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?

Equally, seeing what had happened in Italy and New York was terrible and quite terrifying. The level of death was just awful, especially as they had no idea how to treat people really. But it felt like the U.K. had no plan of what to do in the face of a pandemic.
At least in Australia we had a clear plan which kicked in - but having said that, I hope they would never choose to be as draconian as they were. I have no idea what would happen if a novel flu arrived which actually was affecting mainly children and young people.

Lockdown harmed:
▪️mothers and newborns who did not get midwife and HV visits
▪️children in care
▪️elderly people in care homes
▪️children with speech delays
▪️people in DV situations
▪️some people with mental health disorders
▪️people whose cancer diagnosis was delayed
▪️it delayed many children’s education
▪️many businesses

feel free to add more

Who knows? Who actually knows if lockdown stopped more people dying or not? We can only go by what the media tell us can’t we and it seems quite obvious now that a lot of it was bollocks! Now we hear about the parties the government had etc whilst we stayed at home!! I absolutely hated the whole thing and would never abide by such stupid rules again. We were all scaremongered in to becoming hermits..

I actually can’t believe that people still believe the ‘stay home save
lives’ message.. especially after party gate. I worked through both lockdowns but the second I didn’t comply and I’m glad I didn’t.

In my opinion, we should never have had any lockdowns. Whilst they may have reduced the number of covid 19 cases, way more people ended up missing out on critical care - and treatment - for other things... including cancer.

I know/knew - (actually real people who I knew,) 14 people who died during 2020 and 2021 from diseases other than covid 19. (8 from cancer.) All but 5 were under 65. I swear that most of them (probably 10 or 11) would have lived, had they had the treatment they needed, but it was put off and put off 'because covid' - and they died.

It's a hill I will die on. The lockdowns did more harm than good, and resulted in many more deaths from other illness and disease, as well as causing dreadful mental health issues and depression and loneliness for 100s of 1000s of people.

We should never have had ANY lockdowns.

@condo

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.

100% THIS! ^

Yep. And it applies to people you agree with as well as people you don't. That's simply the nature of policy response to something like covid. It had to involve prioritising the welfare of some people above that of others.

@Fairospop22 I can think of more.
-HCPs who were stressed and under pressure
-Basically any young child. Toddlers whose brains were at a crucial developmental stage.

but also potentially saved their lives, so there is that.

I didn't agree with lockdown then or now.

The people I know who have died because of covid are people who have committed suicide because their mental health nosedived, two previously functioning alcoholics stopped functioning and died and my own teen dds mental health was badly effected and is still not recovered 3 years on!

I don't personally know of anyone who caught covid and was ill for more than a couple of days.

I firmly believe lockdown was wrong. I did then too. I obeyed the rules, but not because I felt they were right.

@Fairospop22 you touched on cancer diagnosis and I'd add treatment (lack of) for those already with the disease. So sad :(

The evidence just isn’t there to support the benefit of lockdowns or mask mandates let alone when all the collateral damage is taken into account. Just look at the deaths per capita statistics in states in the USA. No correlation whatsoever.

The idea that Sweden was absolutely unique in having no mandated lock downs yet everyone decided to stay at home makes no sense. The UK high streets and restaurants etc were also largely deserted by the time of the first lock down in March 2020.

Really?

You personally know 'many' people who died from covid and you know the origins of their being infected?

Have you been conducting some kind of detailed research project?

Yes, such a great question.

There were dozens of lock down models and the data is there to contrast and compare.

I know there will be plenty of ‘Sweden is empty’ posts, but what about Switzerland- densely populated, kids back in school after 6 weeks. At one stage there was a mask mandate on German public transport- it didn’t apply once the trains crossed the border into Switzerland. So you have data from the same time period and locations where there was compulsory mask wearing and not.

Yes, I gather the explanation for Sweden was that they were better at behaving in a responsible way and respecting rules on that front, and they have a society that is much more reciprocal than ours.

It's very easy in hindsight to say we shouldn't have done it and look at all these negative outcomes, but I think the key word to remember was that this was a novel virus. You don't just assume it's not that bad and carry on as normal when you simply don't know enough about it yet.

And remember it wasn't primarily about preventing deaths as much as about preventing total collapse of the NHS with so many people coming in at once at a time when the mitigating measure (intubation) was extreme, expensive and not reliable.

What’s the survey you mention op?

I wondered if it would have been better to ask the vulnerable to lock down and provide them with support and arrangements like furlough and guaranteed home delivery and a network of volunteers to check on them.
And let those healthy, younger adults and kids have fewer restrictions imposed.

People like my Dad. Chemo was prolonging his life against an aggressive form of cancer.

Once the lockdowns started his specialist pretty much stopped seeing people. Treatment stopped, GP didn't want to know.

The only people who cared were the angel nurses who came to the house and looked after him while he died at home and nobody else cared.

Then we couldn't even have a proper funeral for him.

So I would like the OP to stop calling people who are now questioning lockdown selfish.

Quite. Spare a thought for those who lost their homes, their jobs, their marriages. Those now dead because they didn't get their cancer or heart treatments on time. Those who were pulling their own teeth out because they couldn't see a dentist. Those poor little children who died at the hands of abusive parents and weren't in the one place they were safe - SCHOOL. Those kids who are now really backward in their learning or who have now left education all together. Those whose mental health is now screwed and have no hope in life, no friend or family.

But by all means OP. You keep wearing your masks and testing.

I thought they always said it wasnt to reduce deaths, it was to flatten the curve so the same number of deaths took longer to ensure the health service could cope with a steady stream rather than a huge surge at once.

I have zero idea if this was good or bad for the rest of health services. Like whether cancer treatment, heart diseases etc would have been better off with a massive surge.

We cant change the decision that were made. Im more pissed off that they continue to pretend it never happened for schools and never funded a proper recovery plan for soeech, social emotional development etc.

One of the most illuminating things on covid I’ve ever seen was an interactive map of how covid rates and deaths fluctuated in the USA. Absolutely no correlation with mask mandates and lockdowns, it simply peaked and then receded.

In my opinion, we should never have had any lockdowns. Whilst they may have reduced the number of covid 19 cases, way more people ended up missing out on critical care - and treatment - for other things... including cancer.

I can only speak for my own experience.In March/April 2020 you may have had a point. In Nov-Feb there were no beds to treat other patients and it would have been extremely dangerous for cancer patients to have come in as every available inch of space became a COVID ward, at the height this included the ante-natal and postnatal ward. I dread to think what would have happened if the lockdown hadn't been called. That last week in December, those Christmas plans, I was so relieved when Boris put us in to Tier 4 about fucking time.

.

Same.

The price children and young people have paid to protect others is too high.

The child deaths that could have been prevented if normal safeguarding measures were in place were too heavy a price to pay and that's before we get to the impact on the youth population as a whole.

With the benefit of hindsight, lockdown (at least in the way it was implemented) may not have been the best strategy. It has caused incalculable harm to children and young people in particular. However, some allowance must be made for the fact that such decisions are not made with 20/20 vision and everyone was in a state of panic.

What I find harder to forgive is that the promised investment in children and young people to address the effects of lockdown has not materialised and many are living unhappily with the long-term consequences to this day.