Covid

I was in favour of lockdowns but have completely changed my mind and don't think I would support them again. The damage they have caused to society has been considerable, we should under no circumstances have closed schools.

It’s unbelieveable.

Millions of pounds spent, millions of words read and spoken over millions of hours. Evidence considered and conclusions reached and here you all are fighting the same bl**dy battles as you were 4 years ago.

I’m ducking out of the rerun…

MaizieD yep, same old same old.

Why?

Because many of us are still living on a daily basis with the consequences that lockdown has had on our young people.

Yes I am watching the lives of those children every day. Everyone I know in education and social care talks about it.

From the beginning as we were locked down the planes were still coming in.

Madness!

In 1962 a smallpox outbreak in Bradford was contained, no technology, no sophisticated systems just good old common sense and stringent practices.

GrannyGravy13

Don’t get me started on masks.

Homemade fabric ones especially, normally worn under the nose 🤬🤬🤬

Mollygo

What we should all have done is wear a lanyard. Lanyards protected people didn’t they?

Whilst I think that the pandemic was managed badly but cannot see just how it could have been done any differently seeing as pandemics are extremely rare and governments incompetent when it comes to much lesser issues. I do think we need to keep in mind that in the beginning Covid was a very severe respiratory virus which over time has become far less so. Therefore deaths in the beginning were far more common than today and affected all age groups so a lockdown was preferable to increasing the death toll at that point in time.

The virus was spread around the world by people travelling around the world. All international travel should have been halted, and perhaps it could have been contained far more effectively than inventing the “rule of six” and similar nonsense.

I worked on checkouts in Waitrose throughout, in a branch very near a large hospital. My son lives in China and he and his wife were aghast at the madness demonstrated by store management, as well as by out government.

At the beginning of April 2020 the flights into U.K. were 80% less than normal.

The U.K. isn’t self sufficient, these flights carried medical supplies, foodstuffs, post etc., not just people having a jolly
travel restrictions were in full force.

I think any pandemic management has to be taken out of the control of government and put in the hands of healthcare and public health professionals.

For years there was speculation and talk about a possible pandemic in public health, but they had been de-funded to the point of desperation.

Public health should be put in the same category as civil defence. It is no good going on about invasions of illegal immigrants while we ignore the very real threat of another public health crisis.

Austerity was a key factor in how ill-prepared we were and until we shift the focus on public spending it will just happen again.

The countries best able to cope with the pandemic were those with good local community health professionals who were supported in getting on with their jobs of caring for the sick and vulnerable.

Why can't we do the same?

Oh hang on- there's no short term financial profit in it...?

I feel quite bitter as I lost a close relative to Covid at a time when Johnson was partying with his chums at number 10. I am particularly upset as the Covid was hospital acquired and I was not allowed to visit.

I know it is easy to be wise after the event but even at the time it was obvious that Johnson was doing an impression of a headless chicken. I think Theresa May would have done a better job, at least she is caring and honest.

I don't think the report contained any big surprises, Phil Hammond covered the pandemic as it developed in the magazine "Private Eye" and he published "Dr Hammond's Covid Casebook" a few months back.

Eat out to help out.

How much money has this inquiry cost and what will we really get out of it? Mistakes were made. Dh and I listening to the news round the world at the time stopped going to events two weeks before lockdown. The FA couldn’t make up its mind until grassroots club refused to play the following week. Lots of people could see lockdown was inevitable and were therefore willing to accept it. The pictures from round the world were terrifying. Johnson nearly died from Covid throwing his government into even more disarray, but although the inquiry says many died because of government failures he did push the vaccine programme which saved thousands too. BUT not just government but Science too got it wrong or mixed up. Should we take back Chris Whitty’s gong?

Smileless2012

No one knew what they were doing because we'd never been faced with anything like it before.

Easy to criticise with the curse benefit of hindsight.

Well no, but didn't they have a practise a few years ago - so they'd be prepared in the event of a pandemic?

Also some things were clearly wrong at the time - Cheltenham Races, Bath Half Marathon and, most deadly, the sending of elderly patients out of hospital into Care Homes.

Agreed Retrolady. Sending the elderly into care homes was considered reckless at the time before anyone really knew much about Covid. I remember people talking about it. To say nothing of of the billions wasted on ineffective and even faulty PPE equipment, much of which lined the pockets of the Government's cronies. We didn't need hindsight to know that was wrong and shameful.

Just googled - they did have practices. Lessons weren't learned then, so I am very doubtful that lessons will be learned from 2020.

"Exercise Cygnus (UK, 2016): This major, three-day simulation tested the UK's ability to cope with an H2N2 influenza pandemic. The results, though initially classified, were later revealed to show that a severe pandemic would cause the country's health system to collapse due to a lack of resources, including a potential shortage of ventilators and issues with the social care sector."
"Exercise Alice (UK, 2016): This exercise specifically modelled a MERS coronavirus outbreak and recommended a review and increase of the personal protective equipment (PPE) stockpile."

And there were worldwide exercises too.

Galaxy

I was in favour of lockdowns but have completely changed my mind and don't think I would support them again. The damage they have caused to society has been considerable, we should under no circumstances have closed schools.

Remember the SNP considering chopping a couple of inches off classroom doors to allow more ventilation?

Barmy times.

And those over the top modelling figures by Professor Niall Ferguson, advising the government saying over half a million deaths were on the cards?

Why did we trust in such tripe? Madness.
We were all scared I suppose.

Then smarmy Matt Hancock in private messages saying the government needed to ‘ramp up the fear factor to aid compliance’.

Keir Starmer railing against Boris for ending lockdowns in the summer of 2021.

Oh and my last thought on the subject - Mark Drakeford in Wales taping off parts of supermarkets selling non essentials such as toys and household goods.

The fundamental question that we still need answered, and which this report does not answer, is whether lockdowns saved lives.

Were they the right response to a disease with a fatality rate of between 0.1 per cent and 0.5 per cent?

If we don’t learn this then the whole inquiry is a waste of time, because it has given us no guidance as to what to do if it happens again.

Remember the SNP considering chopping a couple of inches off classroom doors to allow more ventilation?

In view of the fact that good ventilation is part of the defence against the spreading of an airborne virus it wasn't a barmy idea at all. Though heap air filters and open windows would have done a better job, if more expensive.

I also clearly remember a Scottish poster being piled on with practically universal derision for suggesting the idea wasn't a bad one. Very nasty

hepa filters

Lockdowns caused untold harm. The government’s weak instinct to avoid them was swamped by the hysteria of the entire mainstream media, all opposition parties and the civil and health service blobs.

Shame on everyone responsible for this farcical inquiry and its failure to deal honestly with the truth of what happened.

* or just prop the bluddy doors open then with a doorstop?
No, let’s escalate costs getting in Council workmen to go around all Scottish schools.

Madness on steroids.

FriedGreenTomatoes2

The fundamental question that we still need answered, and which this report does not answer, is whether lockdowns saved lives.

Were they the right response to a disease with a fatality rate of between 0.1 per cent and 0.5 per cent?

If we don’t learn this then the whole inquiry is a waste of time, because it has given us no guidance as to what to do if it happens again.

That question has already been answered.
hansard.parliament.uk/lords/2024-07-29/debates/2DEDE573-DF58-4B05-AC4C-0B8E0A7D7FE3/CoronavirusUKDeaths

FriedGreenTomatoes2

* or just prop the bluddy doors open then with a doorstop?
No, let’s escalate costs getting in Council workmen to go around all Scottish schools.

Madness on steroids.

You've clearly never been a teacher...

Anyway, to reference another post

Assuming the UK population at about 66 million, 0.1% is 68,000, 0.5% is 340,000. You would have been happy with so many deaths?



5

Re vaccines being unnecessary, three 60s bachelors who live near us, all ended up in hospital for 2-3 weeks each, with Covid.
None had been vaccinated.
I met one of them a few weeks later, still weak and walking tentatively, with a stick.

I did ask him why none of them had been vaccinated.
‘Well, we weren’t sure.’
‘I bet you are now!’
He agreed.

The answer, decided by the government, is unlikely to have any impact on those who believe it should have been stricter, or those who think it was a waste of time, or those who declared that the government couldn’t tell them what to do.
Even on GN, posters have their own views, based on their own experiences and are unlikely to change them.

Should schools have been shut?

No . . . except that some of our staff who were in school during lockdown were seriously ill with Covid, presumably caught from the children whose parents were in occupations which brought them into contact with the disease, but could send their children to school.

Finding staff to cover for those who were off sick was another problem we had.

Should shops and businesses have been shut down?
It would have saved the government massive amounts of money if they’d stayed open.
Should hospitals have prevented visiting?

That’s a hard one, which affected us quite badly.
But would allowing visitors in amongst people who were already sick improved things? The hospitals would have been blamed if visitors who proved to have tested positive, had been allowed in.