To ask if we’re heading for another lockdown?

[TreeLine6]

So covid cases are rising and like clockwork, the likes of independent sage are back in the media calling for ‘protections’ like masks, isolation and social distancing to “avoid full lockdown”.

Is it time to reintroduce some measures like the rule of 6, a cap on large events numbers and maybe distancing and early closure for hospitality as independent sage are calling for?

Personally I feel that with vaccines and treatments, we are now in the best position we’re going to get with covid and would be very reluctant to comply with further measures, that themselves cause enormous harm.

edwest.substack.com/p/will-we-lock-down-for-covid-22

Last post, but: I really recommend this interesting post, for those wondering whether LDs would ever happen again.

As West points out, our tolerance levels for things like deaths are a slippery beast. Back in 2020, we tended to be highly intolerant of even a single death from a new infectious disease, because it was all so new and unaccustomed for a society that had got used to the idea of being victorious over every infectious disease through drugs and vaccines.

Now that we've been through it all, as West describes, our upper limit on what we're prepared to see as normal (in terms of infectious disease deaths and in terms of curtailed life expectancy) has shifted upwards quite a bit, so that you'd have to get to an absolute disease massacre in order to make people sufficiently scared for a LD (and as a PP mentioned, if things really did get that bad, then all the key workers and Amazon warehouse people and delivery guys would refuse to work, meaning that you wouldn't be able to have a LD anyway because you wouldn't have the kind of underlying societal infrastructure that is required to get a LD to work).

I remember trying and TRYING to explain to some of the forever-pandemic types on here, that I had lived in a couple of parts of the world where everyone is at a high risk of stuff like malaria, and honestly, people don't hide indoors trying to reduce the risk of mosquito bites to zero; they just take a few basic precautions and get on with their lives, going to the bar, meeting people, getting married, going places, accepting philosophically that there are some risks involved. When it's normal, you just accept it.

He goes on to add (and I think this is pretty accurate--I am already starting to see this happen):

Already I can see the narrative turning against lockdowns, despite the measures being hugely popular at the time. Partly, I think, it’s because the collective memory of most events is told through the eyes of young people, perhaps because we simply remember more from that time of life; or it’s that the historical memory of an event comes to be cemented about 10 years later when that cohort is becoming more culturally powerful. (Our memory of the First World War is hugely dependent on three prominent plays from the late 1920s, and Vietnam from a series of films starting with 1978’s The Deer Hunter and Apocalypse Now the following year.)

The story of Covid will be told by those born between 1996-2005, the group who had the least to worry about the disease itself and suffered the most through lockdown; not by older generations who often enjoyed working from home, who had families, property and maybe even a garden. The plays and television shows about lockdown, appearing in the late 2020s, will be voiced by people who lived in squalid flat shares and missed out on one of the best years of their lives, while all the while housing costs increased by another 10% and their hopes of ever owning a home were further crushed.

Don't be so dramatic.

Masks mean certain venues can't open (nightclubs, for example, don't really work if everyone's in a mask).

But anyway, it wasn't just masks that were advocated; it was masks a and SD. And of course distancing means that many businesses can't open or open to capacity, which of course means that people will lose wages/jobs.

@VampiresWife

Don't be so dramatic.

Masks mean certain venues can't open (nightclubs, for example, don't really work if everyone's in a mask).

But anyway, it wasn't just masks that were advocated; it was masks a and SD. And of course distancing means that many businesses can't open or open to capacity, which of course means that people will lose wages/jobs.

I was being dramatic?

Let me help you out here: Covid means certain venues can't open. Covid means some businesses can't run at capacity. To keep blaming mitigations for these things is disingenuous. The deeply-set narrative here appears to be masks/SD/vaccines etc. destroy fairly much all things except ... Covid.

As for the hopeful people saying that "It'll be a lockdown anyway due to the energy crisis---I hate to bust your bubble, but most COVID spread has always happened at home, and people closing the windows to conserve scarce heat will cause COVID to spread a lot more than it currently is, not to mention the impact of people weakened by chronic cold.

Additionally, the (legal) ways in which people will look to access heat without having to pay for it in their own homes all involve being with others. The opposite of lockdown.

It'll be a mixture of spending more time in public spaces like museums, libraries and shopping malls where possible and having arrangements with friends and family where you essentially heat share. Why pay to heat three houses when you can all spend the afternoon in the same one? This will be particularly relevant for people on prepay meters.

Let me help you out here: Covid means certain venues can't open. Covid means some businesses can't run at capacity. To keep blaming mitigations for these things is disingenuous.

Ah, you're one of those? Explains a lot. Honestly, there's a half sensible point in there in that some people choose to restrict their activities due to covid and there have been occasions when events etc have had to be cancelled due to the number of key players who've got covid. But you clearly decided to take the path of denial instead.

The reality is that venues can and do stay open when covid is running rampant and there are no restrictions, as now. There is no 'can't' about it, because we can and have kept hospitality open during significant covid surges and they stayed open because the restrictions didn't prevent it. It isn't covid that closes venues, it's the laws forcing them to close.

@PerfectlyPreservedQuagaarWarrior

Ah, you're one of those?

And you're one of those. There's no denial in my post. Mitigations existed because of Covid - so yes, Covid closed venues.

Yep, people on tight incomes will be taking turns to spend time at each others' houses and going to shopping malls to keep warm. Any worries about Covid will go out of the window, seriously.

Covid will probably increase quite a bit. I can't really propose any solutions to that, other than (to quote Ronald Weasley) "We're just going to have to wing it, mate."

Nothing other than China-style interventions will actually control the virus, and the chances of anyone following such rules is zero. What can you do? (Shrugs)

@greenteafiend interesting read. It is odd how schools closed when the narrative was kids don't really get ill or spread it. Many parents had already taken kids out before they closed. It is also odd how kids have no protections now considering how their education has been impacted and continues to be impacted by covid. I think they can well and truly say they have been treated as though they are worthless.

There will no doubt be a mixture of stories that generation will tell - those who did worse from lockdown, those who blossomed, those with health issues/families with health issues and the mental toll no mitigations had, those whose mental health issues were exacerbated by lockdown, those who lost time protecting others from immediate harm whilst longer term health risks for that generation were ignored, the tens of thousands with long covid, those who were orphaned, those struggling with education through long covid / lockdown / sick teachers covering for each other, those whose quality of life is reduced by parents having long covid, the increased health and social care burden to them as attendance was more important than isolation when sick/they were unworthy of ventilation, those who are bullied for wearing a mask, those with families unable/unwilling to access healthcare in sufficient time, those whose families struggled financially due to lockdown and/or covid and so on. There will be many stories to tell.

And you're one of those. There's no denial in my post. Mitigations existed because of Covid - so yes, Covid closed venues.

There's only denial in your post.

Restrictions cause closures. Restrictions are not an inevitable consequence of covid, as evidenced by the fact that covid is ripping through the population now and we don't have any restrictions. Hospitality remains open and is co-existing with covid being basically everywhere. Because it's not covid that closes sectors, only the chosen response to it.

In the very early days there was the idea that children are 'superspreaders', which presumably justified school closures and the draconian measures we saw in places like Spain.

I don't know where that idea came from, come to think of it. It was very quickly
debunked.

I still remember single parents being berated for taking their children into supermarkets where I am (ROI) and in some cases encouraged to leave young children outside. Child safeguarding well and truly out the window.

Some people basically hate children.

We all heard rather a lot from these people during COVID.

Fuck knows what the Spanish were playing at. Their initial lockdown rules for children were even more stupid than ours.

@PerfectlyPreservedQuagaarWarrior

Restrictions cause closures. Restrictions are not an inevitable consequence of covid, as evidenced by the fact that covid is ripping through the population now and we don't have any restrictions. Hospitality remains open and is co-existing with covid being basically everywhere. Because it's not covid that closes sectors, only the chosen response to it.

There wouldn't be a requirement for restrictions in the first place if not for the disease that prompted them.

Really, I've read through your post a few good times and it makes even less sense each time.

There wouldn't be a requirement for restrictions in the first place if not for the disease that prompted them.

True. However having restrictions aren't the only response to high levels of covid circulating, which is something we've seen in action over the last 18 months.

I'm not sure why that's difficult to grasp. It's a straightforward concept.

There wouldn't be a requirement for restrictions in the first place if not for the disease that prompted them.
Really, I've read through your post a few good times and it makes even less sense each time.

The fact that you think restrictions are a requirement, something that must inevitably happen, is probably part of the reason for that.

They're not, as evidenced by the fact that we don't have them now despite covid essentially being in every public space. Restrictions don't automatically happen when covid reaches a certain level, and never have. There's no inevitable link.

@MeetPi if it's any consolation, I can understand what you're saying.

Stop bleating on about Covid.

Lol! Maybe i should visit the tattoo board or something then and tell them to stop bleating about tattoos...nah, don't think I will as that would be a bit too nonsensical.

I still dont give a shit about covid, I DO give a shit about trying to keep a roof over my kids head, heat our home, and put food in their bellies.

At this stage covid is the least of the existential crisis I am trying to navigate. Lockdowns would destroy what little brevity I have in my life right now.

As was shouted into the void in 2020/21 and needs shouting again, covid regulations preventing people working and being paid was a terrible idea back then. It would be a catastrophic idea during a CoL crisis when the lowest paid are most at risk from destitution.

Furlough was the stupidest idea past June 2020, and we are bankrupt after just printing money left right and centre for 2 years! We knew in may 2020 the survival rate for the majority was over 99%, we shouldn't have kept up lockdowns and restrictions past then. As with any disease, some people die, some dont. As is life.

Now our lives are hanging by a financial thread. Thanks lockdown lovers!

Nothing other than China-style interventions will actually control the virus, and the chances of anyone following such rules is zero. What can you do? (Shrugs)

Thank God for that. I still find it hard to believe that people were calling for Chinese style restrictions

Well I think it was pretty unusual for people to specifically want that, particularly once it became clear that China weren't going to be able to swerve Omicron either. More common was people who wanted restrictions that were failing elsewhere and who weren't willing to accept that the next step at that point was going to be either escalation to lockdown like China or the lesser restrictions being removed by law or custom. There's a general unwillingness from advocates to talk about what happens when the lesser restrictions do absolutely fuck all, and at what point they'd want removal.

Nothing other than China-style interventions will actually control the virus, and the chances of anyone following such rules is zero. What can you do? (Shrugs

But China still have Covid cases popping up all the time. They never stopped.
Trying to stop something even by draconian lockdowns and rules haven’t got rid of Covid. It is like the flu. You cannot avoid it. You just have to learn to live with it being around and lots of people die each year from it.

It's true that even the Chinese approach hasn't actually stopped covid, but that furthers the point really.

if things really did get that bad, then all the key workers and Amazon warehouse people and delivery guys would refuse to work, meaning that you wouldn't be able to have a LD anyway because you wouldn't have the kind of underlying societal infrastructure that is required to get a LD to work

So too much disease would stop keyworkers going to work if there was a lockdown, but somehow wouldn't stop them going to work if there wasn't a lockdown?

I think if the disease is nasty and prevalent enough, they're not going to want to work full stop. Although as someone who worked in retail for years, in that situation I'd rather work in a half-empty shop mainly preparing online orders than on a shop floor filled with unrestricted numbers of customers. If that particular job was mine now, a lockdown would make me more likely to want to work than not, because it would mean reducing my personal risk of catching the disease.

So too much disease would stop keyworkers going to work if there was a lockdown, but somehow wouldn't stop them going to work if there wasn't a lockdown?

No. It's actually the same view as you espouse here, ie that people wouldn't be willing to work at all if things were that bad.

But the reason that point is being made is because some people think if there was another much more deadly covid strain/other illness, there'd have to be another lockdown. They don't take into account that lockdown also required millions of people to still be willing to go out of the home to work, which of course cannot be assumed to be possible if the working age population suddenly all have good reason to fear death if they encounter a virus.