What we're the most bizarre/memorable moments of the pandemic for you?

[Jaggerdagger]

Just wondering what they are for you?

I'll start. One of mine was seeing a children's playground cordoned off with tape, including all the park benches.

This photo of a locked swing in our local children's playground will always stay with me as a reminder of how children and young people and their futures were sacrificed.





I kept the paper bag that my prescription came in, the one with 'Prescription' written on the front of it, as a prop which i planned to show the police if I got stopped for driving!

It seems utterly absurd now. This thread has made me really reflect on the huge impact the lockdown and people's over zealous attitudes and inability for logical risk assessment has had on my mental health.

@ClarencesWings

"It seems utterly absurd now. This thread has made me really reflect on the huge impact the lockdown and people's over zealous attitudes and inability for logical risk assessment has had on my mental health."

I completely agree with and to be fair many people at the time thought it was utterly absurd, but were either afraid of saying so or were shouted down as Covid denying granny killers if they did say anything.

people's over zealous attitudes and inability for logical risk assessment
That’s with a lot of hindsight though. We didn’t know what this virus was, how you could catch it, who was at risk.
We just knew people were dying or getting very ill, with something we couldn’t treat.

People were scared.
Scared for themselves, scared for their parents, scared for their kids. Scared they might accidentally murder someone by doing the wrong thing.

Looking back it seemed madness. But that’s what we know now.

That's true @EvilPea and people certainly died in the beginning who wouldn't do now because they didn't know how to treat it then. It really is easy to forget how scary it was.

Some of the rules seem bizarre looking back. So going out for a 2 hr walk was ok but you couldn’t go out for 2x 30 min walks. Regardless of what we did or didn’t know about the virus that wasn’t logical.

I could walk out my front door on a busy village high street with good chance of being close to people but not drive 5 miles down the road to a deserted footpath.

@EvilPea

people's over zealous attitudes and inability for logical risk assessment That’s with a lot of hindsight though. We didn’t know what this virus was, how you could catch it, who was at risk. We just knew people were dying or getting very ill, with something we couldn’t treat.

People were scared.
Scared for themselves, scared for their parents, scared for their kids. Scared they might accidentally murder someone by doing the wrong thing.

Looking back it seemed madness. But that’s what we know now.

I think you're right to an extent in relation to the first lockdown (although it was clear very early on that you didn't catch it from surfaces and the risk of getting it outside was minimal, so the playground thing was always ridiculous).

But for subsequent lockdowns the rules were ludicrous especially in the non-English parts of the UK. For example, telling people they couldn't exercise with a friend in the dead of winter (there's an example of men making rules that have a disproportionate effect on women) and when they relaxed it, only if you could walk to meet each other. And we won't mention taping off aisles in supermarkets in Wales...

My DH going to the small sainsburys, queuing for half an hour to get in and when he got back, seeing what he had managed to get hold off. It took weeks to get any flour so when he did get some it so exciting.

People yelling at other people in shops if they dared touch anything they were not buying.

Rainbows in windows.

Another one, seeing the plane passengers arrive home from Wuhan in the news and be put on coaches to isolate but the coach drivers had no masks on.

@Satsumaeater - totally agree.
Ever increasingly bizarre diktats in Scotland, some of which seemed financially driven.

You could go out for a meal with your friend, but not meet up in a house.You could go out for a meal, but not have a drink and then everyone poured out of the restaurants at 10pm onto the same bus.
There was a set of guidelines about what level your area should be in, but despite meeting the threshold for the lower restrictions Edinburgh was never allowed to be in that lower tier because people could drive to it from Glasgow apparently.

It was obvious even at the time that these weird restrictions did not work, but Scotland still persisting with the face mask wearing ( which if it was proper hospital grade masks I'd have less issues with).

The way people seemed to turn on their neighbours and report minor infractions had reminiscences of my families stories of what led them to making a treacherous journey across mainland Europe during WW2

1. Being shouted at by angry pensioners outside Sainsbury's when NHS workers went in first. The store manager telling me the same man went every day..

2. those supermarket shelves being empty.

3. having a bus to myself in lockdown, going to work. Actually, I quite miss that!

Two-year-old DD remarking that when she was 11, she would wear a mask.

Near the end of lockdown 3 a poster asked if they’d BU to allow their disabled DC who was really suffering with isolation to go to a class mates house for tea one night after school. It was during the time where 1000s of fans were allowed to pack in to stadiums.

The OP was annihilated by one particularly prolific poster on the covid boards who thought themselves as a covid expert. The OP was sworn at and told they were “anti science” and were selfish. I lost all respect for that poster.

Reading through this thread, now we are out the other side, does anyone feel rather foolish?

I followed the rules all the way through but reminiscing makes me think how ridiculous some of it was. I wouldn’t step inside my friend’s house for a cup of tea because it was against the rules . It felt right at the time but now I feel like it was overkill and I know my friends thought I was being silly.

Mmmmm...at the beginning none of us knew what we were facing...we still don't know enough about Covid ...and it's hard to quantify what impact individuals following the rules collectively had on stopping the NHS from collapsing, which was always the focus. It's easy to look back and sneer in hindsight but many people I know, followed the rules quite strictly 95% of the time and then allowed themselves an occasional rule breach , usually for good family reasons. Imagine if the rules had been less strict and that figure of 5% went up to 20% of people not following the rules ...and the different outcome that might have had. In other words, the authorities always set rules knowing that they will not be followed by a certain percentage of people and by definition therefore the rules by necessity have to be more authoritarian than is going required in reality, but where that line is set is a very hard one to judge! So although in hindsight it looks like overkill now, my cousin who is a doctor in the NHS doesn't think so, as he observed how close his hospital came to collapse.

As for people being criticized for walking in the country in case they need an ambulance; it's all a question of degrees surely?

In its most pure form, yes, that rule betrays a total lack of common sense.

But a National Park near my family was over-run during lockdown by inexperienced and ill-equipped people walking up hills and having to be rescued and treated for falls and exposure, so some caution did need to be exercised.

And my friends and I did opt to turn our horses out and not go hacking or compete during lockdowns, in case we diverted an ambulance away from where it was needed for a Covid patient.

So yes I agree that "criticising people for walking in the country" in its purest form was ridiculous but, if you look at it in more detail, it wasn't entirely without reason.

@Thasheblows88 very good points. Following the rules was the right thing to do at the times. I know I was very torn as I received a lot of “peer pressure” from others who were following rules but not to the point of avoiding family and friends. It was difficult to reconcile and I felt even more guilty for my DC by asking them to follow these rules too. Looking back, I do feel foolish but also I know it was the right thing to do.

The first time we saw a person alone in their car wearing a face mask! We were laughing for ages but then realised that there were others doing the same and that was really sad.

Being on the antenatal ward, waiting for my induction. I was in a bay with two other women who were in full blown labour, who unfortunately couldn't be moved to the labour ward due to space. They were begging for their partners but were refused as it was outside visiting hours overnight and partners were only allowed to come in once admitted onto the labour ward due to restrictions. It was just crazy and awful, I was the only other person on the bay and told the midwives I was happy for them to have their partners in with them but they wouldn't budge on the rules. I found it really upsetting so Christ knows how the poor women felt.

Babs I don't feel foolish because I was never particularly worried in the first place. I don't think I did anything foolish or excessive

@BabsBestFriend

"Reading through this thread, now we are out the other side, does anyone feel rather foolish?"

++++

I don't agree with the "it's easy to say that now with hindsight" argument because at the time I knew deep down that many of the rules were ridiculous and made no sense. Yet I followed them anyway because they were the rules and I wanted to fit in and didn't want to get shouted down as a Covid denier or granny killer. So it's not so much feeling foolish in hindsight but a case of feeling weak in hindsight.

Today I just feel sad, sad at the cost to children's education, sad at the cost to mental health, sad at the cost of missed cancer diagnosis and sad at the £500 billion cost to the nation that now means we are unable to properly fund education and its catch up or assist less well off people with the cost of living crisis.

Today I just feel sad, sad at the cost to children's education, sad at the cost to mental health, sad at the cost of missed cancer diagnosis and sad at the £500 billion cost to the nation that now means we are unable to properly fund education and its catch up or assist less well off people with the cost of living crisis.

I have teens who missed substantial amounts of important school years and important milestone events. We also had a close friend of 30 years who had a missed cancer diagnosis and so I feel sad at those things too 1dayatatime. Are you saying the school closures weren't necessary in retrospect? Which measures would you have changed? I suggest we can only make that judgement call if we talk to doctors in charge of our local ICU departments.

And how was it possible to know for sure deep down at the beginning that the rules were ridiculous, when we didn't know much about the virus? Later on, for sure, more facts became clear, but it was only latterly we knew that Covid was spread more by air droplets than touch.

@1dayatatime I was not particularly worried about covid per se; but like you , I didn’t want to be judged and following the rules felt morally right at the time.