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.

I think the main point is whether any thought/research was done re the consequences of the lockdowns, i.e. the harm to people who couldn't access healthcare for other reasons, the mass cancellations of tests, scans, treatments, etc, dentists being closed for months except for emergency treatments, cancer treatments being delayed, etc? What about the mental health consequences of all those who had their lives severely disrupted? How many students haven't reached their potential and are now in dead end jobs when they could have been getting professional/vocational qualifications? How many people comitted suicide due to not being allowed to live their normal lives? How many businesses failed, how many homes repossessed, how many people lost their livelihoods and savings?

Just who made the judgement call that it was OK for certain groups to have their lives ruined so that others were protected from Covid??

Well, a lot of that didn't need research. Despite claims otherwise, the downsides of lockdown weren't all unforeseen in March 2020. It comes back to the point about value judgements, and the answer to the question about who made that call is the government.

An excellent post. Children and the younger generations have effectively sacrificed their tomorrows so that the older generation could have their todays.

It's morally wrong.

I supported the first one to begin with but not as time went on. I didn't support subsequent lockdowns at all, or the tiers crap etc.

Added to this is that people either couldn't or wouldn't (due to fear) access treatment in a timely manner for a range of conditions which is now causing a backlog of more complex cases.

Couldn't in many cases. My GP wouldn't see me and wouldn't refer me privately. Luckily it was for a minor issue but it was ridiculous

I think people forgot what the purpose of lockdowns were - it was only ever to buy time until a vaccine was found. Unfortunately the vaccine isn't great as vaccines go - what other vaccine has ever needed multiple boosters per year, which don't appreciably lower the level of transmission or even illness if you do get it. They served the purpose, they stopped as many people catching it over a period of time, that's all they were ever meant to do

I think they had benefits and drawbacks too like everything does.

Cancer treatment delays are not the fault of lockdown though. Keeping numbers of COVID lower protected other health services. Patients with cancer symptoms would not have got near a doctor without lockdowns keeping numbers lower. They were reminded it was business as usual. Chemo was not given sometimes because impaired immune system made it too risky - not the fault of lockdown but COVID. Long COVID patients would be in greater numbers if not for lockdown, affecting other services.

Yes they effectively bought time for many people.

Children's immune systems are not impaired. They are catching things at a later age which is better for them. We have had time out from flu season which makes the present flu seem worse.

Lockdown only lasted about one and a half terms in schools. It wasn't a huge chunk of learning time although it felt long at the time.

The tiers system was always irredeemably stupid.

Yes the older generation should be grateful.

But we have to remember that many people who died were not elderly. They were of working age. Their vulnerabilities were not acute. They were members of children's much needed support systems and without lockdown, more of them would have died. At that time, before the evidence from Italy we thought we needed to delay so we wouldn't run out of ventilators as they seemed to have done. That was reasonable.

We also didn't know a huge amount about the impact on children at the time of the first lockdown so it was taken with their safety in mind to an extent.

I would've done no lockdown at all and let it run through the population like its doing now. No one dies alone. Our children stay in school. The economy stays the same. Cost of living stays the same. Housebuilding continues. NHS waiting lists carry on as normal.

That's what I would've done.
No lockdown at all

Thank the universe you weren't in charge then. The Covid we have now is not the Covid we had then, for a start. Waiting times would not have stayed the same! And people did die alone (does having someone with you make it ok to suffocate? Don't get this at all). More people would have died alone.

Worth pointing out here that the elderly aren't a monolith, any more than any other group. Some opposed restrictions and/or suffered greatly because of them. Hard to see what an older person who never wanted lockdown should feel grateful for.

@jmcg2015

"I think people forgot what the purpose of lockdowns were - it was only ever to buy time until a vaccine was found. "

++++

I don't think I was ever clear on what the purpose of the lockdowns were and indeed the stated purpose kept changing over time from flattening the sombrero, to zero Covid, to saving the lives of the elderly and CEV (don't kill granny) to stopping the NHS being overwhelmed .

I don't think though the purpose was to buy time until a vaccine was found given that back in March 2020 nobody including scientists and politicians had a clue if a vaccine was possible let alone when.

I fully agree with you on the efficacy of the Covid vaccine. In the true sense of the word it is not a vaccine like the smallpox or chickenpox or measles vaccines but more like the flu jab which doesn't stop you getting or transmitting it but instead lessens the severity of the symptoms and needs to be boosted every winter.

I think the problem is that being labelled the "Covid vaccine " most people understandably thought it was a vaccine and worked like a vaccine. And were then shocked when it didn't do that.

I completely agree. People talk about how damaging lockdown was for people's mh, but no one talks about how damaging working thru covid was for the mh of those working.
I was in healthcare. I fully supported the lockdowns. Our care home was made to take untested or covid + patients to relieve pressure on hospitals, we lost 12 residents in a week.
While we stood and watched people cram themselves onto beaches, watched people complain that furlough wasn't good enough, watched people say that being safe in their home was ruining their mental health.
No one talks about that tho. No one cared.

Early lockdowns were the way to go as no one really knew what the fuck was going on.
The government had to be seen to be doing something.
Subsequent ones were pointless, as were all the rule of 6, 2m distancing crap etc.
We are all still feeling the after effects of those lockdowns now.

@Reindeersnooker
@Angelofthenortheast

To lockdown or not was going to cause problems either way.

The lockdown did of course cause subsequent impacts on education, the NHS, the economy, missed cancer diagnosis, mental health, government debt, increased excess deaths. But it did reduce the number of deaths from covid compared to having no lockdown.

So my question to @Angelofthenortheast is would an increase in deaths from Covid due to no lockdown have been a highly unpleasant but regrettably necessary price to pay to avoid the impacts listed above and the rise in excess deaths. And effectively explaining to someone that lost their parent or grandparents from Covid that it was the price of having no lockdown to avoid the impacts.

My question to @Reindeersnooker is
are the impacts listed above and the subsequent rise in excess deaths an unpleasant but regrettably necessary price to pay to avoid the higher deaths from Covid at the time if there had been no lockdown. And effectively explaining to a child that has lost their mummy due to a missed cancer diagnosis or a parent struggling with their suicidal child that sadly this is the price we are paying today to have saved lives during the pandemic.

What I cannot except is those that claim that we had no idea at the time of the subsequent impacts (mental health, economic etc) of the lockdowns and that all this is now with hindsight. It was clearly spelt out at the time and the majority of the population were fully supportive of the lockdowns, so presumably are now fully accepting of the consequences.

I worked all through - in mental health services. Supporting people whose mental health was being trashed by being cut off from their support networks, activities, coping strategies, unable to access even basic medication reviews in some cases. I feel angry still at what was done to them, there are some whose mental health might never recover from that. And some who are sadly no longer with us as a result. The frontline wasn’t just healthcare professionals working with Covid patients.

www.braintreeandwithamtimes.co.uk/news/23193305.nhs-pushing-get-patients-discharged-home-christmas/?fbclid=IwAR2gJsA85eFS9dgY4zZ4DcUwoT4vK3fJHM__MbVlWSCWpq-NBMe9qBZrePs

@Atmywitsend29 You sound a lot angrier at the general public than you do at those for discharging positive patients into your home.

I never supported lockdown. I think China started it, and there was a domino effect of other countries doing the same for fear of being the odd man out in an unfamiliar situation. In hindsight I still think it was the wrong call.

If we didn’t lockdown how many more deaths in healthcare workers would there have been? They were the ones who seemed to have been hardest hit in the first wave (excluding the elderly). How many more people with long covid and other long term impacts?

It's pretty given fact that a pandemic will come along in our lifetimes that will have the power to wipe out a huge portion of the population. It's natures way of dealing with excessive populations in a species.

We peaked too quickly by locking down over Covid that killed very few and mainly the sick and old. Now if there's an actual pandemic no one will obey lockdowns and we'll be stuffed because the whole world went completely overboard for a version of the flu.

Yes I recognise its cold and unfeeling to dismiss the deaths of the sick and the old but objectively and was it worth the impacts the whole of society felt and is feeling? Recession, rising interest rates, job losses, businesses collapsing, mental health issues, education put on hold, health care and operations delayed for years on end?

I'm sorry, you don't seem to t have taken on board anything I have said about what waiting lists and services would have been with l without lockdown, except to say 'of course Im right and things would have been much better'. That doesn't stand up to any analysis which is why I suspect you haven't bothered.

If the child you mention is real, I'm so sorry for your loss. During Covid, patients with cancer symptoms were encouraged to come in and get checked as usual. The peak was flattened for just such a purpose.

Agree OP. I feel it’s because they want us to accept any level of illness, death and sickness going forward. Nobody wants lockdowns. So why don’t they mitigate instead. Sadly a bit of disease doesn’t seem to bother this government, especially if it’s more prevalent in poorer circles than they move in.

And also they link them to the mental health crisis. Obviously there is a link. But I think there is an even greater link between mental health and perpetual sickness, never mind the non sensical rules for an airborne virus - eg one way systems and increased hand washing.

I strongly disagreed with them even at the time and that had never changed for me. Each to their own op!