[throwaway_2009]

Attendance dropped due to lockdowns and the fear campaign.

I was there, remember? The pubs were rammed, Boris started saying "don't do X", numbers decreased a lot, he said "we make this legal now", the world stopped.

I'm bored of debating this now so whatever, all I get online is a stream of trolls. Good luck.

[astrange]

No, attendance dropped in 2020 because nobody wants to get sick. This would be true if there was a flu pandemic as well.

(And because of travel bans. But the anti-lockdown people mostly support those because that’s the ironic position.)

[throwaway_2009]

This comment does not represent the reality I live in. Nice try.

[astrange]

I’m sorry you live in the UK. That must be very difficult for you.

In other places we weren’t nearly so concerned about shutting down pubs; actually the bad case that often happened in the US was leaving bars open (for tax revenue) but closing schools (because parents and teachers are more neurotic than bar goers).

Still I haven’t met a whole lot of people complaining they weren’t allowed to work. Our stimulus worked quite well there.

I don’t think lockdowns are necessary or reasonable in 2022 but at least, as someone temporarily in the UK, I’ll be able to get out of my local family trying to make me see some ridiculously quaint British thing called a “panto”.