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

For me it was the incredible selfishness abs hypocrisy. We worked through a lot of it and for instance let's call her Joan, insisted on having all windows open, mask's whatever else, pushing us all to maintain good hygiene.

I was totally on board with this she had a very elderly mum at home I was and am fully behind fresh air.

However once her mum had the vaccine she's shutting windows,her masks too much etc.
We had others in the office with vulnerable dependents who were still worried??

I could not believe the switch from one day hounding us one way to hounding us the next!!

The lockdowns devastated my DD’s already fragile MH. She has never recovered, and life is such a struggle. She has multiple physical and mental health issues. Makes me so sad.

The thing is, by May 2020 was had a pretty good idea what covid was all about. We knew who was most at risk, what the transference rate was, that for most people it was just a cold, and that yo-yo lockdowns didn't flatten the curve just delayed things and as soon as we "opened up" it just ran again.

Ultimately, we knew it wasn't the deadly disease we thought it could be in February/March. But by then the world was in full blown panic and the Daily Death Show just emphasised it to the public and spawned the kind of crazy we're discussing here.

Just so dreadful. It wasn't even 8 hours in front of a screen for my DC, it was longer because doing childcare and WFH was inefficient so I had to do more overtime to make up the time. I ended up being up half the night and permanently snappy and exhausted.

I cried tears of joy when DC went back to nursery. I still find it traumatic to think of that period of state-mandated neglect of my child's basic needs.

@Coldbacon I am so sorry this happened. I still think of the young boy - I think he was 13 - who died alone in hospital because of the 'no visitors' policy. He was also buried alone because it was before small funerals were being permitted. Dreadful. Just heartbreaking. And to think those fucking twats at Number 10 were quaffing champagne and having 'non parties'. Sickening.

Agree @XenoBitch

Imay have followed everything else, and more but the clap for the nhs was bonkers. Watching people from different households standing side by side with their neighbours defeated the point.

My neighbour texted us asking why we weren’t clapping.

The next time I opened the window of the room I was painting and the whole window fell out. We still haven’t fixed that. 😳
Didnt try again.

My partners mum died unexpectedly in November. London went into tier 3 or 4 shortly after the funeral before lockdown. Christmas was absolutely dire and in fact that lockdown in particular saw my mental health really deteriorate. It went on so long.

I did the clapping and still think it was good. It's not so much the thanking the NHS (although that too) but in a time when you were feeling so lost and helpless it was a positive action. It was also for a lot of people near me the only time they saw anyone so it created a human connection.

People defending the ridiculous decision by the Welsh government to stop people buying what they termed “non-essentials” including books, birthday cards and bedding which were taped up because it wasn’t “fair” that the small shops had to close when supermarkets could be open. As if everyone who could wouldn’t head straight for Amazon when they got home and those who couldn’t, who only had cash for the month and nothing in the bank had to go without. And people on here actually defended this decision and even thought that it was a good idea!

I remember being berated on here because I mentioned that my husband had been to the only shop in our village for essentials that we needed and they had none, so he went to the next, slightly larger, village 3 miles away and managed to get what was needed from their two shops.
The absolute horror and disgust that he’d been in three shops!

Not on here but locally my husband and our son were out for a run together and someone stopped his car to shout at them for not social distancing, they obviously shouted back that they lived in the same house.

Sorry about bringing more death to the thread (You've seen my username though, right?) but my DF 85 passed away last Thursday night.

He was ECV and took it all extremely seriously. Until he could secure delivery slots for groceries, I did his and SMs shopping, at Sainsbury's of course on a Saturday morning. He was ex navy, and very organised, so not only did I get cash close to what his projected list would cost, a very specific list "two carrots, one onion, etc" I also got a floor plan of the supermarket so I could locate everything in the quickest most efficient way possible, and ..... a pound for the trolley.

I would then take it to their house in a taxi, put the bags on the doorstep, retreat to the garden wall and we woyld shout muffled pleasantries to each other for a few minutes until the nervousness kicked in and they scuttled back indoors while net curtains twitched all around.

God, I'm going to miss that man. So much .

I honestly think some MNers wish lockdown was still happening. Despite the that that it was destroying people’s MH and livelihoods, so many people were furious when restrictions were lifted. Lots of “I’m alright Jack” attitudes

HearHoovesThinkZebras

She wouldn't go out even at night. She thought that literally everyone in the world who complained they were finding it hard was SELFISH because "WHAT ABOUT MEEEEE, I'M CLINICALLY VULNERABLE ". Every silver lining must have a cloud as far as she was concerned.

Gawd, it was really stupid wasn't it. Boredom does some odd things to people doesn't it?
And let's not forget 'captain Tom' and his heroic stroll round his grounds of his mansion, with his daughter walking round like Don King with dollar signs for eyeballs...🤣

That phrase ‘what part of stay at home don’t you understand’ or ‘STAY THE FUCK HOME’ posted really aggressively on some threads when people were just trying to do their best.

Didn't a load of slebs film themselves singing imagine by John Lennon.

I am going to come clean - I was a bit hysterical

Washing several bags of food shopping in warm soapy water before wiping down with anti-bacterial wipes. It was a fucking faff and I would run to another sink in between items to wash my hands otherwise I was just re-transmitting.... 😳

Coming home from walking the dog in Richmond Park and breaking down in heavy, snotty sobs because I had accidently pushed open one of the heavy metal gates and carried on walking without remembering to use my hand sanitizer. I couldn't remember if I'd touched my face but was giving myself around a 50% chance of survival.

I'm so sorry, that's awful. We really lost our humanity during these times.

Absolutely and of course Covid was a disaster with people were dying in large numbers horribly.
Anything that runs rampant through the human race killing off people at the rate Covid did needs to be contained and people need to support that.
I disagree that precautions were unnecessary no matter how everyone acts like they weren’t now
Without them people on here may not be on here.

Tbh if a pandemic that affected the young more came to the UK I wouldn’t act any differently. I’m not ageist. Everyone deserves the right to protection

God help you if you didn’t go full throttle on support for captain Tom.

People were scared, scared for their loved ones, scared for their children, parents and livelihoods.

the government didn’t know what we were dealing with. It’s easy with hindsight calling it bat shittery now. I look back at the closed playgrounds thinking it’s fucking bonkers we did that. But that was because we didn’t know, we just didn’t know what it was, how it was spread or who was next.

I had a baby in September 2022 who was hospitalised for months, there were still restrictions on visiting at the hospital and nurses had it very fresh in their memory mums not being with their own sick babies.