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

Great idea for a thread!

Cheese in coffee was a classic.

Someone once asked “Are these essential items?” and included milk, washing powder and meat. Someone said no - I think they expected OP to beat her clothes on a rock

Calling those of us who questioned if lockdown was a good idea for vulnerable people such as children on the at risk register and women experiencing DV, “granny killers”.

A thread moaning that they saw a woman leaving the supermarket with just 2 cucumbers. Someone pointed out it’s probably for a guinea pig.

I also think even in the context of “we don’t know how bad this could be” people were massively OTT. It wasn’t a zombie apocalypse, people weren’t dropping down dead in the street, some of us we’ve v against lockdown from the beginning and we were proven right given the mess it produced particularly around children’s MH and the ongoing absence rates

We heard it on MN first! 😅

I remember it being discussed on a thread whether it was ok to strap your toddler into a buggy or high chair in front of the TV for a few hours while you did a work call in another room. I think a toddler had already drowned due to a parent being distracted wfh (though I can't remember the details) so this was viewed as potentially being a safer option.

There was lots of talk about men wfh, commandeering the home office, demanding silence and refusing to help with homeschooling, while women were working from the kitchen table, looking after a toddler, homeschooling older kids and doing most of the chores. There's been research done since on how gendered the Covid lockdown experience was in many respects. Female employment took quite a hit.

I agree. And what if this WAS actually a test. If that’s the case they know now how different countries will react, and how fast. We have no idea. Either way, we have to live now and not worry about it.

DH had it just before Christmas 2019 I am sure
Never seen him so ill and it took him ages to recover

If you weren’t on MN during the pandemic I fear you’ll never experience the madness that was in some areas.

people were being shouted at because whilst doing their shop they picked up cake or chocolate - “ARE THEY NECESSARY?!”

o swear some people thought Covid didn’t exist in the bread aisle of if you went in the sweet isle you became a superspreader 😂🤷‍♀️

There was definitely a split between those who stayed at home (WFH/furlough/SAHP) and those of us who went to work daily as key workers etc.

my favourite was coming home from school everyday and reading about how teachers were doing nothing. I wish I hadn’t been in everyday and then maybe I wouldn’t have got covid - twice. The first time I was extremely unwell.

I drove home from my nursing job through clapping streets a few times , felt like royalty 😂

I have to say though, having been on mumsnet since 2006, I stopped during the early pandemic days. It was both nuts and panic inducing

But what were you meant to do? There weren't any online slots. Both DH and I had a cough going into the first lockdown. No testing at the time. We had to get food in.

I too suspect we had it in November 2019. DP and I were absolutely floored by a flu type virus for about a fortnight which was totally not like us at all. When the first mentions came up of Covid were were quite 🧐🤔😳

PMSL #essential

whaaaaat

I had enough lunacy in rl to remember it on MN. I had a friend who was wiping down her post and putting it in the garage for some sort of quarantine 😂 She was also stripping off in the hall and washing her clothes before she entered the rest of the house.

She was out weekly clapping too. I’ll admit I thought this was the cringiest, sheepiest thing anyone did.

Not on mumsnet but the lady opposite me who had appointed herself our street’s Covid monitor went apeshit at me one morning as I was loading the dogs into the car to drive 5 miles to huge woods where i could walk in the knowledge I wouldn’t be dodging people like the hordes walking up and down the pavements in our neighbourhood for their daily exercise. She was waving her big important notebook in my face which apparently had all the dates and times I was wilfully committing a crime. She ‘knew people’ and would be reporting me so I should be prepared for a visit from the police.
I’m still waiting.

I wouldn’t be surprised. I think this was leading up to Christmas, or a bit before. Interesting looking back, and how news spread.

Funerals were horrific. FIL died and there were only 10 people allowed in the chapel, all the chairs spaced 2m apart. I dragged mine over to sit next to DH and got told off by the funeral director who only allowed it because I pointed out that we lived together anyway. His widow (DH step-mother) sat sobbing in her seat at the front, alone, and when someone went to comfort her we got told that if we didn't stay 2m apart the funeral would be brought to a halt and cancelled.

When Bozo announced Xmas lockdown, we were in the car on the way to collect my dmum, who lived alone 200 miles from us, and had literally seen no one for months.
I mentioned this on mumsnet to be told that I should have turned around immediately and left her to have Christmas alone. By many people
I think history proved me right!

I joined MN during Covid.
Social media like FB was a cesspit where people would stalk your profile, comment on your profile pic, get really personal and nasty if you happened to disagree with them.
I saw so many huge fallings out between people who had been friends for years and years. I was a victim off a witchhunt on there and ended up having to stay with my parents on suicide watch.

I also remember an FB group I was on, and one person freaking out that her husband had gone though a wooden gate for a field and....shock horror....touched the gate. She was convinced he had just sentenced her and their two kids to death. No amount of reasoning would work.

There was definitely a thread on here with a major freak out about people touching a gatepost on the middle of the countryside

Thing is, we DIDN’T know.

We didn’t know this wasn’t going to kill loads of us. It’s easy to take the piss now, but (another March 2020 baby here that never met a soul for six months, and yes I probably have a sort of PTSD about it) we GENUINELY believed we could get sick and die if we caught covid. I’ve posted before but I believed my baby would die and anyone thinking that’s stupid now is missing the point of how it actually was then.

People scoffing about it have five years of hindsight. But nobody at the time ACTUALLY knew things wouldn’t be catastrophic.

I do worry about the next time a pandemic comes, cos it will. Say there’s one that kills kids. Say it has 10% mortality in under 10s or whatever absolute horror that is totally not impossible, statistically.

Nobody will bother following any procedures because they’ve all decided Covid was a farce and they remember the fiasco of rule of six and all the batshittery upthread. So what happens next time??

I was working 12+ hour days dealing with ASB in social housing because suddenly everyone needed to report their neighbours for a covid breach. After we received 1000 reports within 48 hours one day, with just 5 staff, we realised it wasn't tenable so stopped attempting to deal with it.

I also remember an FB group I was on, and one person freaking out that her husband had gone though a wooden gate for a field and....shock horror....touched the gate. She was convinced he had just sentenced her and their two kids to death. No amount of reasoning would work.

Oh and I got yelled at on MN for not isolating from my family when I got covid in Dec 2020. I was still trying to wfh (we were too busy not to), my husband was still using the tube to travel to work (police) and my kids were all in school which were apparently heaving with those little germ vectors. Honestly, what was the point in isolating (read, forcing DH to sleep on the couch and my young primary school age children to fend for themselves). As it stands, DH and rather kids still haven't had covid. I've had it 3 times now 🤣

Yes, I clearly remember telling people even at a meeting at work about it. And my family. Whatever comes to the UK hits us a bit later. It was way before it was even on the news as a pandemic. I get a bad cough easily, and did not want that weird flu.

I remember the pictures coming out of Northern Italy. The fashion houses with lots of Chinese workers. The hospitals overflowing. That was went mass hysteria and the complete overreaction set in.