Myths re lockdown was wrong

[Betsyhilton]

Just seen someone on another thread basically trying to claim that lockdown didnt reduce deaths. The contested John Hopkins survey seems to be encouraging people who basically behaved selfishly, ignored medical advice and did what they liked to now claim retrospectively that they just knew lockdown was wrong.

AIBU to think these are just basically selfish irresponsible people who ignored official advice at the time because it caused them inconvenience and are now jumping on any theory to try to justify their self centred behavior?

I know, or rather I knew, two elderly people who died during lockdown and I've been told that they both simply gave up as they could not cope without seeing their friends.
I wonder if people like them will ever be considered.

But I know many people who died because lockdown was relaxed and they got covid from accepting lifts, going out for dinner, calling into people at Christmas. It doesn't boil down to a single experience, but to what was best for society overall.

How do you explain Sweden?

I agree that harm like this is rarely considered. I know elderly people who lost confidence to drive during lock down and it ended their independence for good and the lack of interaction with friends etc made them deteriorate far more quickly than they might have otherwise done. Its all very hard to quantify.

So I was in Australia where we basically had a countrywide quarantine with a couple of lockdowns which went on until there were vaccines. We then slowly opened and allowed covid to run through a largely fully vaccinated population.
And yet I’m pretty sure that I’ve read that our death rate was overall similar to other countries when you take into account deaths by other causes that were missed due to lockdowns. I believe that our youth suicide rate also increased significantly.

How do you explain Sweden?

I think all the people shouting 'just stay at home' were selfish bastards.

I didn't bother with any of the restrictions/ masks or anything. It seemed stupid and pointless to me then and I still think the same. No regrets and I don't care what anyone else thinks of me! I put my toddler son and his well-being and social development before anything else and if that makes me 'selfish' well then so be it.

People were so busy 'staying safe' and now permanent damage has been caused by this. Children with speech delays due to all the masks and childhood health in general worse due to RSV / more illness about and poorer immune systems. Also many too scared to seek medical help in the first lockdown so now lots of heart problems under the radar that should've been treated. It's predicted this will have big repercussions in 2030. Young children struggling at school. I knew some who kept their toddler away from absolutely EVERYBODY- zero exceptions- for an entire year and it has fucked their child and his brain development up so much. I used to see him trying to climb out of living room window In desperation.

I could honestly go on. Lots of people got caught up in the madness.

Additionally the long term impacts will take years to wash through in terms of what happened to children’s education and their life outcomes as a result of this.
I also think you can’t quantify this purely as deaths avoided - agree with PP above re older people and independence. My FIL is an example of this. He’s naturally an introvert and used lockdown as an opportunity to never leave the house and this has continued and he is now so isolated and has “aged” way more than the actual years would suggest.

Absolutely.

Not all risks were considered equally.

Can we not just let this go now please? It was bad enough living through it never mind rehashing it!

What happened in Sweden? Genuinely curious. I've not heard about what happened there.

The Swedes did not go into lockdown but were on the whole fairly socially responsible, it seems. Their death rate was no worse than ours.

It was one of the most stupid acts of self destruction we could have done as a country. I said so at the time and was vilified. The results have damn near bankrupted us, we have millions more idle sat on their backsides claiming as they got used to being paid for doing sweet FA and the wonderful NHS now has a backlog bigger than we have ever seen with people likely to suffer far worse outcomes because they couldn’t actually see a GP. And that isn’t to mention the impact on children’s mental health and the deaths of poor children who were not monitored and in school. See also abject fraud by both the government and those that abused the furlough scheme.

I obeyed lockdown like a good little lemming but in hindsight I wouldn't if we went back in time. I had my son and was quite lonely and depressed. Lockdown led to lots of excess deaths and depression.

Most schools never closed in Sweden and there was no government mandated lockdown and their outcomes in terms of both covid deaths per capita and now excess deaths are considerably above average overall.

I had to go to Stockholm in December 2020. It was basically empty as Swedes voluntarily stayed home. That would be how I explain Sweden

It is indeed, especially as not all of it has happened yet. I don't think it's a question we're likely to be able to answer at all conclusively for a long time.

You know many people who died OP?

I only know of 3 people who died. One was a 55ish year old woman from my NCT group (died very early in the pandemic in London) a fof who was an alcoholic man and extremely unhealthy (also London) and another who was a fof - a man in his early 70s who lived in Yorkshire.

So I don't know many who died. I could really say only one and that was slightly.

Still think lock down was the only option at the time. I remember those news reports from Northern Italy. Who can forget them?

So many selfish replies. Me, me, me. I presume you'd also have been whining during WW2 about blackouts and rationing and coming up with evidence as to why this was detrimental and unfair.

There have been so many ongoing issues and cultural changes - for example, we run a business and now it’s totally normal for our staff to take off a week with a cold, to the level where we are looking at what on earth we can do as our staff are so unreliable. It’s like they’ve taken the “if you’re sick stay at home” to the furthest level they possibly can.
Im supportive of not dragging yourself in if you feel awful, but now it’s almost like they’ll only turn up when they feel 100% perfect and any slight illness is yet more time off. One employee has taken 36 days of sick in 8 months and she only works 3 days a week.
Another has worked with us for 6 weeks and has already had 8 days off sick.

The Government told the population to see less people, see people outdoors and stand further away and they did. The UK population spent that time going 'but what about me....'

So lockdown, voluntarily or involuntarily worked?

I think a lot of people just switch off when they hear selfish now, to be honest. It became a trope a long time ago. And the fact is, most people's actions and beliefs were some mixture of personal sacrifice and desire to put own priorities first.

'own priorites first'

AKA selfish