Covid

I disagreed with the lockdown. Far too damaging to children.
I considered myself vulnerable being elderly and asthmatic and was prepared to keep myself safe so that youngsters could carry on with their lives as covid wasn't as dangerous to the young.
We will never know whether more or less people would have died without lockdowns.

love0c

Thousands of people died 'with Covid' not from it. A huge difference!

Quite!

There was also the way any death certificates were phrased - as I gather a lot of people died of their own illnesses and yet "Covid" got put on the death certificate. That was the one blessing I had at that time - ie both my parents died in 2020 - and I insisted to my awful ex sister-in-law that I MUST have copies of their death certificates - so I could check for myself what they said. Fortunately they were accurate and only said what I knew very well my parents actually had wrong with them (ie their own health problems they'd had anyway). So at least I didn't have to kick off for having lies told on their death certificates about what they'd died from.

Though I'd certainly made it very clear all-round that I was watching things - closely - and I think they realised it would have been a big mistake to try and pull the wool over my eyes and lie on those death certificates. I'd already been analysed as determined and intelligent - I'd made sure they werent going to underestimate me.

The other thought being Ivermectin! Why why why were they trying to prevent us getting it? I did manage to get some personally and did my best to help others get it. Just wishes I'd realised sooner that the "cough that went on for 4 weeks" was Covid...but I just thought it was a very longlasting cough. I had no way of finding out whether it was Covid or no - as I'd read a. That the tests weren't accurate and b. That they were unpleasant to take anyway and so couldnt take them. I would have taken a test that was accurate and wasnt unacceptable (eg poking far up a nose that should not be poked far up) but there wasnt one.

We will never know whether more or less people would have died without lockdowns.

Doesn't the fact that the infection and fatality rate started rising after Sunak's 'Eat out to help the virus spread' initiative suggest an answer to your question?

MaizieD

^We will never know whether more or less people would have died without lockdowns.^

Doesn't the fact that the infection and fatality rate started rising after Sunak's 'Eat out to help the virus spread' initiative suggest an answer to your question?

So you’re saying lockdown was right?

Retroladywriting

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.

I watched that practice run thing - think it was about a year beforehand. I sorta knew They'd do a Lockdown then and just didn't know what they'd state as a reason for it (other than - "illness"). Though I personally was out literally walking round the small town I live in now months before it all started up and thinking "Why why why have I got this thing in my head that this town that always feels pretty empty to me anyway (ie I'm from a small city) is going to feel way way emptier at some point soon and I'll feel like I'm walking through a ghost town? Why am I looking for places to walk where vehicles are unlikely to go/can't go". Yep....a few months later I realised those vehicles I was figuring out how to avoid were police cars and the deserted feeling was a Lockdown. If I sorta "knew" months before it happened = I figure that means They knew months before it happened and I somehow picked it up They were going to do this.

I still feel nervous at intervals that I wasnt just planning how to avoid road traffic - I was also looking for places I could hide under (trees etc) if there were drones up in the skies....and that worries me again....

The eat out to help out plan saw abnormal amounts of people crowding into restaurants for cheap meals. Not a normal situation and manufactured by the government.

That was why numbers rose as it was a false situation MaizieD.

Retroladywriting

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.

I remember reading about this, and subsequently reading about it again early on in the pandemic. What an embarrassment for our political leaders that we were not prepared.

Mollygo

MaizieD

We will never know whether more or less people would have died without lockdowns.

Doesn't the fact that the infection and fatality rate started rising after Sunak's 'Eat out to help the virus spread' initiative suggest an answer to your question?

So you’re saying lockdown was right?

That sounds like a very confrontational question.

AGAA4

The eat out to help out plan saw abnormal amounts of people crowding into restaurants for cheap meals. Not a normal situation and manufactured by the government.

That was why numbers rose as it was a false situation MaizieD.

OK, if you want to see it that way. But it doesn't prove anything apart from government incompetence.

Lockdowns were needed to avoid hospitals becoming completely overwhelmed. The longer the delay to the lockdown, the greater the pressure on medical services.

yogitree

Retroladywriting

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.

I remember reading about this, and subsequently reading about it again early on in the pandemic. What an embarrassment for our political leaders that we were not prepared.

I don't think I was aware of those. I had, however, seen a tv programme (BBC I think) where they were doing an official experiment in a small town of a virus getting loose and making out diagrams of the contacts each person had as they were, in effect, told "Bang you're It....you've got it". I think it was about a year before Lockdown got announced. It was definitely a practice run - and not a drama.

The first person I saw wearing a mask was a woman who walked past my hairdressers window as I was there paying him and I think that was about 2 weeks before They announced that Lockdown. I remember us both staring at each other thinking a variation of "Oh ***" as we could both see clearly They were going to make an announcement in a matter of days at that point.

Mamie

Lockdowns were needed to avoid hospitals becoming completely overwhelmed. The longer the delay to the lockdown, the greater the pressure on medical services.

Did you miss the videos of people walking through empty hospitals - showing the beds with no-one in them - after it had all started up?

...and it certainly wasnt possible for anyone to miss all those dancing nurses/doctors videos = ie work out just how much staff time got wasted practicing their little dance routines.

AGAA4
We will never know whether more or less people would have died without lockdowns.

MD
Doesn't the fact that the infection and fatality rate started rising after Sunak's 'Eat out to help the virus spread' initiative suggest an answer to your question?

So you’re saying lockdown was right?

That sounds like a very confrontational question.

No.
Not unless you want to take it that way.

Your answer was equally questionable.

AGAA4

The eat out to help out plan saw abnormal amounts of people crowding into restaurants for cheap meals. Not a normal situation and manufactured by the government.

That was why numbers rose as it was a false situation MaizieD.

Actually it wasn't abnormal here. Seaside town, lots of visitors using shops, pubs and restaurants. We don't generally eat out in August as I don't like queuing for a table or waiting too long for service. In a year without a pandemic that doesn't lead to outbreaks in infectious diseases or a massive increase in deaths of our large elderly population.

CariadAgain one of my children was working seven days a week on short-staffed wards as so many staff were off sick. Your post is rude, ignorant and offensive.

We ate out to help out

Restaurants were far from packed and overcrowded.

All tables were the required distance apart.

No more than 6 people (the bubble) per table/booking.

Masks worn when moving, entering, toilets etc.

The hospitality industry hasn’t recovered from the lockdowns.

theworriedwell

CariadAgain one of my children was working seven days a week on short-staffed wards as so many staff were off sick. Your post is rude, ignorant and offensive.

This. My daughter qualified as a nurse in 2020 and was working non stop. She was also so aware of possibly being infected and passing this on to her children that she sent them to live with us during first lockdown

LisaAN

theworriedwell

CariadAgain one of my children was working seven days a week on short-staffed wards as so many staff were off sick. Your post is rude, ignorant and offensive.

This. My daughter qualified as a nurse in 2020 and was working non stop. She was also so aware of possibly being infected and passing this on to her children that she sent them to live with us during first lockdown

And this is the thanks they get, insults from people who don't want to believe people were dying, nurses and doctors were holding them while they said their goodbyes on ipads, getting coughed on and vomited on in the process. No wonder so many of them, mine included, became ill.

If they wanted to dance after a shift that broke their hearts who has the right to criticise that?

I hope your DD and her children stayed safe.

GrannyGravy13

We ate out to help out

Restaurants were far from packed and overcrowded.

All tables were the required distance apart.

No more than 6 people (the bubble) per table/booking.

Masks worn when moving, entering, toilets etc.

The hospitality industry hasn’t recovered from the lockdowns.

You checked them all out did you? I must have been hallucinating as I walked past the crowds waiting at seafront restaurants.

Strange how numbers rocketed after such a safe experiment.

Onlymedea I can only describe the restaurants that we went to, (including our local seafront ones) and going by what my family and friends said at the time my experience was very much the same as theirs.

We ate out to help out, after being locked down it felt like something really nice, given it was summertime. For us it was always outside, and the tables were fairly distanced apart. Great sympathy for the hospitality industry, they've been hit with just about everything. I get so angry when I read about dine and dashers, another subject I know.

How we were all duped and bullied into going around with masks, particularly the fabric ones that were absolutely useless. There are one or two speciality masks that were effective I read, but most weren't

There were so many mistakes for example, I do agree about the potential dangers of letting flights in for so long particularly people emanating from China, by the time those were stopped the virus was all over the world. Of course completely unprecedented and at the time, with hindsight I think we were over panicked, younger generations were massively affected, I'm not sure young people would be so co-operative if there were to be another pandemic it was more hellish for them. Many younger people are against an overreach of government control, their compliance is understandably not the same as from say an older demographic. I think there would need to be a different approach, some would have had an eye to Sweden who didn't adopt the same draconian measures, pro rata they didn't lose any more people and neither did they tank their economy. All the stupid extreme measures spring to mind, like two women having a coffee on a park bench fairly apart got a dressing down from patrolling jobsworth, it was like entering into some Kafkaesque scenario. Clearly whoever the government of the day had been, the measures would have always massively contributed towards the national debt, so many costly emergency measures, so many catastrophically expensive mistakes. Yes! as others have pointed out thousands of people died with Covid not necessarily from it, I even read victims of fatal road accidents their death certificates may have wrongly stated Covid, so the true figures were somewhat masked. I can remember so many mad occasions, queuing to go to our local M&S Food Hall, we bought a lot from there, my attitude was if we're going to be locked up, at least I'll get some good food, we could only secure Tesco deliveries and they aren't my favourite grocery retailer. The onus to keep distanced when grocery shopping, the public, were very aware of that, then in M&S, some of the staff, often the younger ones, would come and stand right next to you in the aisles The paranoia of some washing their actual shopping. The desire to wash my hands after touching surfaces that are frequented by the general public is something that's remained with me, even though I believe that picking up the virus from say a handrail was disproved too.

What a scathing report. Lady Hallett is to be congratulated.

Those of us lucky enough to survive the pandemic must never elect such a load of muppets again and the Chief Muppet shoukd be barred from any future public office. He and some other puppets should be summoned to the House of Commons and publicly reprimanded by the Speaker.

The present government should immediately appoint a Secretary of State with responsibility for ensuring preparedness for pandemics and similar events, such post to be permanent.

GrannyGravy13

Onlymedea I can only describe the restaurants that we went to, (including our local seafront ones) and going by what my family and friends said at the time my experience was very much the same as theirs.

So when you said restaurants weren't packed you weren't talking about all of them. Here they were crowded and numbers rocketed. I wonder what the connection was?

GrannyGravy13

Onlymedea I can only describe the restaurants that we went to, (including our local seafront ones) and going by what my family and friends said at the time my experience was very much the same as theirs.

Much the same here, and we too have local sea fronts.
The measure that earned most praise was the putting up of screens next to supermarket cashiers. In our local area they said there had been fewer respiratory diseases , colds, coughs and flu thanks to those screens.

Re the fabric masks. They were washable so you could have several at hand -(we usually boiled ours), and correctly worn they were definitely better than lanyards.

I remember being rebuked for not wearing a mask, by someone wearing a lanyard.

But those are just examples of the GBP You can’t make me! attitude.

An attitude that is infinitely preferable to the I must follow orders attitude.