Covid

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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....

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?

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?

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

* 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.