And I didn’t support the restrictions as I felt that they would cause more long term harm for an illness with a pretty high survival rate for the vast majority of the population. I felt that some sensible restrictions were necessary but it went far beyond what was needed for actual infection control and became about power and optics. Public health was a one track focus on covid and this meant that all other issues are brushed aside leaving problems to fester down the line.
We can see from the messages and the arbitrary nature of the rules and the behaviour of our leaders that a bit of honesty and genuine risk assessment would have been welcome. Instead we got punitive measures that impacted the most vulnerable, nudge units, behavioural psychologists spreading fear and the army monitoring dissenters.
Sweeden did very well, a left wing government. I’d have loved to have been there in lock down.
Florida also did well, a right wing state, and had a control group in California to show that the very strict lock down there did not make a difference to covid deaths
but has led to the state losing a large amount of its population, mass homeless issues and what do you know the architects of that stars response were all caught breaking their own rules..
We had a right wing government that did shockingly in every measure and we are now billions in debt, have thousands of children missing from education and excess death in the under 60’s at a ridiculous level.
Trying to control a virus, which we all eventually got anyway was a folly. A hugely expensive one that made sense early 2020 but by late 2021 was crazy.
our response was based on faulty models, copying china and using fear as coercive tactic. interventions that were not clinically sound (paper masks, testing the asymptomatic, 14 day isolations, not letting people with negative tests visit relatives with negative tests in care homes, not letting people see the bodies of their dead, rule of six, masks to stand up in pub, chaining up swings.. the list could go on forever)
You support lock downs as you were frightened about your nieces and your mum. I understand that. But we wrecked the economy and sentenced a lot of people to a miserable few years for to facilitate that. And not everyone is going to think that sacrifice is worth it. In reality the chances of a child being seriously ill with covid is tiny. Healthy children were not at much risk. Your mum is elderly and frail, she would have been at risk from flu or norivirus if she was having cancer treatment. We can not shut the world because old people are at risk from illness, it’s part of life. A sad part and one, understand the urge to protect her. But the old people in my life were all much more upset my the restrictions then covid. But they were in care homes, essentially imprisoned in solitary confinement at times while being told it was for their own good.
You know someone who died of covid. I know no one even hospitalised with it. My friend was 28 and had a four year old. He hung himself after all his mental health support was stopped and he did not see his parents or child for two months. He did not have a funeral to speak of. If there had been no lock down I do not think he would have died. We have all lost people over this time. It will effect how we see the legitimacy of the interventions.
But my point on starting this thread was to say how lightly the people implementing it took the restrictions and how little care they gave to their long term and short term effects. Mostly because they never had any intention of living by them and they have the fiscal means to avoid many of the lasting consequences. Unlike millions of people dealing with inflation, no hospital care and the other effects we are still living with three years down the line.