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?

The Brits were extremely compliant as were the Kiwis and Australians and most other European counties. It’s on the record that the government here and elsewhere were astounded by the level of compliance. And the equivalent of Anders Tegnell was Chris Whitty etc not Boris (thank god).

So people were supported. I remember Johnson saying we should be more like Germany with staying off when sick...without changing sick pay here though! I think we started any measures at all later here though and were trying the take it all on the chin until we were catastrophically late - when were your measures started? I read that Sweden's child diabetes rate has shot up (one of the post covid infection issues) - are contagious kids still encouraged to school there or are they and parents still supported when kids are sick? We have a 'pretend it doesn't affect kids, despite all the evidence' rhetoric here.

Because that's totally the point here 🙄

But if it makes you feel cleverer....

Whereas in UK politics scum rises to the top and the population knows that they don't have the best interests of the majority at heart. Hence the extreme distrust especially when it emerged we were being asked to make sacrifices the politicians and scientists (well, Ferguson) apparently didn't think applied to them. And especially when it became clear "science" was being cherry picked to suit political agendas. "Following the science" became such a hollow meaningless phrase. I mean, sitting on benches in pairs, Scotch eggs, an hour of exercise, being told to go home from the beach, drones following people on hillsides, golf clubs being open before schools and playgrounds, swings being chained up...that was apparently based on "the science"?

As well as the loss of faith in those elected to govern us, that's one of the tragedies. A further erosion of trust in real science and education and research.

And it also indicates that the majority of the public don't have society's best interests as they are the ones that voted the party in, to begin with, if people studied politics more than football, more than Britain's got talent, more than big brother, we may have a better chosen political party

I do not believe it resulted in less human suffering. I do not even believe we saved lives overall. Instead, we sacrificed children and young people with the potential for long lives, to prolong the lives of mostly elderly people a few months, perhaps a couple of years.

And indeed we also treated elderly people in care homes appallingly - apparently to save their lives. Why? What sort of quality of life was it being banned from going out or seeing loved ones.

The impact on women was disproportionate too.

The first lockdown was reasonable. But after that we should have been able to cope with restrictions and sensible behaviour, like meeting friends outside.

As you say, it wasn't expected. They backed up the need to comply with law to enforce it. The Swedish government expected us to comply so didn't.

The difference between Tegnell and Whitty is that Tegnell made the decisions. Chris Whitty was very clear that he advised but government made the decisions.

The government were pretty clear they were “following the science” in the UK, they said it often enough.

Compliance was high. Maybe not so much the law as we didn’t actually have enough to enforce it

It was the behavioural stuff that worked. Which is why on here you’d get floods of threads demanding lockdown and closures etc

i still don’t see how Sweden being more compliant meant that they had a better covid outcome than so many other countries which had mandated lockdowns - unless they all unilaterally decided to completely voluntarily not go to work or school etc. Unless of course lockdowns didn’t really work.

@Destiny123 @Louloulouenna Was simplistic obesity (high BMI) a risk factor or the skinny-fat issue that affects South East Asians more than others?
Derek Draper lost 8 stone and is still alive, many unhealthy gym addicts with very little body fat seemed to succumb.

I brought up compliance as an explanation as to why we didn't need a legally enforceable lockdown. We had a defacto lockdown. I didn't mean it was the reason we had a better covid outcome. I'm not even sure where we sit on the scale of who did best.

@Taxbreak good question about obesity, I don’t know the answer and remain staggered as to how little the focus was on researching it throughout the epidemic.

Yes the fact that Swedes are compliant isn’t really relevant to the question of the efficacy of lockdowns. As I understand it Swedish society did continue to function in a way that most countries didn’t (ie Schools for younger children never closed, outdoor eating and drinking was allowed).

Speaking of obesity Sweden’s rates are lower than here but Japan’s are very low. Maybe that helped them a fair bit. They seemed to do better

Remember when they discovered that smokers were less likely to catch covid. That was an odd anomaly

Possibly because smokers spent slightly more time outside on their smoke breaks, not inside where the virus was

Obesity levels didn't just go unmentioned, the covid policies meant they went up, and among children it was significant. What the long term effects of that will be, healthwise, is still TBD.

No one pretends children are never affected, btw. It's about the relation to other risks. They are more in danger from other things we don't freak out about to the extent we freak out about covid.

UK has shocking Obesity levels long before CV, poverty has a far greater effect.

Vouchers have been given out in an experiment in a London borough, for vegetables, it has had a dramatic impact on blood pressure, weight loss and overall health, it is not being rolled out nation wide.

The Govt was advised what spending and solutions were needed to help out children, the bill came to £15bn, the Govt offered 1.4bn, the education Tsar resigned over this.

The Tories apparently know what a Woman is but they clearly do now know what a Child is or don't care.

I’m not surprised it went up. Lockdown creating poorer mh, stress, financial anxiety and lack of socialisation would do that.

What a hash that part was.

Also increase in DV, very sadly abuse of children and alcohol related issues

If we had decent public services, these issues could have been dealt with.

3 years after CV, people are waiting 3 or 4 days in AE for MH treatment, most are younger women.

Hopefully somewhere the damage will be recognised and learnt from if there’s another virus with similar risk profile

Maybe they didn’t realise how bad it would be for people mentally and physically

We may not get another Pandemic in our life time, i'd prefer Govts of all colours to fix the current issues, especially children missing school.

Surely we have the measures in place for this? or has that been cut back?

Hopefully not. I doubt people will be so receptive to more of the same.

We should have thought about harm at the time, some did of course. Sweden’s approach to schools was much better.

I've not worked in icus in ethnically diverse areas for years tbh so all my patients were morbidly obese and white. The ethnic minority were mainly staff

I agree with you @Rudderneck the UK’s covid response really was shameful as far as the welfare of children was concerned.