The WhatsApp message leak

[Mycatsgoldtooth]

So, we’ve had the FBI saying it was a lab leak, the leaked messages showing many of the restrictions were for show, stats on the reality of masks being mostly useless unless N95s. Where are all the people that were so upset about anyone saying anything against the government now.

It’s almost as if no one care where the virus came from and how the government reacted. If I’d spent years being terrified and washing my shopping I’d be really pissed off.

www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/03/01/untruth-untruth-peddled-justify-great-lockdown-disaster/

That is the only form of defense for certain posters

I have been on MN for 20 years and have never reported a post. Not once. Even though I am sure I have been offended by many things.

For some, it is all they do when they read something 'offensive'

The 'offensive' argument is an interesting one - it's such an obvious tactic to shut people up, presumably because the 'offended' person knows what they're hearing is true and doesn't like it. It was a tactic used during lockdown by people I no longer call friends - they would argue a point until it became clear they were talking nonsense then start shouting about how offended and upset they were, to hobble the conversation and make it look like they were being attacked. It's a very similar tactic to calling anyone who questioned anything to do with lockdowns a 'covidiot' or an 'anti-vaxxer' - devalue the person themselves and by extension you devalue what they're saying.

@FrostyFifi Implicated - yes.

There is a very big difference between saying : I’m anti masks, anti restrictions, to cherry pick a report to back an anti mask stance - where the findings actually state ‘uncertain’ - and then to bring up the case of ALH to back all this in a rant.

And then : actually addressing the fact that the studies are ambiguous over mask efficacy, but generally in favour. To consider the impact globally of no lockdown at all - would we have been still be healthy enough to provide all services adequately for children, would more people have died before we had our method of control, would children have been able to access medical care or would hospitals have completely collapsed. I fully understand how lockdown was a implicated in the case.

The difference is : weaponising a case to promote a view - and properly analysing the case to get a better outcome for the future.

Im afraid a ranting post came across as the former, I found it offensive, Mumsnet removed the post.

Known it was a load of bollocks all along. You weren't allowed outside despite fresh air being the best thing for diseases like that. Total shite for control

the findings actually state ‘uncertain’

Summary of the Cochrane review:
"We do not have good evidence that community masking reduces respiratory infections"

So there is no evidence they work. None. You'd really think there would be given there is this 'consensus' you talk about?

The question really is whether you stand by masking children @MinkyGreen with this in mind? Do you think it was 'nothing' to mask children at school? Was it better to mask them 'just in case'?

Is there any possibility that masking was used as a way in which to play politics? To calm the masses? There is no doubt there was utter hysteria about masking - people saw it as a life saver. Literally. Do you think people were correct in their assertion that masks would save lives?

As someone who gave birth in a mask I'm quite invested in the science of them tbh. As the doctors and nurse were up to their arms in my bodily fluids I’m not sure the wet paper over my mouth made the environment much more sterile, just made me feel like I was being suffocated while in pain and vulnerable. But that a a personal aside, I think the decision they caused, the impact on kids language development and children’s learning was much more important.

I think requiring a woman to give birth in a mask is genuinely evil.

I can't believe a healthcare worker would be stupid enough to believe that putting a piece of cloth over a labouring woman's face was actually worth it in any way.

I'm sorry you and other women had to endure such idiocy.

Yes this "just in case, well it can't hurt" stance blithely dismisses any concerns about the harms that mask wearing causes as worth it for the greater good, "even if it just saves ONE life" etc. The fact is that yes, mask wearing is not nothing, and it's not a minor thing, and it is terrible for developing children to see masked faces everywhere, and it is terrible for the environment. Remember the environment? Seemed as though we were getting somewhere with that in 2019.

Blue masks will be littering the countryside, the towns, the beaches, the oceans, the hedgerows, the moorlands, the parks...for many many years to come.

I don't think that's a case of "well it can't hurt" myself.

Perhaps @MNHQ could clarify how it's possible to mention cases of abuse and murder where lockdown was a contributory factor and not get deleted. It's important they continue to be discussed, not least because of the people who don't want them to be, but not in anyone's interests for it to turn into a deletion party.

@Mycatsgoldtooth Im sorry you had to endure that, Inhumane

@hamstersarse

“Key messages
We are uncertain whether wearing masks or N95/P2 respirators helps to slow the spread of respiratory viruses based on the studies we assessed.”

@JenniferBooth Thank you. When I complained at the time I was told I was selfish for getting pregnant in a pandemic on here and I’d diverted resources away from covid. Honestly, people went crackers 💐

I can see why having been forced to give birth in a mask you'd be angry OP.

Fwiw I would wear a good quality mask if I were particularly worried about catching covid, but it's abundantly clear now that the real world evidence shows they don't work on a population level. The Cochrane Review has also made it clear that good quality evidence of their efficacy isn't there, indeed there isn't much good quality evidence either way. Three years in, that's simply not enough to be advocating for masks, much less pronouncing to other people that there's a scientific consensus.

@MinkyGreen but that’s not what people were wearing was it? And the report qualifies that with ‘in certain settings’

The blue paper masks - the ones everyone was wearing - useless bits of germy paper

'Uncertain' is hardly scientific consensus

@Mycatsgoldtooth which cost £35 a bloody box so not free as some still insist

It is highly uncertain whether masks provide any meaningful benefit worthy of the associated social, economic and environmental costs.

@JenniferBooth my lord how much wasted money on theatrics.

@hamstersarse

I’d say instead of an aggressive rant over masks, and inaccurately cherry picking certain findings to support a stance - it’s better to look at the pros and cons in a more balanced way and see how we can improve for the future.

I was supporting a loved one with bowel cancer during the pandemic, and I felt more secure with her in an environment where there were masks. Covid would have killed her.

No, I don’t think someone giving birth should be wearing a mask - or children.

And they were the blue paper ones too How legal is it to mandate something yet not provide it for free?

I think your post actually hits the nail on the head wrt masks - it's about people feeling secure rather than any benefit. In which case I say, wear masks if you think it benefits you, you're not harming anyone. But forcing people to wear masks is pointless as there's no evidence at all that it makes any difference.

@hamstersarse

Like I said earlier. That is one study/report. Consensus involves gathering evidence from all studies/reports globally. There are about 20 studies I’ve seen that say they do provide some protection.

Am I the one inaccurately cherry picking or getting emotional about "offensive posts"? I'm just saying there is no evidence they work and therefore it was probably very wrong to mandate masks on children and anyone who didn't want to wear them - they were not saving lives.

I am very pleased you felt more secure, but feelings aren't really scientific evidence in this case. It is unlikely that the mask, scientifically, made any difference. For a start you'd actually have to have the virus to pass it on, and I am sure you were testing?

You don't seem to understand what a Cochrane review is.

Are we allowed to mention Sarah Everard for example, may she rest in peace? The woman who was walking home from a friend's house - some people on social media implied was breaking lockdown rules, which therefore meant she was somehow partly responsible for her own murder. And her murderer just happened to be a serving police officer, who had been handed "lockdown rules" as a pretext for getting her into his car. And the vigil afterwards when women gathered in anger and in grief to remember her, which the police broke up with force because they were "breaking lockdown rules".

Speaking for myself, I lost a friend over this. This woman shared photos on FB of the then Duchess of Cambridge at the vigil - a fellow young woman, quietly paying her respects. Yet all this former friend could do was be outraged over the fact that Kate wasn't wearing a mask.

This is the kind of effect that lockdowns and enforced mask wearing had on previously normal people. Someone who could honestly write on the internet that the main priority at this point was examining pictures of the Duchess of Cambridge and being outraged that she wasn't setting an example to the plebs by wearing a mask. The fact that the attendees were gathered to remember a young woman with her whole life ahead of her, which had been savagely cut short by a serving police officer was apparently of secondary importance.

What did people become? What thought processes could possibly lead to someone posting this on FB?

Lockdown was evil.