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?

@1dayatatime

Not when faced with a global emergency situation. A new virus, no method of control and collapsing hospitals. Countries too ill and under resourced to even be able provide functioning hospitals, schools, and basic services.
The priority is to secure food, shelter, warmth, health and safety. Look at Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs.

Once the emergency has passed then you look at the wealth and economy to feed and improve the basic essential services.

Agree! I do agree with pp there's sections of society wishing for another lockdown so they can shriek 'SELFISH!! PUT MEEE FIRST' at everyone again, in particular children and demand that children's lives are restricted so they can tootle about the place!

@1dayatatime
@MyGooseisTotallyLoose

It’s because we’ve developed sufficient hybrid immunity throughout the population by exposure to the virus itself/from vaccination. This is why only the most vulnerable groups are now receiving boosters. Deaths/serious illness/need for hospital resources is manageable. If it become unmanageable then more groups would be vaccinated/boosted again.

But this is extremely obvious right??

@Electro79

Most vaccines don't prevent these particles being infective, because the vaccine primes our own immune system to clear the infection from our body, it does not damage the particle structure such to prevent it from infecting another, the shed particle is just as capable of setting up a new infection regardless of the vaccination status of the host in which it was replicated.

So you're suggesting vaccines shed active virus? If so, no. Some vaccines are 'live', but they contain tiny amounts of deactivated virus, and only parts of the pathogen. In this manner, they are not capable of causing disease. 'Shedding' isn't the same as 'transmission', as the complete, replicating pathogen isn't passed on.

Not at all, the mRNA vaccine cannot shed anything, least not anything of concern, as it does not contain the virus, simply a section of RNA that instructs the body to replicate part of the virus (spike protein) to which the body then produces B & T cells as an immune response, the T part of that process persists and gives the immune system a head start if it encounters the complete virus. I'm taking about shedding and transmission from individals actively infected with the virus itself.

Shedding is defined as the expulsion and release of viral progeny following successful reproduction during a host cell infection and is an essential part of the process of transmission.

We all shed viral particles when infected with colds, flu, covid etc., if sufficient are inhaled by another individual, it can set up an infection in them too.

Whilst covid vaccines, like the flu vaccine can prevent infection or mitigate symptoms in an infected individual, they cannot prevent an individual who is both infected and vaccinated from shedding viable particles, and therefore potentially transmitting and infecting another individual.

How could you possibly know that. You could have all had bad colds/ flu. There is no way to know it it was covid

I'm not denying it. Some younger apparently healthy people were/are very debilitated by it.

What I'm debating is that we were all equally at risk from it (as we were told when they ramped the fear up) and whether it was worth shutting down the economy (which IS lives - some people don't seem to understand this), education, social care, social activity and human interaction. When it was known pretty early on that Covid was not the humanity threatening disease they briefly first feared.

And I have a few very good friends with MS. I'm certainly not using it for a "dismissive agenda" 🤔

You don't get to police other people's posts based on what you'd "prefer".

@WestwardHo1

Anyone wanted access to hospital services was at risk. When a hospital is overwhelmed they cannot provide an adequate level of care across the board. That includes - maternity, paediatrics, A and E, providing ambulances etc.

I also think - for a school to function - you need healthy adults. You need a healthy infrastructure to support that school. You need the teachers to be well, you need the parents of the pupils to be well.

I can’t understand this notion that, had we not locked down with a new virus/no method of control - that’s schools and hospitals and basic services would have all been ticking along nicely.

Sweden did actually enforce some measures, mandates and they did close schools for older secondary age. They also had one of the highest vaccine uptakes in Europe and were compliant in many other ways. They also had a health care system that could cope better than us and many other nations across the globe. They could afford to be that maverick country.

@WhalePolo Very good post, Sweden had controls and they got more restrictive as they realised CV was getting out of control
.
People should look at Brazil for what happened with no restrictions and learn from Germany, less restrictions, far better health service and a much lower death toll.

I think a lot of people who now state ‘lockdown was a mistake’ - and hold certain politicians or scientific advisors for the UK as accountable - are really failing to see the scale of the issue. This was a global pandemic, and needed to be tackled on a global scale. Appalling behaviour from politicians in our country doesn’t really change the fact that half of humanity and the vast majority of Europe were using broadly similar restrictions to control viral spread.

So if we are faced with disease X, we need to think how we are going to prepare, how we are going to respond, and how we can learn from Covid.

And I think a lot of the people who accuse others of being "anti lockdown" (and by extension anti vaxx, right wing, Covid deniers etc etc) are just too stubborn/daft to appreciate nuance, and that the people they're lumping together in a homogenous group might simply be angry about the way the government handled the pandemic in this country.

I hope we do as I suggested from pretty earlier on and appoint someone on behalf of children, as recommended by Save the Children report just recently.

I thought we had a childrens commissioner? their recommendations are often ignored and were in LDs 2 and 3.

I don’t think it did much. Not enough for the report to conclude we didn’t need something better

No just flu:

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1676118/

Of course this is just an average (which in turn depends on the time frame for the averaging)

Avoiding the Covid years it was for example 15,000 last year and in 2017-2018 it was 22,500.

www.bmj.com/content/381/bmj.p1445

You re right, none of these quango commissioners seem to do much.

But if the CC hasn't got suitable powers, then a simple job to give him or her more surely.

Trouble is, whatever is given, Govts can ignore .

Didn't an Educational Tsar resign because his recommendations were not taken serious? i believe this was to do with post CV funding for schools.

The advice was to appoint a Cabinet Minister for Children and Young People

It may be how you get someone in the room etc when arguing on behalf of a group. It was lacking

Also essential infrastructure

@Doagooddeed

Yes the Education Tsar resigned after asking for £15 billion in educational catch up funding and was instead offered not even a tenth of that at £1.4 billion.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-57335558.amp

This compares to the £310 to £410 billion spent on Government Covid measures. Quite simply children, young people and schools were thrown under a bus for Covid, a disease that they were the least likely section of society to die from.

@1dayatatime

But globally, was practically every European country doing the same - school closures?

Do you think the vast majority of European countries wanted to throw children under a bus - or were they trying to get a virus under control and have a functioning society and functioning hospitals which in turn favours outcomes for children. Children exist in society not as an entirely separate entity. They need healthy adults to support and teach them.
I think people ‘use’ children to hammer an anti restrictions point. Which is very wrong.

‘Use’ children.

Sad to see this rear again.

Yes thats it, shameful isn't it?

They offered him 10% of what he asked, i get one never gets all that is asked for but a 10th???

The numbers of kids missing school and not catching up is something that we'll all be paying for decades to come, so short sighted.

A young man took the Welsh government at their word when told shopping for clothes etc was not essential. We tried to see the funny side here in those dark days.

It is an absolute disgrace that children were used in this way to protect adults. In a civilised society adults should always protect children not the other way round. We should hang our heads in shame at what we have done to children over the last three years.

Which is just a typical “Us for Them” type argument.

“If the best place for children is in school, then allowing unmitigated transmission is counter productive. Those who have opposed measures in schools, have opposed all measures - they have also refused to acknowledge the children who have been impacted by covid.”

So again, it’s less an argument to do with the welfare of children - and more about promoting a libertarian narrative citing children as their cause.

The issue should be the impact of a pandemic on children’s welfare if you want better outcomes for children.