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).

Turns out we (U.K.) did reasonably ok in the circumstances and better than many other countries where we were previously told how brilliant they were. I think the too late to lockdown arguments of 2020 were wrong and the decisions to lift restrictions in July 2021 and not to lock down in Dec 2021 were right. I think any review should look at the harms of lockdown for mental health , cancer services etc and childrens education for example will be considered as equally important as saving lives from covid. I think they will be as now included in the review.

Lockdowns were focused protection for the laptop class.

I agree that in the UK wealth disparity correlated very closely with COVID risk disparity, but also this is a bit of a silly take because there was both collective risk and individual risk. WFH reduced the collective risk, meaning whilst there was disparity it was lower across the board.

Almost all risks fall heavier on those with lower incomes, that is a structural risk, but doesn't mean public health measures are not worthwhile.

The gaps were glaring (PPE for care home workers for example, and the risks for bus drivers) but that doesn't change the fact that if there had been no lockdown we would have had a society-breakimg wave of infection and death - and the impact of that would also have fallen on the same group hardest.

Tldr: UK is an unequal society shocker.

I have reconsidered the actual OP.

Personally, Have I changed my view? No. Not really. I don't feel differently, I feel the same. I wasn't scared, I wasn't filled with anxiety, I didn't succumb to the hysteria. Would I do exactly the same again? Yes. I don't feel damaged. We had a situation, we as a family dealt with it best we could.

But I have been around MN long enough to know that others have had very different experiences , so I do acknowledge that.

Nope, haven't changed my view at all. Thought (and said) at the time that lockdown was to keep the boomers safe as the Tories key voting demographic and please the middle classes - hence why it was so disproportionate in its effect on the working classes/ children/ anyone who didn't vote for them.

I have lost several friends who lambasted me for breaking rules which weren't even rules because I was living in a flat, on my own and working 14 hour days whilst they lazed in their lovely gardens on furlough. Selfish, short sighted people who now moan about the increased cost of living that I have to pay too even though I never wanted any of this, or brexit.

But you better believe I've just bought a house so that no-one can ever ban me from sitting in the sun again.

I think it was all necessary until we had vaccines and medicines

Me too, I spent lockdown number one in a flat, on my own with a 6 year old. I work in a factory and I remember the fucking lambasting of people like me daring to go for a non essential takeaway coffee on my way to work, where I made sure all the moaners were getting the non essential shit they were ordering online.

Well said @XenoBitch

Was it? Was it really? Women being surrounded by police officers because they went for a walk with coffee? Children being shouted at by am over zealous police officer for playing in their garden in the sunshine? Women being restrained as they gathered to remember Sarah Everard? Children being denied school through the whole summer term of 2020 when Covid rates had dropped off a cliff? Similarly busineses being shut until July 4th that year and having government money thrown at them (which we'll be paying for for a very long time), when they could have been earning their own money? Playgrounds being taped shut? Dying people being separated from their families at the end? Old people in care homes being isolated for months and months and months? Vulnerable children being shut in their homes with their abusers? It was all necessary??

Rather than telling yourself comforting platitudes, have a proper think about it.

Kudos to the posters who are now admitting that they were played like a government violin.

Should have had a faster stronger response in the beginning. Stopped flights immediately from affected areas, isolated and temp tested returning citizens etc. would have bought a lot more time. Boris dithered too long

As lockdown rumbled on past Easter and "a few weeks to flatten the curve" I rapidly became concerned about the ongoing wider consequences of isolation and lack of access to services. Cases fell rapidly in the late spring (as they have seasonally in 21/22 too). All children should have had access to proper education and socialisation by June at the latest. Leaving it until September, cooler weather and the colds/ flu season was pointless and harmful. Access to outdoor spaces should not have been controlled and literally policed. My county had a notoriously over zealous approach to policing lockdown.

The judgemental curtain twitching was horrific. People were only allowed a tunnel visioned existance to care about Covid and not allowed to care about the big picture. "Selfish" became an ironic word meaning "no body else cares about making sacrifices for me and my fears"

I'm glad most people have reached their limits and regained a wider perspective.

I should have name changed long ago, but I stand by what I've said for 2+ years. News reports about the consequences of Covid measures frequently vindicate what I and a minority of other brave people prepared to speak out against groupthink and hysteria were saying. It was wrong to vilify us for thinking about more than Covid.

MiL is in another country. It's over 2.5 years since we've been able to see her because of travel restrictions and rapidly failing health putting her under the custody of hospital/ care home restrictions. As in the UK her access to healthcare was compromised in 2020/21 and the toll of underlying conditions and being elderly has accelerated. I don't know if we'll ever be permitted to see her again. I don't feel like we saved granny. We've just given her a slow, lonely demise. So many inhumane, harmful restrictions of dubious efficacy, and they continue on in health care.

The one feeling for me that has changed is the anger. There's a limit to how much anger you can have and it's long exhausted now. I spent about a year alternating between numb and anger. I began to get normal emotions back late last summer when more normality returned, and more confidence in them when we passed the mid-winter pressure point without a major increase in restrictions, and then relief as the isolations ended which tended to be most peoples' source of concern post-vaccination.

Some of this is true, I don't know that it all is. One of the most significant risks wrt covid is age, and pensioners now as a cohort are wealthier than the working age population. It makes sense that had we not locked down, people within the working population doing jobs like care and bus driving would've had higher death rates than those of the same age who were wfh or furloughed. That's a given. Higher death rates than pensioners, a more wealthy group as a whole, though? Not sure about that.

Because of the distributions of both wealth and covid risk, it's probable that one of the hardest hit groups had we not locked down would've also been one of the richest. So lockdowns were focused protection alright, but for more than the laptop classes.

I still remember the person, right here on MN, who seriously suggested that people should be given a financial incentive to snitch on neighbours who had 'too many' visitors over Christmas

and the poster who suggested that "key workers" should all be forced to leave their homes and families and live together, in some sort of 'facility', for "as long as necessary". The poster said it would be hard, but worth it in the end.

This is an interesting article www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/may/12/ending-englands-covid-restrictions-was-divisive-but-the-data-shows-we-were-right

BogRollBOGOF I agree with everything you have said there.

Yes, very thought provoking.

Having a lockdown in March 2020 was a good idea, a bit earlier would have been better. And might have helped us to come out of lockdown sooner.

Very glad we had vaccines.

Not locking down in Dec 2021 was the right thing to do, as the risk of death was much less by then.

We ought to be supporting kids more in education re catch up funding etc.

Haven't really changed my opinions much.

Same here.

What happened in my family is that, through isolation, my father's mental health deteriorated greatly and he is now a shadow of the man he was. OH's uncle, a widower in his mid-80s, isolated himself and was too scared to see a doctor about his stomach troubles. By the time he did, he was told he had inoperable cancer and he died a few months later. The industry my brother works in shut down overnight and he spent many lonely months cooped up alone in his flat, where he developed a deep depression and then had a huge nervous breakdown. I brought him to stay with us and am glad to say he recovered, but if I hadn't broken the rules, he'd probably have been sectioned and I fear we'd have lost him. We're a minuscule section of society but this must have been happening everywhere.

I agree with @Stellamar and @BogRollBOGOF

If Boris had not dithered so long as @Stellamar says we would not have ended up in such a catastrophic situation in the first place that resulted in @BogRollBOGOF post.

And the frustration is Boris is still dithering and ignoring the current impact of omicron so not putting in place another round of vaccines for all. We are going to live to regret that - it shouldn't all be about the death rate and ignore the serious long term health impacts for many omicron is causing.

I still remember the person, right here on MN, who seriously suggested that people should be given a financial incentive to snitch on neighbours who had 'too many' visitors over Christmas

I remember the poster who said the government should send out the army to stop people visiting their family at Christmas. I'm still not over that.

and the poster who suggested that "key workers" should all be forced to leave their homes and families and live together, in some sort of 'facility', for "as long as necessary"

we all remember that one!

I have my suspicions that some of the more obviously ridiculous stuff might've been trolling, particularly as the pandemic trundled on. But one thing that did surprise me throughout was how big some people seemed to think our police and army are, because there was often significant surprise at and resistance to the idea that actually, the resources to enforce lockdown on people who don't want to do it simply aren't there and while you can stop a few people from seeing their loved ones at Christmas illegally by checking train stations, stopping people on motorways and the more obvious things like that, millions were going to be able to do it just fine.

I'm in an area that got a reprieve for the first time in months on Christmas Day 2020, but in order to stop me and mine from having met up on the other days, it would've had to be at the level of roadblocks on every avenue and cul de sac. Bringing in the army almost seemed to be a default response at points, and I don't think they were all on a wind up.

@XenoBitch But it's true that people don't care about CEV individuals. You can't pretend that people actually do care. They don't.

At least be honest about it!

@LeftFootForward Are you claiming that people actually do care about CEV people? Because I find that really hard to believe.

@AppleandRhubarbTart There are still huge restrictions on hospital visiting. I was discharged late last night and it was clear that me being allowed someone with me was an exception - it was no visitors as standard in the ward I was in.