Sick of narrative that lockdowns were pointless

[Bagzzz]

I think lots of people are forgetting quite how scary the early days were, overwhelmed hospitals and exhausted (and now a lot burnt out) medical staff.

Many mistakes were made and some things that might have have been avoided but we know with the benefit of hindsight.
Scientists if not politicians were doing their best.

Maybe could distinguish later lockdowns but they weren’t done lightly either, knowing it would affect mental health and business.

@MintyFreshOne

No you spare me.

If the GBD was the right thing to do, why did the most reputable scientists worldwide rally against it??? Why did the majority of scientists with responsible positions/no skeletons in their closet/decent credentials - say it would lead to huge number of deaths. Why is it only lauded by the likes of Farage/Trump and extremist far right think tanks?

It was a one page declaration, so citations, no details as to how EXACTLY the vulnerable would be protected.

I’m not after any pearls to clutch - I’d say that more for those who want to preserve their rich houses at the expense of the weaker in society. Like your GBD friends - exemplified by the post upthread.

If you want to be in the same ball park as the poster upthread - that’s fine, but it’s a repugnant stinking pile of cess.

@Grumpybutfunny

Imprisoning the elderly at home with the threat of fines or prison time is no different to what we did to people infected with COVID. Just instead of imprisoning those at risk we imprisoned the healthy for two weeks. How is it more acceptable to imprison a 5 year old child because mammy got flu but it's not acceptable to imprison Doris so who has multiple health conditions that make her vulnerable to the virus whilst the 5 year old has non and a sniffle. We gave more rights to the elderly (I.e the right to be safe from a virus) by removing the freedoms and education of children.

Oh hang on - your GBD friend had the answer for the vulnerable. Make it illegal for them and their families to leave the house. And then if they end up in prison - take their human rights away and perform risky clinical trials on them.

If the GBD was the right thing to do, why did the most reputable scientists worldwide rally against it

Because they were fucking wrong and people can see that now. Experts have totally discredited themselves and public health will not easily recover from this. Anyone remember Neil Ferguson’s predictions? Total junk.

Why did the majority of scientists with responsible positions/no skeletons in their closet/decent credentials - say it would lead to huge number of deaths

It didn’t. Just look at Sweden’s stats or even Florida and Georgia. Ron DeSantis is considered a hero for his handling of the pandemic and used GBD ideas for it.

no details as to how EXACTLY the vulnerable would be protected

WHO had a pre-2020 pandemic playbook that would have done fine. Why it was thrown out for completely untested lockdowns is a mystery.

I’m not after any pearls to clutch - I’d say that more for those who want to preserve their rich houses at the expense of the weaker in society

You have not addressed anything about the harms of lockdown. I told you Uganda has been set back TEN years in poverty reduction by lockdowns. Intense rioting happened in Senegal to protest lockdowns, ordinary people’s livelihoods have been crushed and you are calling for more! If lockdowns are so great, why did the rich just get richer and the poor get poorer? I guess real lockdowns have never been tried 🤦‍♀️

Like your GBD friends - exemplified by the post upthread

Sure an anonymous poster on Mumsnet who you know nothing about exemplifies the GBD. You don’t even know if they signed it or even if they are a medical professional.

You are clutching at straws here, trying (but failing) to support your crumbing narrative.

Fucking hell, I'm speechless for once in my life. I can't decide whether you're on a wind up or really are some kind of nazi nutjob.

Ugandan lockdowns were draconian and insane, in a population that was already on a knife edge. It's not really a helpful comparison for most of the rest of the world.

@Reindeersnooker there is barley a functional NHS now!
Nightingale hospitals were built and Not used.
My local hospital had all wards empty apart from covid and emergency patients.
The doctor opposite me ask people in our street not to clap the NHS as it was just fucking pointless.
The first 12 weeks were needed while people tried to understand the virus.
The rest of the lockdowns were completely fucking pointless and did so much damage.

Uganda may have been most extreme but undeniably the lockdowns have contributed to increased levels of poverty and it really didn’t have to be that way.

The implication for the continent, one of the most critical implications of COVID-19, has been the reversal of very hard-won gains that the continent has managed to achieve in terms of reducing poverty,” she said. “So, we’ve lost two decades of hard-won gains of reducing poverty in Africa due to the pandemic

The economic decline caused by the lockdowns and the restrictions on people and the movement of goods has increased the number of newly poor on the continent by 55 million people and pushed 39 million others into extreme poverty

Link for anyone interested: www.voanews.com/amp/report-global-pandemic-increased-poverty-in-africa-/6575951.html

So I really really do not want to hear people claim that anti-lockdowners only care about the economy, rich people, etc.

It is clear that the rich profited during lockdowns while ordinary people were crushed and many fell into poverty. This pattern was seen in rich countries but was even more marked in developing countries.

@Cuppasoupmonster

"They’ve had their lives. They shouldn’t expect the rest of the country to come to standstill to prolong it for a few more years. Sadly choices have to be made as there isn’t an unlimited supply of money and resources, and the young should be prioritised over the old. I make no apology for thinking that, and it’s a view shared by my grandma as well."

+++

This is not the way policies work (at least in the UK). The retired / elderly / boomer generation are prioritised over young people and children because they don't vote. And yes children and young people and their futures were completely thrown under a bus for Covid.

I am sure others will come along to disagree or dispute this but examples include:
Triple lock to pensions but no other benefits including child benefit
4 million children classified as living in poverty compared to 2 million pensioners.
Happy to provide further examples.

@1dayatatime i agree 100%

Theyre the wealthiest demographic yet so much is made of ‘pensioners in poverty’, triple lock, free bus passes and prescriptions, fuel allowance, etc

Absolute joke!

We didn't lock away the young and healthy, i remember exactly what LDs were like and people went out and about, after 2 weeks construction jobs carried on, many shops were open & you could could exercise to your hearts content, if people believed it was just for one hour, more fool them.

Plus many younger people (under 60) got CV very badly.

Errr in all of 2020 we didn't have any vaccines! saying China is being hit hard because they aren't vaccinating older people is a spectacular missing of the point, if we'd have not had lockdowns in 2020 and 1st 6months of 2021, we also would have seen horrendous death rates.

Younger medics and nurses are being hit hard too, Omicron seems a little bit more dangerous than we are being led to believe.

@helford omicron is not more dangerous than we are being led to believe 🙄

We didn't lock away the young and healthy

Just closed their schools and limited who they could see. Just crushed small businesses and hospitality. Just told them not to overwhelm the hospitals, sooorrrrrryyyyy your cancer diagnosis came too late to do anything about it 🙄

Plus many younger people (under 60) got CV very badly

They know who is vulnerable and who is not. If you are young but morbidly obese or on immunosuppressants, you have the ability to protect yourself. Even in 2020 you could isolate yourself and get food and groceries delivered, get telemedicine, etc. Maybe some provision to WFH for those with a medical reason.

Errr in all of 2020 we didn't have any vaccines! saying China is being hit hard because they aren't vaccinating older people is a spectacular missing of the point, if we'd have not had lockdowns in 2020 and 1st 6months of 2021, we also would have seen horrendous death rates

Actually we do want to protect the elderly. But lockdowns ain’t it. You can protect the vulnerable while letting everyone else live normally, even without vaccines.

But China’s not doing that. They have just panic reversed course (President Xi probably saw Q3 economic figures and shat himself)

Younger medics and nurses are being hit hard too, Omicron seems a little bit more dangerous than we are being led to believe

False. I have seen no evidence of this

@MintyFreshOne

From my direct experience with cancer during the pandemic - no, the cancer patient wasn’t ignored. Her hospital was one of the hardest hit in the country - lockdown relieved the pressure on the hospital and she got her treatment just in time. Without lockdown I think she’d be dead.

Explain to me exactly how you would protect the vulnerable while everyone else gets on with life.

Given that the vulnerable in society often need the most support those who you see as ‘the fittest’. Given that the vulnerable may well be parents with children. Given that the vulnerable should still be treated ethically and humanely. Given that a very high death toll within that group shouldn’t be brushed off as collateral damage, so long as the economy continues to
thrive.

New Zealand:

www.theguardian.com/world/commentisfree/2022/apr/05/new-zealands-covid-strategy-was-one-of-the-worlds-most-successful-what-can-it-learn-from-it

@MintyFreshOne
But thats not "locking them away", my DD was a 2nd yr student, she could go to shops, she met friends in a park, she finished her placements & carried on doing long runs, not saying all of that was legal but she was not "locked away".

Non vulnerable people like me, can still be very ill from CV, meaning they don't go to work, its as acknowledged as a cause of such long waiting lists (one reason)

Just because you hvaen't seen the evidence, doesn't mean Chinas medics not effected, if vaccinated health workers here are getting CV, then Chinese ones will be too, its also been widely reported too.

During the course of the pandemic the New Zealand government has emphasised that the response is primarily focused on protecting public health. This starting point reinforces a number of key principles, notably: leadership that listens to the science; a focus on equity and partnership with Māori; use of the precautionary principle in the face of uncertainty; and the need to create legacy benefits for our healthcare and public health systems.

Agreed. No one can ever explain or validate this
Plus they conveniently ignore the impact of a significant proportion of the mum vulnerable being ill at the same time
Not just the impact on the NHS but the impact on services and life in general
I assume they just don't get the maths of it. And imply ignore images from Italy, new York, India, China as it does not fit their narrative

You can't, look at what happened in care homes when it was tried?
Not only patients transferred into CH with covid but by staff transfering it from home to CH and from CH to CH.

With such a contagious disease, its impossible.

What about all the vulnerable people who function perfectly normally in a multitude of jobs but with medication?

What do they do?

@MintyFreshOne

Indeed, please let us know this is to be managed exactly? (Letting everyone who isn't vulnerable get on with living a normal life - bit awful for the vulnerable isn't it? Not normal again!

But then you open your post with 'just closed their schools and limited who they could see'. (Regarding children.) But I suppose it doesn't matter if it isn't children? Because that's what you're mandating. Actually, there are children in the CV and ECV categories. So are you are discussing isolating children like this, too.

I also hate the way ‘young children locked away’ is used to promote the GBD type thinking.

I would not describe my 2 primary aged children as ‘locked away’. The school and myself worked fucking hard to keep them happy and healthy.

I also know that’s the case for the very very large majority of their classmates.

If I went around declaring ‘my god you’re so damaged by lockdown’ - how’s that going to help them??

Look guys, I know how much many people hated lockdown, but in the early days scientists knew so little and treatments were far less effective than they are now, which is why the death rate was higher in the earlier period. So without lockdown, there would have been vast numbers of infected people with ineffective treatments and no vaccines.

Yes, for many people it would have been mild but for many, it would have been highly serious or fatal, just as it was for the poor victims including a young healthy woman in my own family. So be glad we are through the worst of it, be glad that our governments were able to organise lockdowns and the associated help and that communities rose to the crisis and helped each other.

We've been through the mill and learned a lot. But use your brains and don't minimise it or think that lockdowns were ineffective or unnecessary or a government conspiracy.