When in the last one i was seeing a Doctor brecking the rules, seeing them kissing and hugging and people slepping over night when you were not to meet any one outside your house hold and they wonder why there was a problem in hospitals!!!!!!!!!!!!!! with it speading, should i obay the rules next time? after seeing what i sore no chance
I’ve never gone back to my old life, pre-Covid. As a person classed as vulnerable in medical terms, I isolated throughout. After being told it was OK to mix and mingle again, I never got back to going out for meals, drinks, coffees etc. And now I no longer miss it. I do most of my food shopping online and I can’t remember the last time I bought any new clothes.
Whilst I can understand people who lost loved ones calling for an enquiry, I was amazed to read this morning that it is still going on. I don't think many of us who went through it will forget the fear, the anxiety and the general feeling of helplessness that it generated, particularly at the beginning. @Obelix-Vendée 's post makes the point of what most of us would term "common sense". If any government of whatever political persuasion can't learn from it and put at least basic emergency plans in place, then heaven help us all. Edited to add that I've just read @Tidemark 's post above, and I am the same. I still tend to "social distance" in queues and whilst shopping in supermarkets. Unfortunately there are always those with a "S*d you, I'll do what I like" attitude, no matter what the circumstances.
I think lockdowns would be very hard to enforce next time. Esteem for the BBC, the primary way of getting info to the public, has plummeted with many no longer regarding it as a trustworthy news source. Parents have seen the long term harm done to their children's education and development. The number of yougsters with special needs which make it exceptionally challenging to change their routines and limit their lives to a couple of rooms, has grown enormously. Housing has become less secure and, crucially, smaller. The population has grown putting extra pressure on communal spaces, supermarket supplies, etc. General health has declined for many, putting pressure on the NHS to carry on normal functions. The number of elderly people has increased while care home businesses have gone bust, squeezing availability. And so on.
I did my best to not follow their contrived rules the first time round I definitely would not follow the totally stupid ones they came out with a second time.
I found the whole covid thing a little bizarre if I'm honest. My family has a medical background and I was hearing from doctors and nurses dealing with it at the time (and like mentioned above, quite a few didn't even remotely follow the rules). My parents who have medical knowledge weren't particularly fazed by it, they didn't break any of the rules but did venture out as soon as they were allowed and began life as normal when rules were relaxed. My brother and me were the ones who were ultra careful, simply because we didn't want to kill off the old folk but it hasn't changed the way we think, its still the same as before. I did a module on epidemiology during my degree and my old lecturer had predicted such an event and basically said "in our world, unless you live on a deserted island, you will catch it eventually, so don't worry about it".
I followed everything to the letter the first time, but I would be more resistant in future. It was far too easy for those not much impacted by lockdowns (ie who carried on working and partying, had spacious accommodation and holiday homes, did not have sole care of children or have to attempt home schooling, etc, etc) to add restrictions at whim just because they could.
Two people, from my very small social circle, died from Covid after they went into hospital for other problems. One was being treated for prostate cancer, the other for breast cancer. Neither of them was “ill” when they went in for their hospital stay.
You were safer outside in the big wide world than locked up indoors, but they were coming out with crazy stuff like you can only go out for an hour for exercise, prisoners get treated better. Park benches with tape on them to stop you loitering, crazy one way schemes in supermarkets, and the worst thing they did was set neighbour on neighbour and caused divisions.
OH and I obeyed the rules - isolating, staying at home, walking the dogs and ourselves in a circuit not exceeding 1km from the house, me shopping alone and with mask, not socialising at all. We are lucky, living in the country with plenty of fresh air and the pets and garden to keep us entertained and busy. Possum, stuck on her own in Belgiumwith no outlets and only long distance facetime support from us, did not do well at all but I had to wait for months before I could go and bring her home. We've carried on being careful and are all up to date with vaccines and not just Covid - flu, shingles, for OH and me, hepatitis, meningitis and papiloma virus for Possum. I really liked the chief medical officer, Chris Whitty, who seemed to me to be well-informed, responsible, pragmatic and practical. Pity he was working for and with such a shower of Me Me politicians with an eye on the money and not the lives lost or damaged by their incompetence, greed, sheer stupidity and lack of vision and comprehension.
I really liked Prof Whitty too. And, interestingly, he has stayed in his job and not been lured into a highly paid consultancy position with vaccine developers/manufacturers, unlike some of his colleagues.
PPE was a situation where the Government of the Day, whenever the Covid situation or similar might have arisen, would be damned if they did and damned if they didn't. There was massive world wide demand for materials to make PPE and pre-made PPE. The supply came nowhere near demand. Whereas previously health services around the world could call on the makers on a 'just in time' basis that method failed spectacularly. Fast forward to post Covid and the Government was criticised for buying too much PPE and it going out of date.
Which is why governments need to have some available and a domestic rapid supply system on hand to supply the materials and turn them into PPE as needed. Something like Covid will happen again so we all need to be prepared.
I agree. That is something which now needs to be done, but as it was 100 years since the previous pandemic I think it is unreasonable to expect any Government to have been fully prepared for Covid.
