Comment by PlunderBunny

I don’t wish in any way to minimise or attempt to refute how you feel about the events your family missed, and I know a great many other people had similar experiences. Lockdowns, when done properly, do work. Here in New Zealand, we enjoyed more than a year of _normal_ life between our first Nation-wide lockdown at the beginning of the pandemic, and the eventual emergence of omicron in the community. That period not only provided time for the population to be vaccinated (we got to 92% fully vaccinated) but also saved many many lives, and allowed people to do things like attend funerals and births which they wouldn’t have been able to do (safely) if there was no lockdown. History will record that it was the right approach.