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.

www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/ambulance-strikes-risky-activities-will-quince_uk_63a1caffe4b0aeb2ace7af4d?utm_campaign=share_twitter&ncid=engmodushpmg00000004

Good luck with that one on one of the last shopping days of the year.

It was inevitable and predictable that they would say something like that in a post lockdown world

Is that because of the strikes?

Yep

And mine said it wasn't. Probably looking at the same stuff with a different view though.

Or your friend didn't see it at its worst, possibly because of the lockdown. There is no real doubt lockdowns saved thousands of lives in the UK. Hundreds of thousands internationally. And protected economies. Yes of course lockdowns caused problems, and damaged economies, but letting covid rip through the population unchecked would have been far more harmful. At least with lockdowns, the spread was slowed, so the peaks were nowhere near as high as they could have been. Just imagine the impact on the health service and the economy of peaks of even 10% higher, when in reality, without lockdown, the peaks would have been 50-80% higher.

My area is small I'm comparison as a town with outlying villages, but as I said we have a large amount of elderly and nursing homes, and yes I have seen the data.

They were at Northwick Park, which was hit hard and early.

people do have different interpretations. And different beliefs about what a good or bad outcome is.

my main frustration was two of mum's friends being refused hospital admission, and the advice to wait till your lips turn blue!

I dont think this is a case of "beliefs" though - it isn't that subjective. One person can feel differently about their experience compared to someone else, but the number of lives saved by lock down is the number of lives saved by lockdown. There may be different ways of calculating it, but objectively, its still going to be in the high thousands

We can't know how many lives were "saved" by lockdown, or how many were lost

we do know what was ruined by lockdown, including lives

so it does come down to beliefs, yes. And there we agree to disagree. Well, I do.

They were pointless. They have caused the young serious mental health issues, and in some cases physical health issues - which is likely to take years to remedy if ever. They silenced people who dared to have a differing view.

@BustopherPonsonbyJones

I think furlough went on far, far too long though.

Furlough couldn't be stopped whilst there were any restrictions. It was bad enough that employers didn't get support for all the staffing costs of staff on furlough (i.e. didn't cover employer costs, just the pay to workers).

The real problem was that it should have been restricted only to businesses who couldn't operate due to the restrictions. That way it could have been better directed to the firms that needed it most, and all employer costs could have been covered, thus saving more jobs overall. Unfortunately, there was widespread "abuse" by employers who furloughed staff just to save costs, when they were still able to operate, which is the real travesty. But like other covid support schemes, it was ill thought out and nothing more than a "scatter gun" approach - some got support, too many didn't, some of those getting support didn't need it, etc. It was all just a big mess. Yes, at first something had to be done quickly, but they didn't deal with the anomalies and flaws in the grant systems as the months past which was criminal really!

There was certainly abuse of the furlough scheme and it should've been better designed certainly in the later stages. However, furlough purely for childcare reasons even if the job could still be done was a sensible idea, given that the aim of lockdown was to reduce contacts.

Millions of parents are reliant on school and early years childcare in order to work but didn't qualify for a keyworker place. In order for lockdown to reduce contacts to the extent that it did, there had to be some provision to pay at least some parents/carers to stay at home out of the way. Because otherwise, parents who can't access this end up using ad hoc informal networks and reciprocal arrangements, which can mean a lot of contacts. It certainly looked like that when me and mine did it.

Not everyone had access to childcare furlough of course, but there would've been many more contacts and thus more spread had it not existed. If the government wants to pursue a policy that involves the bulk of the population staying at home out of the way for protracted periods, that does require a lot of them being paid to do it. Because it's not sustainable otherwise.

I think China is about to demonstrate why lockdowns were helpful, to get us to a well vaccinated population with effective vaccines.

This situation in China is crazy.
People locked into buildings. The fires. The riots. And now unsurprisingly their coming surge.

I had to pull mine out early - not for the virus, but for the fact that the measures school had put in place were absolutely terrifying my autistic daughter - for her to go into school one morning and find that suddenly there were millions more RULES for her to stick to (it's a huge trigger for her anxiety - she will try to follow all of them) was getting her so stressed she started experiencing anxiety headaches so bad she was getting loss of vision and the GP wanted to see her to rule out neurological causes.

I stand by the fact that the lockdowns were a huge mistake, that the harms they have caused to children, the vulnerable in society and social cohesion - not to mention fucking up the economy and everyone's mental health going down the shitter and no one having much immunity to this year's seasonal bugs of the year - is massive! They didn't even manage to get rid of head lice with all the school lockdowns and bubbles for fuck's sake.

I'll continue to hold my views and I'll continue to express them. If we get forced into silence and not able to scrutinise the actions we took with the benefit of hindsight - we will never be able to learn from it all.

As with all lockdowns, the question is less about whether they reduce transmission and more about whether the juice is worth the squeeze. In China, there's been a great deal of squeezing.

When I read now about the furlough and covid grants abuse, I am steaming . Millions of ££ were paid to businesses only registered during the pandemic and which turned out to be non-operational.

I was talking to a hotelier in the Lake District who was saying that several people there were bragging that they’d made a packet out of the various help schemes.

However, hindsight is a glorious thing and scammers are always one step ahead.

Also on the hindsight point, it now looks like lockdowns were madness, but nearly everyone at the time was terrified, washing post, cowering away from people on the pavement… now I shake my head in disbelief, but we didn’t know then that we weren’t all doomed.

Right back in March 2020 on mumsnet I was posting against all the lockdowns on the balance in terms of the greater good etc. Hardly anyone agreed with me and now we have taken on such massive debts due to furlough costs that a generation will have much worse lives (mostly just to give old people an extra year of life).

I just pray you never get into politics Xenia. You're a legend. Are you quite sure you're not Liz Truss?

@Xenia I agreed with you in March 2020 and I still do.

Lockdowns were needless and damaging. I am appalled by their far-reaching effects on the poorest and youngest.

@Xenia i seem to remember you saying you didn’t care if people died, they were just collateral damage, including members of your family (and not just elderly relatives)

Erm, I'm not sure nearly everyone was doing that tbh. And that includes people who were supportive of lockdown.

Current evidence from China demonstrates that, in the absence of adequate vaccines, lockdowns certainly inhibit disease spread.