Mumsnet during the beginning of the Pandemic - please tell me your stories of the maddest comments you saw

Oh yes, and the Welsh Government also decided to have a lockdown for Christmas 2020 and announced it six hours before it started - suddenly, absolute hordes of people descended on every available shop to get supplies in for Christmas before they couldn't anymore - more than likely massively increasing transmission rather than reducing it!

And Boris, in his wisdom had English children going back to school for one day in January before closing schools again

Here you go @Jadebanditchillipepper !
One of my favourites too. The kids must be quite grown up now; I wonder how they feel about their “moment of fame”?

I immediately got switched to working from home and running online courses in my university job. My husband ( also in his 50s) was told he had to keep teaching face to face with no PPE in a pupil referral unit where kids didn’t observe any behaviour control. Ludicrous and a death sentence for SEN teachers! I’m still angry about it.

The Welsh Government, who in their wisdom, decided that supermarkets could only sell "essential items" because it wasn't fair on other shops who weren't allowed to open.

Cue one Tesco removing access to the aisle that had the sanitary products and me, ordering knickers online and making a delivery driver deliver them, when I could have picked them up in the supermarket when I was there anyway buying food!

Slightly more amusing moments were the business men and women wearing smart shirts/ties/blouses on their top halves for teams etc meetings, whilst wearing Pyjama bottoms with fluffy socks and slippers on their bottom halves and also that hilarious clip of some high up person on a teams call, when his two toddlers who were also at home decided to go and visit Daddy at work! Then their Mum comes in and tries to shepherd them out while apologising for the interruption.

@MrsFrumble I think I remember that poster who told you to carry a fortnight's worth of food.

It was mad.

😂😂😂 at “Fuck off Brian!”

An advantage of living in London, with all the aloofness and not knowing your neighbours, was that no one gave a shit who was clapping.

Just….all the teachers who accused us of murderous thoughts if we dared to suggest that our children needed to go to school

I used disinfectant wipes on all my shopping when I unpacked it

Leaving out the more serious stuff because quite frankly it still traumatises me now. Having a child with complex SEND and absolutely bog all support during covid has left me with long term health issues.

On a more lighthearted note:

Fucking Joe Wicks. Sorry kids I subjected you to that. Niiiiiiiiicky, shaaaaaaaaaaaut awwwwwwwts

One of the neighbours on the street self appointed himself as some kind of covid monitor. And would post on the local FB page stuff like 'number xxx', I didn't see you clapping tonight. Someone posted underneath one of his posts 'fuck off Brian'- I never did find out who it was but what an absolute legend. His wife also had stickers all over her car with stuff like 'carer on call' and various other cutesy phrases. Strangely enough they've gone very quiet. Mainly because they managed to piss off pretty much everyone and the whole street hates them.

Woman in my road had the front of her house covered in posters telling delivery people to go to side gate and leave shopping and parcels on tables provided. The front door would not be opened under any circumstances.
Every week she spent two hours cleaning her Tesco shop before taking it in the house. She didn’t quite wear a hazmat suit to do it but came pretty close. She thought I was very lax.

So so jealous of people who were furloughed!

I know someone who still does this!

Quarantining your post for a week before it was safe to open it.

I remember having a sleepless night because I had to go to a shop the next day to collect essentials. And while we’re on that subject of good shopping - disinfecting groceries!

This post does not appear to have got the appreciation it deserves. Hats off to you @WooleyMunky- or maybe off with my head? 😆

Oh masks were surreal. I started wearing one because of visiting and caring for my Mum in the very beginning. My DS then 25, scoffed and ridiculed me, which I shrugged off with some good humour and just referred to it as my tiny security blanket. Had some doubts as to efficacy but hey, I was hedging my bets.

Few months down the line and I was beginning to really question mandatory masks etc, and my DS did a complete 180 and became pretty militant about wearing them at all times. I was like, who are you and what have you done with my non-conformist boy child.

An awful lot of my rule following was based not on the possible health related consequences, but more the fear of criminalisation and fines.

Incidentally I think it was several days at least into lockdown that our local rag headlined the first few cases of Covid in local hospitals.

Actually I loved the family and friend zoom quizzes. There were some things I enjoyed about those times

I was an anti-dementor for a bit. I don’t remember the threads being explicitly political; there were some very vocal anti-lockdowners, but most - like me - just wanted a bit of a moan about how it was impacting our lives and our children without being accused of being selfish and wanting all CV people dead.

I get that everyone was scared at first. I remember reading a horrific account of a hospital in Italy during the first week of lockdown, which graphically described medics having to make awful decisions about who got the limited number of ventilators, and people foaming at the mouth as their lungs disintegrated. I sat on my bed and cried because I imagined DH or my children suffering like that. But as time went I was more struck by the solipsism and lack of empathy from people who couldn’t seem to grasp that people with different circumstances wouldn’t be able to follow “the rules” as stringently as the they could. Now it seems obvious that, as a family of 4 without a car and who weren’t eligible for deliveries, we’d need to go shopping more often and no one had the right to judge that, but I still remember feeling self-conscious about it and trying to defend myself on here from a poster who insisted I should be able to carry a fortnights-worth of food if only I was stronger.

Instead of becoming more empathic, viewing everyone around us as potential vectors has done so much damage.

A family friend refusing point blank to be vaxxed as it was the government's way of controlling us and knowing what our every move was. Same person very prolific on social media and would post about her whereabouts all the time. Ean to have the vaccine when told she wouldn't be able to travel without it.

Some nobhead in our village tooted into a French horn every week DS was 3 and he’d wake up every single week and it was like be so hard to get him back to sleep - keeping him awake made him overtired. It was just a pissing contest and really put me off a lot of people in our village tooted into- especially when they would shame those of us who didn’t clap on the Facebook group.

Yes this. It’s easy to look back in hindsight.

I remember the tv footage of a man in China dropping down dead in the street and being carted away by people in hazmat suits being on repeat. And the daily death count was on the radio and tv. A couple of months into lockdown there were reports of children dying from a new strain.
Yes some people were probably over the top but it was fairly scary and surreal, especially in the early days

We had to go back to work in a school in May 2020 and were told to face the wall when passing anyone in the corridor- we did not. We had to wear full PPE all day in the 30degree heat. Face mask and a visor, gloves and apron - it was crazy

People who objected to supermarket workers for moaning about wearing face masks when (unlike healthcare workers) they hadnt chosen a job that involved wearing them!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

That's so sad, it's no way to live, is it?

I got my dog groomed all the way through lockdown, every 7 weeks. Found a groomer who facilitated distanced handovers. So ddog went into the garden kennel compound and I left, groomer got the dog and did the grooming and dog was put back in the compound and I picked up. I never actually met or even saw the groomer. Still didn’t dare confess this on here as I knew I’d be ripped a new arsehole. Grooming was allowed for welfare purposes so i decided it was welfare purposes. She knots easily 🤷‍♀️😁