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.

@GoldenOmber

I get that you think these restrictions were the right thing to do, but that is really irrelevant to whether or not laws saying ‘close things’ caused said things to close.

😳 This is really getting absurd. No, it was actually a fake virus with fake numbers and that caused things to close from time to time, in order to force COL crisis via inflation.

😳 This is really getting absurd. No, it was actually a fake virus with fake numbers and that caused things to close from time to time, in order to force COL crisis via inflation.

Are you quite well?

What?

@MeetPi my 35 year old best friend died of covid, as did 19 residents of a care home I used to work at. What is your theory of what ACTUALLY happened to them?

@PerfectlyPreservedQuagaarWarrior

Are you quite well?

Quite. Just mildly irritated with inane statements so I thought I'd add one of my own for fun, since it seems we can just make stuff up like "restrictions cause closures, not covid".

Tessabelle, please don't take my statement seriously. I've been having on ongoing debate about Covid restrictions with a couple of posters here (they think that restrictions caused closures, not Covid, amongst other things). I'm sorry about your friend.

There will never be a lockdown again people.

i cannot believe any one has suggested it!!

You have currently argued yourself into a place where you are literally saying that laws mandating shop closures do not cause shops to close. Not “yes they did but it was justified,” not “yes they did but it was the least worst option”, but outright “no, restrictions mandating closures did not cause closures.”

How do you think that throwing in conspiracy theories that nobody in the conversation actually believes is going to help, exactly? What’s that meant to achieve?

It's so interesting how often avowedly pro restrictions people respond to arguments they don't like with accusations that the people making them are lying, piss taking or not in good faith. Happens very frequently, and yet there's absolutely no need for it here.

One can be pro lockdown and not be reduced to denying cause and effect. It's a perfectly sustainable argument that while restrictions caused various negatives, including sector closures and job losses, you feel that they were still the lesser of two evils. Very mainstream view, indeed I suspect it might still be the most commonly held, and has the advantage of not requiring the person making it to engage in any attempts to move the goalposts. But then it also requires an underlying understanding that's absent here.

@PerfectlyPreservedQuagaarWarrior

including sector closures

You never said "SECTOR closures" before. You just said "closures". These are different things.

No, sorry, @PerfectlyPreservedQuagaarWarrior, I was thinking of something else.

No, I've mentioned it a number of times. But we can simply use the term restrictions if you're more comfortable with that.

Restrictions caused job losses, covid itself didn't.

Oh nvm cross posted there I think.

@GoldenOmber

You have currently argued yourself into a place where you are literally saying that laws mandating shop closures do not cause shops to close. Not “yes they did but it was justified,” not “yes they did but it was the least worst option”, but outright “no, restrictions mandating closures did not cause closures.”

No, I'm saying that the laws for those closures were made because of a pandemic - Covid. They would not have been enacted otherwise. They would not have existed if not for the novel virus. Without Covid, you don't have closures - yes?

Haven't covid AND restrictions in response to covid both led to job losses? There are thousands out of work now due to long covid, along with thousands with reduced hours as needing to care for kid/partner etc with long covid. Some firms/jobs didn't survive lockdowns. Some have the double whammy of being financially impacted firstly by restrictions and then completely screwed by removal of all restrictions.

Nobody is even claiming that restrictions weren’t a response to covid. But even the most restriction-heavy governments don’t usually deny that restrictions themselves caused harms.

Would it help you if I told you there are things the government did that I am absolutely in favour of, and think were absolutely the right thing to do - and still caused harms?

Yes, absolutely. There would have been some form of economic hit whatever happened.

Some businesses were also keen for the government to mandate them to close so they would be eligible for some funding - firstly from public choosing not to risk going to them and also from public then being advised not to go to them, even though they were still allowed to open at that point.

Haven't covid AND restrictions in response to covid both led to job losses?

Yep of course. As well as job losses due to restrictions, there are job losses caused by covid that weren't affected by restrictions at all.

@GoldenOmber

Nobody is even claiming that restrictions weren’t a response to covid. But even the most restriction-heavy governments don’t usually deny that restrictions themselves caused harms.

Would it help you if I told you there are things the government did that I am absolutely in favour of, and think were absolutely the right thing to do - and still caused harms?

"Restrictions themselves caused harms" isn't even the point we're debating here. I don't deny that, but I don't also deny that they were required at the time. So we are in agreement there.

But you're vehemently against the idea that restrictions caused the one particular harm being discussed, even though it appears you accept they did cause others?

What is the "one particular harm" being discussed? I remember many. Do you mean lockdown? That isn't a harm, but a mitigation.

Job losses stemming from restrictions, as we've been discussing over the last couple of pages. That's a harm.

I've not ever expressed an opinion on that, let alone "vehemently". In fact, I'd certainly agree the pandemic and the mitigations around that have led to job losses.

That's interesting, because a couple of pages back you said that to blame 'mitigations' for job losses was disingenuous, and that it was covid that meant certain venues couldn't open or run at capacity. You also said that restrictions causing closures was made up.