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?

Eat out above promoting schooling measures was a mistake. Children were massively let down in Covid, the recent children's minister contribution to the Covid enquiry made this clear

I have never had covid and my husband hasn't either. I was more terrified of getting cancer during the pandemic. I stopped wearing the masks as I started to get respiratory issues probably due to the mask fibres I was breathing in

Not as successfully. It was a government nudge to get out there and mix. Delivered to a cowed nation

I know what you’re trying to say, most people I knew who had parties etc in the early lockdown days just don’t give a toss in general. They didn’t break the rules because they had a special understanding or theory, they just don’t stick to rules in general.
Yet, as you say, they will try and say ‘I told you so’ now and make out they had some special foresight that I didn’t..

I'm convinced my mum is a delayed lockdown victim.

She had quite bad copd but it was being managed, she had stopped smoking and was on course to have a new treatment option. 2020 arrived. Her hospital appointments stopped, her family who she adored and gave her purpose could no longer visit and she was classed as vulnerable so had to isolate for longer. All those factors meant she lost purpose and motivation. Started smoking again, lost her opportunity for the operation as they weren't doing them through lockdown and lost motivation because she was lonely not seeing her family. Her eye sight and hearing were bad so face time, phone calls etc wasn't much good for her.

She died this year. I'm convinced she would have been in much better health around the time she died if lockdown and covid hadn't happened. She died of COPD and lung issues. We kept her safe from covid - she never caught it - but the cost was still her life.

I want this on a T-shirt.

Just like to remind everyone that the Govt doesn't need to borrow money from overseas nor anyone else in a fiat currency system, it just needs to tell the Bank of England Director to print some more. This will cause inflation (as will borrowing from overseas), but the Govt has that option.

At the end of WW2 we had huge Marshall Plan debts and yet we founded the NHS. Austerity is a Govt choice and Covid has nothing to do with that choice.

@Fahbeep there is no epidemiological evidence to show that covid cases rose in areas which had a higher take up rate of “eat out to help out”.

I agree children's mental health is at an all time low.

Ongoing lockdown caused huge psychological mental health damage to young people

huge

on an unprecedented scale

the damage from lockdown is still unfolding

it was the best solution (maybe) for the short term

If you can’t see that cutting off supply of goods while printing and borrowing a £ trillion to pay healthy people to sit at home causes inflation, then you don’t understand basic economics.

Lockdown ended in the UK in 2021, as did Furlough, inflation peaked at the end of 2022. Can you honestly not think of anything other than Covid that might have had an effect on inflation during that time ?

What?

I suggest you take a look at figures from surrounding Nordic states that did lock down and do a little compare and contrast exercise.

www.openaccessgovernment.org/norway-and-sweden/125378/

www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0168851021002220

Even the king of Sweden admitted that the country's response had been a failure.

Nobody knows the answers, and the more thoughtful posts here give a balanced view.
certainly lots of us suffered from the effects of lockdown, my elderly mum lost her confidence and has never been the same, two of my grandchildren fell really badly behind academically and are unlikely ever to catch up. It was a horrible, scary time.
Many comments here on one “side” or the other are just filling the gaps in their knowledge by stating opinions as facts, and throwing accusations at the other “side”. After all we’ve been through, one way or another, that’s sad.
Someone here said that it was the lack of preparedness and advance planning was the most significant error. And unless there’s a lot of work behind the scenes going on, it looks like it will be the same nExt time round when a ghastly haemorrhagic disease sweeps across the world. Masks won’t help us then. Only the willingness to work together and accept that we have different points of view.

No one will ever know for certain what was right or what should have been done. The government had to take gambles at every turn from lockdowns to funding of vaccines. The funding of vaccines paid off but did lock down? Who knows.

It may have prevented people catching covid but what else has it done to people? There is no perfect scenario. People have a right to feel anger when they were sent into lockdown and people have a right to feel anger it didn't happen sooner etc. It cost people their jobs, houses, mental health and loved ones. Many people will be feeling lockdown wasn't worth it and are just as entitled to their opinions as those who think lockdown was the right thing to do

Oh dear. This poster totally missed the quantitative easing of the last 15 years.

This country is mostly doomed because this is level of comprehension that the general public has about how the economy works.

I’m unfortunate enough to be one of those weird vulnerable people. It was tough constantly being sent stupid letters designed to scare the crap out of you. I’d been warned at the beginning of March that this virus could be a huge threat to my life. I’d spent the previous 20 years successfully avoiding flu, colds and swine flu. My dad had died the previous year and I knew if I was to lockdown on my own I’d go stir crazy so I went to stay at my parents house. Due to circumstances I ended up in my dad’s old bedroom it was mentally tough. There were neighbours breaching rules left right and centre. Ir was frustrating and nearly broke me mentally so god knows how kids coped with it.

It seemed like it was make it up as you go along or panic and throw money at it. Imho, Cheltenham and the football at Anfield should have been cancelled. It has caused splits within families that are pro vaccine, vaccine hesitant and anti vaxers. It’s a shame we can’t understand other people’s point of view even if it’s not our own.

I wouldn’t expect other people to put their lives on hold for me but the biggest issue for us vulnerable people is trying to avoid it. I’d managed to get through all the lockdowns and avoid it until last October, a 2 minute exposure wiped me out for 3 months, despite it supposed being a milder strain. Unpaid as Self-Employed whilst unable to work has been tough but I’ll get through it. It made me thought and less tolerant of some things and more tolerant of other things. My mum had a cancer scare in May 2020 and the action of her GP and the tests she was sent for was amazing, thankfully it wasn’t cancer but we still don’t know what was wrong.

I'll add a few more -

The people who died.
The people who are now suffering from long covid.

Death is part of the circle of life

Easy for you to say. I'm autistic, so one of the people who would have been DNRed had I become severely ill.

It's chilling watching people endorse abandoning entire groups of people to die because of their disability.

ocdmama Simply put, diagnoses were missed, but hospitals were dangerous places and choc a block.

I went to a main hospital in May 2020 at the height of it all as part of a 2 week wait cancer pathway. The hospital was deserted. I was in the special women’s section of the hospital. Women were receiving devastating news while alone with no support. Other women were going to scans and maternity appointments unsupported.

My friends daughter an A and E nurse said she had never had it so easy.

I'm Swedish, in Sweden. I can tell you about how we managed. We're a very health conscious people and also very compliant. We didn't need a formal lockdown with police powers of enforcement because when our scientists told us to do stuff, we did it. We had a defacto lockdown in the early days when they advised us all to stay home, until everywhere had mitigating factors in place. There was a lot of trust here as decisions and recommendations were made by the scientists not the politicians.

We still have covid recommendations that everyone follows.

How can you possibly call people selfish OP? You got your lockdowns. A large proportion of the population had to go to work catch covid and carry on. The economy, education, mental health, physical health were all sacrificed so people could be a bit safer from covid. People weren’t selfish, they made massive sacrifices. You should be grateful.

Ok, put it another way. What if it was mainly effecting children? And the mortality rate was 99%? I'm genuinely just wondering if there is a point at which people would all lockdown again.

Inflation is still over 3 times the target. The supply side inflation was caused by Covid. Supply chains didn’t just recover magically the moment lockdowns were lifted. They still haven’t recovered 3 years on.

UK borrows over £20b a month even now to pay the benefits bill which ballooned even higher due lockdowns and to pay for debt interest. Debt interest is high because of inflation that followed lockdowns.

Perhaps try following the facts.

If you'd bothered to read what I said, you'd have realised that I was describing quantitative easing.

Look up how fiat currency and fractional reserve banking work and how banks create money from thin air when they lend you a mortgage, how mortgage defaults result in that money not being destroyed via repayments, and how soaring house prices cause inflation as opposed to being a consequence of it.

@TheresaBouvey one thing that was highlighted in studies about young people and children, was that they spent a lot more time on screens during the pandemic, and less time outdoors.

I do wonder how the pandemic would have played out pre the interenet ?