Did covid screw anyone else's life up?

[girlmeetsboy]

Interested to hear on this as I have been reading a thread where people loved the solidarity of it all. For me it was redundancy, house lost, business lost and savings...

Anyway, like everyone else I now have two broken children. I will never forgive the decision to repeatedly close the schools for so long. Education is a basic human right. "Homeschooling" when there is no adult available to educate the children at home, because the only adult is trying to do a full time job and not lose their employment, is not an education (I think if we'd been in England, by children would've qualified for a keyworker place, as I work in education, but in wales it was pretty much impossible to get a school place unless you were front line, so my kids just watched telly all day)

We also had a grand total of 2 online lessons during the whole of lockdown. Friends with kids in other schools were getting daily online lessons. (I think it was required in England, but no such luck in wales...
Although some schools in Wales which were wealthier and had more resources managed it). I felt like we were abandoned and no-one cared anymore, Drakeford was so terrified of the virus that he sacrificed the kids.

Yes, same here, students were conned into signing up for courses and Uni accommodation in Summer 2020 with the promise of face to face teaching, then literally days after the deadline, lots of Unis changed their websites to say it would be mostly online. I have screenshots of my son's Uni website (you can see old websites via a website on the internet which stores previous versions) showing how they changed the wording. An absolute con job!

He had no face to face lectures for the 20/21 academic year, no face to face seminars nor workshops - the Uni was like a zombie apocalypse with virtually no teaching staff on campus for the entire year.

He stayed home after Christmas, as instructed, but there was no refund nor compensation for the Uni accommodation he was instructed not to use! He and his flat mates eventually went back after Easter, still against the Uni rules not to return. By the time came that the Uni officially "allowed" students back, the courses had ended, and it was exam season (all online of course).

The 21/22 academic year wasn't that much better despite there being virtually no restrictions - teaching staff mostly still working from home with online lecturers etc. For the second year, DS couldn't see the point of paying for campus accommodation. They'd been conned again as they'd been promised a "nearly normal" Uni experience, but how can that be when over half their lectures were still online with lecturers sat at home?

Even now in his third year, a quarter of his modules are "online only" for no obvious reason, but of course, they're not told that in advance when choosing modules!

It does seem a lot of lecturers and teaching/support staff enjoyed working from home and are very reluctant to get back onto campus.

Disgraceful. They have to spend
their lives paying off the loans too.

I do feel that students were misled going into the 2020-21 academic year about how things were actually going to be. I went into my second year that academic year and sat in all the calls the previous summer about how we were going to get "high quality blended learning" with only the large scale lectures online and pre-recorded and labs, seminars and everything interactive being on campus in small groups (we were a healthcare course so were allowed to continue throughout)... placements were going to go ahead "flexibly" and we were going to be kept informed throughout, the uni's learning platform was up to the task and everything.

We were prepared for a bit of keep calm and muddle through while everyone adjusted (our lecturers were fab but not particularly a techie bunch) but what we had that year was an absolute insult to us all. The times we were allowed on campus we were made so unwelcome it was horrendous - the library had 10 5 foot high signs within two short flights of steps about not coming in basically and the staff were so insulting about students "causing" all the spike in cases in Leicester. One way systems leading to dead ends, all books that we would use for learning to use clinical assessments locked away, no IT access and all sorts... for the one week a month where we had one day of a couple of hours of campus time. We had staff breaking down in tears when the tech failed and their sessions were screwed up, we had staff trying to record lectures in their bathroom as the only place they could get any quiet in their house, and we were trying to do some very intricate speech transcription - over a laggy as fuck online connection with a lecturer who sounded like a fucking Dalek.

Uni had a rule that material for the following week needed to be uploaded by 3pm on the Thursday... so at that time the learning environment would crash, or staff wouldn't stick to that - there's nowt like a 100 slide powerpoint being put up the day before you need to use that knowledge to keep you on your stress levels. Staff were fab generally (we had one departmental piss-taker), but maintaining the focus and involvement needed to sit through online recording after recording and then seminars where there wasn't the natural involvement as the network couldn't cope with cameras on and mics on was bloody gruelling for all concerned. At one point one of our staff put us all into breakout rooms to get our cameras on because she missed seeing us so much! And the random breakout rooms - so anxiety inducing not knowing where you were going to pop out (yes, you'd be expected to work with anyone in the real world but usually you have some degree of choice, and it's easier to interact face to face).

If I had known how grim that year was going to be, bearing in mind that we had some support networks established as we'd had a relatively normal first year - I'd have deferred. I nearly dropped out, my marks tanked and it's nearly bloody killed me to turn it around from there. And I'm no academic slacker or lightweight - I got a first at the end of it all but that year was bloody hellish.

Yes.

It left tiny holes in my brain, neurologist said probably created by tiny clots.

Took me 8 months to get back on my feet physically.

Wreaked my husband’s mental health. He has one weak spot, health anxiety / germ phobia.

However I am now in a much better place physically, emotionally and mentally than when the pandemic started. It’s been bloody hard work. Especially since my memory and balance are it what they used to be. But while I can say I’d elect to go through it all again (I thought I’d had a stroke and was going to die, horrible feeling) I can say that on balance I came out of it better than I went in.

DH is still working on the coming out. I think he’d have been in the same boat as me but he still watches the news and the war has hindered things for him. But we’ll get each other over the official finish line hand in hand now he’s rationing his exposure to the media.

I used to be very future focused. All this “living for the moment” shite looked like hippy nonsense to me. Not anymore. I still plan. But I do get to enjoy the tiny moments of joy, contentment and “good enough” throughout each day as it happens.

I hold up my hands and admit I still occasionally shout “oh do fuck off you new age bollocks talker” during meditation (not very good at it, very boring) so I guess there is still more road to onwards and upwards to enjoy. We are poorer, the country (Italy) has deep wounds of every kind, I have lost friends, friends have been horribly bereaved or harmed. I need to keep on keeping on as much as I can because I want to be there for the people I care about, some of whom are in no position to “in the moment” themselves out of the place the pandemic left them in.

I’m grateful for this this thread, often I felt incredulity for what was on here, I’ve read these posts and it’s restored some semblance of humanity.

I hope people continue to heal

Really saddened (amongst the other heart-breaking stories) to read about all the students whose university experiences have been so dismal.

I work in a STEM department at a well-known university and we were determined to have in-person teaching and socialising (within the law) as soon as possible. This meant huge amounts of admin time organising rotas, measuring for distancing, putting up signage, checking ventilation, making rules about masks clear etc. This was made possible because of the good will of staff and a strong desire to make things "normal" for students and researchers. Other departments were less keen and switched to remote lecturing whenever they could. Even those, that like us, had a strong practical element to their courses (ie labs/workshops that you can't really replicate online).

The difference in attitude within departments of the same faculty was quite revealing. "Just WFH" and "just do it all online" now seem to be dismissive responses to any kind of workplace challenge.

Didn't Putin invade Ukrain literally the day after we officially ended restrictions in England earlier this year? As pp have noted, we've had a relentless barrage of bad news since then and seemingly no public desire to have any kind of inquiry into the effectiveness and consequences of the lockdowns.

Drakeford sacrificed everyone.

Children
Patients
Small businesses
Retail Sector
Entertainment
The arts

He was an asbolute lunatic and was able to action his crazy ways at will, unchecked. His cherry picked media conferences unable to question him as to why he thought it appropriate to ban the sale of dressing gowns in Tesco.

If you closed your eyes, you would have thought that Mainland China had constructed these 'rules'

We were all broken by the 3rd, 4th, 5th set of rules... so I think talking about "lockdowns" as if they're one thing is unhelpful.

Yes, this is true. During the summer easing of the first set of restrictions is when I started to wake in the midst of a panic attack while my subconscious dealt with the lockdown that was and the threat of future ones.

I've lost track of what all the different rules were, there were so many but recall how what the law was and what the police decided to make up in addition was such an alarming thing.

@EmmaH2022 @MidnightConstellation MercyBooth here I wont be on here long as they banned me last November and i suspect thats what also happened to the posters that Midnight mentioned. I dont think they left voluntarily. I think they were also banned for saying stuff that has now turned out to be true. Emma i know how you feel. I thought i was doing semi OK after the lockdowns ended Until i woke up around the 8th August last year and almost had a complete breakdown. I wanted the old me back and i wanted to live in the past not the present. I have literally gone back to the past by having someone back in my life for the last 13 months who i hadnt seen for 13 and a half years. I really needed to talk about it on here but couldnt because they booted me off. I had started to post on the mental health board. Emma thankyou for thinking of me and you and others were lovely to me while i was here, I do remember what you mean Many of us on threads on the Covid board were branded right wing Nazis simply for voicing our concerns I remember one poster using those slurs simply to get the State of Fear threads deleted. Once they were gone so was the poster. MN were played. Emma and my fellow ADs i wish you all the best Please take care of yourselves.

It didnt just happen in Wales Im in North Essex and in November 2020 they blocked off the section upstairs in our Tesco So no clothes books or CDS,

The students should get every penny of that money back Disgusting

In a developed democratic society, how on earth was that allowed to happen.

I think the first lockdown was different. I felt really bad for the people whose businesses had folded or who had lost loved 9nes and couldn't have a proper funeral. For the rest if us, it was sunny so we could take breaks in the garden. We had energy for homeschooling. There was a certain novelty factor in being able yo be at home. The second lockdown in the Winter was the killer.

I'm so sorry to read about the tough times that people have been and continue to go through thanks to COVID! For me I guess I was very lucky. Neither me or my husband had to stop working, I had a very small, short term pay cut as part of cost cuttings but we both continued earning as normal and saved money really because WFH so much more and less spending money on social stuff.

We are lucky in where we live and the lifestyle we have that we were able to get outside and enjoy the weather and exercising, and thank god for my horses and dogs which were a great escape! It also allowed us both to study, for me to finish a qualification and my husband to start the path to a change of career. We got loads done on our house etc because we had so much more time.

So for us I wouldn't say it was a positive experience as such, but we were really lucky in how little a negative impact it had on our lives, and the lives of our close family and friends, and now life feels back to normal.

"If you closed your eyes, you would have thought that Mainland China had constructed these 'rules'"

Not sure you've been paying attention. Mainland China has been far more effective at squashing covid than we were/are.

Not sure you've been paying attention. Mainland China has been far more effective at squashing covid than we were/are

Yes, by creating a dystophian horrorscape. That's exactly the point.

Aren’t they still taking away freedoms?

God I’d rather be here than that

God I’d rather be here than that

I'd rather be dead than how they're having to live.

How anyone can describe it as ‘more effective at squashing Covid’ as though what they are doing is positive is madness.

Yes like it's even remotely proportional. Or for that matter feasible in the UK.
I can only hope people who say things like that aren't actually aware of what's happening in China.

"I'd rather be dead than how they're having to live."

You are aware that overall people in China have hardly been in lockdown at all? whilst they have taken extreme action to squash outbreaks I don't believe anywhere in China had what over 9 months of lockdown etc.

I doubt they also have anywhere near the disruption in healthcare, economic output, excess deaths etc.

It's been tough. And scary.

I went a year without nhs input in 2020 after being dx with a - potentially very serious - eye condition in January 2020.

Timing, right?

Eventually at the end of 2020 I was referred to an eye specialist by a neurologist (during an appointment for a totally different issue) and that Dr referred me immediately to a regional UK eye hospital. I'm still going every 6 months for monitoring. I'm grateful but...what if it hadn't been ignored for a year?? I'll never know.

I'll never get full vision in my left eye back.

More recently, I had to argue with my gp surgery to get a smear test when I became due.

I'm now paying privately for podiatry, Chiropractor, dermatology....I'm lucky I can...how many can't?

Ds1 missed out on most of his a levels. Ds2 missed out on y6 and y7, really.

It's been pretty shit. My friend keeps telling me to watch "This England" but...I just can't bring myself to. Just too soon.

www.google.com/amp/s/amp.cnn.com/cnn/2022/04/08/china/shanghai-corgi-death-china-covid-intl-hnk/index.html

Just pets beaten to death.

time.com/6166032/shanghai-covid-child-separation/

Children separated from parents

www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/world/2022/sep/12/xinjiang-lockdown-chinese-censors-drown-out-posts-about-food-and-medicine-shortages

Food and medication shortages.

Yeah sounds smashing.