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/

@WestwardHo1

I doubt ‘more restrictions’ - no one wanted more restrictions. I would say better handling of restrictions as outlined in the article. Which has some good points : rather than : completely dismissing how other countries managed globally - and favouring a blinkered view based on hyperbole and a travesty of the scientific data.

Link for anyone interested

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/mar/23/covid-britain-locked-down-three-years-trauma

I'm actually really surprised she's written that lockdowns should be avoided. That's quite a strong statement.

Devi S wrote that? What's in it for her, doing a U turn?

Does anyone know what this business is with MH message saying "I don't want to appear racist"?

I actually had to read that twice to make sure I hadn't misunderstood what she was saying. Although she's being disingenous to say In debates over whether lockdowns work, instead of recognising that of course asking people to stay at home stops an infectious disease spreading, but comes at a heavy cost and should be avoided, given the consequential risks of loneliness, financial precarity and domestic abuse given that that was being pointed out at the time.

I just realised, she's probably hoping anti lockdowners will buy her book. 🙄

DS isn't backtracking but she is pretending she wasn't pushing lockdown very hard.

Following Isabel's comment about MH giving no messages from a period of time, I came across this, Patrick Vallance saying we were already being quite extreme - on 13 March.

https://www.standard.co.uk/news/uk/uk-scientist-warns-coronavirus-lockdown-risks-more-deaths-a4386661.html

Between things like this, and Sadiq Khan doing his cheerful video about the Tube being cleaned, then emerging from Downing Street looking like a very different person that our (then) usual smiley Mayor...I also find myself wondering, what the hell happened?

At 4pm on 23rd March my local MP sent me a reply to my worried email, saying "I can't imagine we will have a lockdown". I don't think he was taking the piss. I genuinely believe he didn't know.

Why were they talking in that article, even before the first lockdown of a 4 month lockdown? We were eventually told 3 weeks to flatten the curve.

This is exactly what they did, keeping us locked down when we should have had the benefit of summer.

"Chief scientific adviser Sir Patrick Vallance warned that temporarily suppressing the looming epidemic with a four-month “lockdown” would risk it exploding into an even more devastating outbreak next winter."

Buzz maybe someone prominent had already suggested it, for four months?

I was at the theatre the day after that interview, I knew the West End would close any minute. I've since heard that neighbour WA group was full of people saying we ought to have a lockdown. I was already volunteering to get shopping and prescriptions etc.

I still blame Johnson the least. At the time, I thought he was reluctant. Perhaps he was negotiating for shorter ones, with reviews. I suppose my anger is that I still think he could have stood firm. He's got the arrogance to do it.

I thought Sunak was against it but didn't feel able to say so.

Maybe there is something more interesting from that period of time.

It does seem like it. Vallance talks later on the article about pushing the peak into summer, while that's not what happened maybe that's what they were trying. July 4th was when things seemed to open up more, although it was still households only indoors.

I still blame Johnson the least. At the time, I thought he was reluctant. Perhaps he was negotiating for shorter ones, with reviews. I suppose my anger is that I still think he could have stood firm. He's got the arrogance to do it.

What he didn't have was the ability. If it were possible for lockdown to have been avoided in March 2020, it'd have taken someone greatly more skilful than him, backed by an administration not chosen on the strength of being on the lunatic wing.

Boris just wasn't up to the job. He wasn't even up to pulling off a lockdown without fucking it up by partying and keeping it going too long, so he certainly wasn't up to the more politically tricky task of avoiding one.

Bashir how on earth did we come to a point where avoiding a lockdown is hard?!

China did it for whatever reason, other countries followed suit, enough people here were clamouring for it that it became politically unavoidable. I'm not quite sure how step two turned into step three.

I'm trying to work out if i would have felt any better being told honestly it was going to be 4 months, rather than 3 weeks to flatten the curve and I'm thinking no way.

I would watch BJ's press statements so that I could watch his body language for what he wasn't saying in the hope I could figure out what the truth of the matter was, until I came to the conclusion that they were making it up as they went along anyway.

Buzz The legislation was put in place for two years so I figured it was going to be a long hellish road, and it was. I often thought perhaps I'd feel worse if I believed it was going to be three weeks and then it kept being extended.

I do remember being absolutely befuddled that only one person I knew seemed to understand what was happening, or thought about the two year legislation.

I don't remember a lot about the early period tbh, I was suicidal till about July. Then in August, I was avoiding hospitality because of the rules, but then it was someone's big birthday. So I made an exception and went.

The wait staff and the bar manager kept hugging me. It did me a lot of good. My cousin was pissed off and asked if I was okay - I do remember thinking men might see it as an excuse for harrassment, but these guys correctly judged that I needed lots of hugs! It was a turning point, and knowing that others shared my rage was helpful.

Emma, I'm so sorry you suffered like that. While my friends were throwing themselves into redecorating their house because they believed they were getting a three week holiday then back to normal, I was getting my mental health in check since I'd had all the best coping mechanisms cut off and also was coming to terms with feeling so at odds with everyone.

The worst time was the constant threats of further lockdown during that summer when we were enjoying a modicum of being able to see our people. I'd wake with a jolt and so tense that the joint in my big toe started to get really painful!

By the time we got to our three day Christmas I was in a free bubbles so it wasn't as bad as the initial one for me, though it was awful for my kids.

I tended to stay out of places I felt would feel wierd while the same people who were screaming at people for walking on empty beaches threw themselves right back into the wierdness at the first opportunity.

Buzz yes, that sense of being surrounded by lunatics....

I now think those people are like real life trolls. I'll never forget a woman coming out of the supermarket, arms raised out to the side with shopping bags so no one could get near her, she took up the whole of the narrow path, forcing people to walk in the road.

Till she came to me, of course...

She had a grin on her face - at the time I thought it was hysteria, but now I think I was spoiling her fun. These are really nasty vicious individuals, and it shocked me how many of them there were.

MH absolutely thrived on this sort of thing. I remember him saying you wouldn't be able to hug your loved ones for a very very long time. There are probably tons who should be "locked up" but we will never know who they are.

I still can't forgive the people who wouldn't meet me when they were allowed to. But I don't miss the old Emma, so things are on the up!

This article from May 2020 is interesting on this point. (Shame about the author and the website it's published on though as it makes me wonder how much it cherry picks the interviews and statements.)

https://thecritic.co.uk/the-lockdowns-founding-myth/

That's fascinating. Especially about the Cheltenham cup. It makes sense.

There was an indication that the extra influx of visitors to hotels and restaurants was more of a problem than the event itself, but I'm not sure how true that is.

Certainly the content of the article is backed up by the comments from Vallance in that other early article that someone has shared.

It's correct about what SAGE were saying at the various cited points, anyway.

Christopher Snowdon is advocating an economic, right wing, libertarian argument.

With an election likely in the next year - is that the politics you want endorsed?
A continuation of the Tories or Richard Tice as the only anti-lockdown potential candidate?

I’m sure many you would say a resounding no?
You are coming from a place of concern for those whose lives were severely impacted by lockdown?
My concern is that - more support given to a government who are anti lockdown, or a right wing libertarian government - would NOT result in a better outcome for the group you are most concerned about. Less or continued inadequate support/funding would be given to social care.

Careful Minky - some brains might explode

Don't care. Doesn't matter. Anti-lockdown simply isn't going to be an issue. Labour are going to win a landslide and, as I explained upthread, the best chance Tice's lot have at actual relevance is if they hand the left a few more seats by splitting the right wing vote, as they did in 2019.

Out of interest @MinkyGreen is it your position that the timelines Snowdon gives about who said what when are incorrect? Ie, the aspect which this article has been posted to discuss?