COVID Lockdowns Were a Giant Experiment. It Was a Failure.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:I still have no clue why all the playgrounds got fenced off and closed. WHY?!

We tried very hard to keep things normal for our small kids, but as parents we paid a heavy price. I changed a lot as a parent and also as a person. I had a great life beforehand filled with friends and relatives. It made me realize that you can't rely on anyone. Grandparents just huddled in their houses by themselves while kids had mental breakdown and parents nearly lost their jobs.

Yes I was changed as a person too. Became pretty jaded. My kid, surprisingly, did better - but I would never dream of denying that some kids were deeply affected.
As for the playgrounds - those in power had to “do something” and it was the easiest thing to do.

People were dying and your biggest worry was playgrounds. You can get a $100-200 swing set for your backyard. No backyard, go to a friends house.

Literally no one was dying of covid from open playgrounds. Don't be ridiculous.

Of course a kid could get Covid and bring it home to a parent or grandparents.

Then cite an example of playground-transmitted covid.

Outdoor playgrounds were a ridiculously low-risk setting. It is ridiculous that Travis Gayles kept them closed in MoCo over the "sanitization" requirement he had the county institute.

Ugh, Gayles. That's a name I haven't heard for a while. He took Covid jack @ssery to another level.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Keeping public schools closed for an extra year - while private schools and restaurants and retail and etc were open - was a giant mistake.

And I will never forgive progressives and teachers unions for throwing kids under the bus like that

You are right, they should have kept them all closed/virtual. Imagine if they did how many lives could have been saved. So, some of us did our part while the rest of you lived life as normal, spreading it to the rest of us and killing our family members. Thank you. Really appreciate your kindness and empathy.

How did you do your part? By outsourcing all your home services (food, utilities, infrastructure, etc.) to others out in public while you WFH or SHM?

If those of us who could stay home, it made it safer for those who could not.

Your crowd's "sacrifice" was not even a fraction of a rounding error in keeping people safe. What we learned is you cannot control a virus. China tried via truly draconian measures and ultimately gave up. Now, they're all probably wondering what the big deal was.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:Honestly at this point who cares. We did the best we could under a unique and heretofore inexperienced event. This is for scientists to be studying to plan for future pandemics. Getting angry now is ridiculous.

The problem is we weren’t allowed to ask questions and dissenting views were discouraged. Anytime you’re not allowed to ask questions or push back on something you should be concerned. The climate at the time didn’t allow questioning of precautions.

We were there. No one was banned from asking questions. You are entitled to your opinion, not entitled to everyone agreeing and respecting it.

Right here on DCUM Jeff deleted threads/posts regularly if they questioned vaccine effectiveness. And I'm not talking wacky conspiracy theories about 5G or spoons sticking to your injection site, but hey these vaccines aren't preventing transmissions and infections conversations.

Yep. Also remember any criticism, no matter how gentle, of Fauci got deleted and even got you temporarily banned.

There had never been an episode before in modern American history where suddenly, and without warning, there is this massive and complicated topic that came with only one correct view and opinion and all dissenting voices were banned, censored, and completely shut out, no matter how valid their points may have been and no matter how often the "correct opinion" was often wrong and flawed.

I don't remember if I got banned, but I even had posts deleted and a thread locked for simply calling attention to Fauci's own admissions.

I'll never forget that I wrote a long post in November 2021, before the Omicron surge, with information, studies, and an article about how we could use rapid tests as tools to manage COVID, especially as the holidays approached. Apparently, my post was reported and deleted! A little over a month later, the forum was flooded with people calling others selfish for stockpiling rapid tests in anticipation of the holiday as COVID cases skyrocketed.

I guess my post was deleted because it was . . . I'm not sure. Was it not COVID-cautious enough? I'll never know, but it's a perfect example of how presenting a viewpoint that wasn't 100% in line with the demand for complete isolation was censored. The irony was that I was as COVID cautious as they come, so I have no idea what I did wrong.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Honestly at this point who cares. We did the best we could under a unique and heretofore inexperienced event. This is for scientists to be studying to plan for future pandemics. Getting angry now is ridiculous.

No we did not do “the best we could.” In DC the public schools were closed meanwhile the private schools (mostly rich & white) stayed open. And if you criticized that you were called racist and genocidal. And then DC teachers went on strike to keep SN and high risk kids out of school. It was terrible.

\

It certainly was. And the scary part is that the same folks are the ones running our schools today. There's been zero accountability.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Honestly at this point who cares. We did the best we could under a unique and heretofore inexperienced event. This is for scientists to be studying to plan for future pandemics. Getting angry now is ridiculous.

The problem is we weren’t allowed to ask questions and dissenting views were discouraged. Anytime you’re not allowed to ask questions or push back on something you should be concerned. The climate at the time didn’t allow questioning of precautions.

We were there. No one was banned from asking questions. You are entitled to your opinion, not entitled to everyone agreeing and respecting it.

Right here on DCUM Jeff deleted threads/posts regularly if they questioned vaccine effectiveness. And I'm not talking wacky conspiracy theories about 5G or spoons sticking to your injection site, but hey these vaccines aren't preventing transmissions and infections conversations.

Yep. Also remember any criticism, no matter how gentle, of Fauci got deleted and even got you temporarily banned.

There had never been an episode before in modern American history where suddenly, and without warning, there is this massive and complicated topic that came with only one correct view and opinion and all dissenting voices were banned, censored, and completely shut out, no matter how valid their points may have been and no matter how often the "correct opinion" was often wrong and flawed.

I don't remember if I got banned, but I even had posts deleted and a thread locked for simply calling attention to Fauci's own admissions.

I got banned as well. Surreal.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:It would be great to have a non-partisan assessment of what worked and what didn’t work. Everything is so politicized and polarized it is ridiculous.

I think one important lesson is that schools stayed closed far too long, and we are paying a heavy price for that.

The kids paid a heavy price, and their parents. The people who made these decisions aren't paying anything and will never be held accountable.

You keep forgetting to mention the teachers who might have refused to go to work or quit if they had been forced back. Who was going to do the teaching? Why do you expect people to sacrifice for you?

This is the latest Democratic spin. “Oh we could not have opened schools! Teachers would have quit!” Do you think we are idiots? In DC right here, private and parochial teachers returnee. They returned in other states and in countries around the world. The reason blue city teachers refused to return is that their unions had political support and the Dems turned “keep schools closed” into a campaign promise, which is absolutely deranged. And then cowed public opinion by labeling any parent who dissented as a racist teacher-killer. Not to mention exaggerating the risk. We lived through it sweetie - we know what happened.

You’re full of it. It hasn’t been in blue states with robust teacher unions that schools have had to cut down to 4-day weeks—in 2023—because they’ve had so many staff walk away.

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/amp/education/more-school-districts-adopt-4-day-weeks-citing-lower-costs-and-better-teacher-recruitment

Per you, missing one day a week in person is NBD so not sure why you think this is a good point. Remember when Wednesdays had NO virtual instruction for no discernible reason? Good times!

I'm not sure where you get that idea. Having school permanently cut down to a 4 day a week activity is not a small thing. It's one thing when there's an emergency justification for it (yes, we had no Wednesday instruction either! not our favorite thing, but the context made it understandable).

When the justification for it is "we don't know, we just can't find enough people to run this thing 5 days a week" we are in very different terrain. And--back to your original false claim--that is not terrain that teacher unionism put us on. Bye.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It would be great to have a non-partisan assessment of what worked and what didn’t work. Everything is so politicized and polarized it is ridiculous.

I think one important lesson is that schools stayed closed far too long, and we are paying a heavy price for that.

The kids paid a heavy price, and their parents. The people who made these decisions aren't paying anything and will never be held accountable.

You keep forgetting to mention the teachers who might have refused to go to work or quit if they had been forced back. Who was going to do the teaching? Why do you expect people to sacrifice for you?

This is the latest Democratic spin. “Oh we could not have opened schools! Teachers would have quit!” Do you think we are idiots? In DC right here, private and parochial teachers returnee. They returned in other states and in countries around the world. The reason blue city teachers refused to return is that their unions had political support and the Dems turned “keep schools closed” into a campaign promise, which is absolutely deranged. And then cowed public opinion by labeling any parent who dissented as a racist teacher-killer. Not to mention exaggerating the risk. We lived through it sweetie - we know what happened.

You’re full of it. It hasn’t been in blue states with robust teacher unions that schools have had to cut down to 4-day weeks—in 2023—because they’ve had so many staff walk away.

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/amp/education/more-school-districts-adopt-4-day-weeks-citing-lower-costs-and-better-teacher-recruitment

Per you, missing one day a week in person is NBD so not sure why you think this is a good point. Remember when Wednesdays had NO virtual instruction for no discernible reason? Good times!

I'm not sure where you get that idea. Having school permanently cut down to a 4 day a week activity is not a small thing. It's one thing when there's an emergency justification for it (yes, we had no Wednesday instruction either! not our favorite thing, but the context made it understandable).

When the justification for it is "we don't know, we just can't find enough people to run this thing 5 days a week" we are in very different terrain. And--back to your original false claim--that is not terrain that teacher unionism put us on. Bye.

Whatever connection you’re trying to make between covid policies and red state teacher retention is totally specious. We KNOW blue state teachers took advantage of the political power of unions to close schools. And if they thought they could get away with it they would absolutely go for a 4-day schoolweek everywhere. In fact Randi was floating that trial balloon.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I personally found it interesting how you couldn’t transmit covid on a plane as long as you were eating, and you couldn’t transmit or catch covid on a plane as long as everyone took their masks off and ate at the same time.

The two covid "rules" that made it clear just how the people in charge were making it up as they went along:

1) We went down to Mexico for vacation, and were technically required to provide negative text results before getting on a plane back to DC. A nurse came from some local clinic the resort, and asked us if we actually wanted her to test or, or just provide a document saying we tested negative. We told her to just write that we were negative, paid the $50 and went on our merry way.

2) Flying back from spring break in Florida, the flight attendant said I needed to put my mask back on since I had finished my drink. I asked her if I could just buy another drink and keep my mask off, and she said yes, so I spent the whole flight back maskless while drinking my beers.

It was all such a joke.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I personally found it interesting how you couldn’t transmit covid on a plane as long as you were eating, and you couldn’t transmit or catch covid on a plane as long as everyone took their masks off and ate at the same time.

The two covid "rules" that made it clear just how the people in charge were making it up as they went along:

1) We went down to Mexico for vacation, and were technically required to provide negative text results before getting on a plane back to DC. A nurse came from some local clinic the resort, and asked us if we actually wanted her to test or, or just provide a document saying we tested negative. We told her to just write that we were negative, paid the $50 and went on our merry way.

2) Flying back from spring break in Florida, the flight attendant said I needed to put my mask back on since I had finished my drink. I asked her if I could just buy another drink and keep my mask off, and she said yes, so I spent the whole flight back maskless while drinking my beers.

It was all such a joke.

You are too stupid to realize that this didn't make it a joke. It's just multiple examples of people ignoring rules because they don't care and are a-hats. This is why we can't have nice things in this country. Everyone just does what they feel and rationalizes it.

You suck

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Honestly at this point who cares. We did the best we could under a unique and heretofore inexperienced event. This is for scientists to be studying to plan for future pandemics. Getting angry now is ridiculous.

The problem is we weren’t allowed to ask questions and dissenting views were discouraged. Anytime you’re not allowed to ask questions or push back on something you should be concerned. The climate at the time didn’t allow questioning of precautions.

We were there. No one was banned from asking questions. You are entitled to your opinion, not entitled to everyone agreeing and respecting it.

Right here on DCUM Jeff deleted threads/posts regularly if they questioned vaccine effectiveness. And I'm not talking wacky conspiracy theories about 5G or spoons sticking to your injection site, but hey these vaccines aren't preventing transmissions and infections conversations.

Yeah, it's troubling that the narrative the government and their enablers in the mainstream and social medias wanted to sell was that any questioning of the government's policies made one a vaccine denier or something even more sinister. Trying to squash any dissent and questioning has a hugely polarizing effect, because it paradoxically drove people to stop trusting anything the government had to say.

I'm currently at a place where my first instinct is to disbelieve anything coming from public health officials.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Keeping public schools closed for an extra year - while private schools and restaurants and retail and etc were open - was a giant mistake.

And I will never forgive progressives and teachers unions for throwing kids under the bus like that

You are right, they should have kept them all closed/virtual. Imagine if they did how many lives could have been saved. So, some of us did our part while the rest of you lived life as normal, spreading it to the rest of us and killing our family members. Thank you. Really appreciate your kindness and empathy.

I bet you really believe this and there are so many like you.

See I still wonder why no one ever talks about why so many people with no health conditions they knew of died. That’s what is scary. It shows how lacking diagnostics for health really are.

And then I wonder if the “cure” was worse than the disease. I do know one person who died bc the massive amounts of steroids used led to a heart attack. I think if we were to really look into the covid deaths this would not be an unusual case.

What I learned from the pandemic was how easily overwhelmed and frightened even the smartest people can be and no amount of reason can help them overcome this. And the next time around maybe anti anxiety pills need to be given out more freely. I am not kidding either. I think it would have helped a lot.

I don’t blame the govt or either president bc none had experienced a pandemic. Yes the govt had plans but they were always based on the idea that modern medicine would be do good as to overcome it in a short duration think like less than 1 yr. Now they know better so they will do better. The basis for planning was 1918 so they thought look how far we have come surely modern medicine will be able to get it sorted out in months.

And then throw in media and people bring home with nothing to do but consume it …

We will never really know what did and didn't work. The response to the pandemic was all over the place. You can find "facts" out there to support any position you want if you look hard enough or twist the narrative.

Americans don't like being told what to do. Everything gets politicized and corrupted by the awfulness that comes with that. We will never unify in the face of any virus or enemy like we did back in WW2. We are a different nation now and everyone is out for themselves. No one wants to sacrifice. And say what you want about the CDC and public officials, but the lack of trust has been degraded long before the pandemic. We got lucky with COVID. If anything truly scary ever hits, we are totally F-d. All the COVID-trauma queens will ignore any and all public health recommendations and mandates, because they think they are pandemic-response experts now.

It would be great if we could learn from the pandemic and do better next time. But we won't.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I personally found it interesting how you couldn’t transmit covid on a plane as long as you were eating, and you couldn’t transmit or catch covid on a plane as long as everyone took their masks off and ate at the same time.

The two covid "rules" that made it clear just how the people in charge were making it up as they went along:

1) We went down to Mexico for vacation, and were technically required to provide negative text results before getting on a plane back to DC. A nurse came from some local clinic the resort, and asked us if we actually wanted her to test or, or just provide a document saying we tested negative. We told her to just write that we were negative, paid the $50 and went on our merry way.

2) Flying back from spring break in Florida, the flight attendant said I needed to put my mask back on since I had finished my drink. I asked her if I could just buy another drink and keep my mask off, and she said yes, so I spent the whole flight back maskless while drinking my beers.

It was all such a joke.

You are too stupid to realize that this didn't make it a joke. It's just multiple examples of people ignoring rules because they don't care and are a-hats. This is why we can't have nice things in this country. Everyone just does what they feel and rationalizes it.

You suck

I guess you don't understand that many of the "rules" were simply window-dressing designed to make credulous people like you believe the government was doing something. If international or domestic travel is really so dangerous in a pandemic, then shut it down for the duration, rather than enacting nonsensical rules that people can just ignore. Dumb, pointless rules erode trust in government when it comes to following useful rules.

And, no, I don't care to follow stupid, nonsensical rules.

[Anonymous]

I have total respect for those who fell for none of it. I wish I never took the mRNA vaccine that didn’t even work very well.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I have total respect for those who fell for none of it. I wish I never took the mRNA vaccine that didn’t even work very well.

I’m with you on this one. I regret getting the vaccine and really regret giving it to my kids.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I have total respect for those who fell for none of it. I wish I never took the mRNA vaccine that didn’t even work very well.

I mean, I don't think it was crazy for people to be cautious at first. But by the summer of 2020, we already knew who was at risk and who wasn't. Many of us just decided to check out from the narrative and do our own thing and lived our lives as normally as possible (which was pretty easy to do if you were willing to travel to place like Florida) until there was enough support from the rest of society for getting rid of the restrictions.

I bet there are going to be some fascinating studies done down the road about how the US fell into such mass hysteria as a result of a runaway media narrative.