worse than the EU average, which is surely the most relevant comparison.

Oz, SK and Japan are not comparable to the UK, for reasons which have been discussed at great length over the past two and a half years.

It seems pretty black and white to me. Other countries did things which worked better than the things we did so they have healthier economies than us, healthier people with much less long covid/organ damage etc than us, and much less covid death.

It seems pretty black and white to me.

And that's the problem. You're taking a very simplistic approach to a very complex issue.

As I said, the 'other countries' most comparable to the UK have had pretty similar outcomes.

Our country did the wrong things.
Neither our people nor our economy were protected.
Other countries did better things.
Both their people and their economies were protected.
But we couldn't have done those things because "reasons"

Which comparable 'other country' did 'better things'?

Can you be specific?

Look at the graph

The graph which shows that Britain had fairly similar outcomes with the only comparable nations?

And your beloved graph doesn't say anything about who did or did not do 'better things'. It gives no information about testing rates, ways of counting, and much else besides. It certainly doesn't say anything about the economy.

But I suspect you are attached to what you admit is 'black and white' thinking so probably not much point in continuing to discuss this with you.

Nowt so black and white as dismissing all the countries with healthier economies, less long covid and fewer covid deaths as "not comparable"

I wondered earlier in the thread if the U.K. had reached 200,000 covid deaths yet, as I'm not very good on stats and that.
Apparently we have.
Does anyone know how that compares to other countries?

What nations ARE comparable with our country @IcedPurple?

*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.*

Perhaps we could have avoided some of that if we had taken action sooner, but so many people died in such a short space of time in The first waves before vaccination (150,0000?) that surely it would have been even worse the government had done less?
I'm sorry to bang on, but doesn't Japan have twice our population but only a 7th of our covid deaths? (About 30,000 to our 200,000) I don't think they had lockdowns. Maybe they've didn't need them because they did masks and testing well?

@RadioRouge I think realistically Europe and the US

www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/#countries

Sets out where we are in Europe (though it is slightly behind) and it puts us 20th (when looked as in terms of population)

This wave seems to have peaked because that is what it does!