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Did covid screw anyone else's life up?

1000 replies

girlmeetsboy · 27/10/2022 13:28

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...

OP posts:
Buzzinwithbez · 10/11/2022 10:34

It seems like having read all these heartbreaking stories that have confirmed that harm and illness have been caused by restrictions, there was always a clause for people at risk who needed to leave their home or find support with others.

Did covid screw anyone else's life up?
MarshaBradyo · 10/11/2022 10:36

It’s interesting to hear DeSantis and Florida make hay out of keeping the economy more open.

The harms were ignored too much and by too many here

xogossipgirlxo · 10/11/2022 11:21

What a refreshing thread, finally some decent people who can see further than "stay home-save lives". Now we are knee deep in shit now thanks to this. Vaccines were rolled out and NHS is still in pooper, we have debt to pay, and now we have war on top of it. My husband didn't comply to all this nonsense, he was travelling for work etc. Someone had to make money that government was giving away as furlough.

ancientgran · 10/11/2022 11:48

JenniferBooth · 09/11/2022 20:26

twitter.com/mcortonscott/status/1590373063170097152?s=20&t=yoF9QD6pwpO0xJlO-r9teQ

Megan Corton Scott
@mcortonscott
·
4h
In Christmastime 2020, a 70 yo man who lived in Staffordshire (Tier 3 restrictions) sold mince pies in a Cloudside Rd premises that he believed were in Cheshire (in Tier 2).
Cloudside Rd is just in Staffordshire (map below).
Anyway, he's just been given 6 months in prison.

He didn't get six months for selling mince pies. He got six months for perverting the course of justice which is taken very seriously. The CCTV company who he wanted to delete the evidence felt intimidated and went to the police with the tape. He admitted it and pleaded guilty.

It might still be wrong to imprison him but it is wrong to say he was jailed for selling the mince pies, I think he'd have got a fine if he'd just admitted it, he might even have got away with it if he'd said it was a mistake.

ancientgran · 10/11/2022 11:49

Buzzinwithbez · 10/11/2022 10:34

It seems like having read all these heartbreaking stories that have confirmed that harm and illness have been caused by restrictions, there was always a clause for people at risk who needed to leave their home or find support with others.

That is true, I had to explain to neighbours that GS had moved in with me due to serious issues at home. It was legal but obviously looked like we were breaking the rules.

xogossipgirlxo · 10/11/2022 11:52

ancientgran · 10/11/2022 11:49

That is true, I had to explain to neighbours that GS had moved in with me due to serious issues at home. It was legal but obviously looked like we were breaking the rules.

It's crazy that you had to explain yourself to neighbours!

ancientgran · 10/11/2022 12:05

xogossipgirlxo · 10/11/2022 11:52

It's crazy that you had to explain yourself to neighbours!

Well I didn't have to but I could see a couple of them were noticing what was happening and I thought it was easier than them wasting police time by reporting me (they might have or might not) and then me having to explain the same thing to the police.

Popgoestheweaselagain · 10/11/2022 21:35

ancientgran · 10/11/2022 11:48

He didn't get six months for selling mince pies. He got six months for perverting the course of justice which is taken very seriously. The CCTV company who he wanted to delete the evidence felt intimidated and went to the police with the tape. He admitted it and pleaded guilty.

It might still be wrong to imprison him but it is wrong to say he was jailed for selling the mince pies, I think he'd have got a fine if he'd just admitted it, he might even have got away with it if he'd said it was a mistake.

That he was so worried that he was trying to get rid of the evidence says it all really. You'd think he'd murdered somebody!

ancientgran · 10/11/2022 22:04

Popgoestheweaselagain · 10/11/2022 21:35

That he was so worried that he was trying to get rid of the evidence says it all really. You'd think he'd murdered somebody!

Or he thought he was too clever to pay a fine. The cover up often end up as a bigger issue than the original issue but perverting the course of justice is bound to be frowned on by a judge.

SirMingeALot · 11/11/2022 06:58

The whole fine system was appalling in the first place. There is a reason so many of the usual safeguards were removed. Some shitty governance during the pandemic.

ancientgran · 11/11/2022 12:57

SirMingeALot · 11/11/2022 06:58

The whole fine system was appalling in the first place. There is a reason so many of the usual safeguards were removed. Some shitty governance during the pandemic.

Doesn't alter the fact that he is in prison for perverting the course of justice not for selling mince pies.

SirMingeALot · 11/11/2022 13:08

Doesn't alter the fact that he is in prison for perverting the course of justice not for selling mince pies.

Didn't suggest for a moment that it did.

JenniferBooth · 11/11/2022 22:06

On Im A Celeb Hancock just said it was guidance not law (same gaslighting crap they came out with after Cummingsgate) if it was guidance why were people fined!

User438651209 · 11/11/2022 22:28

2 metre rule was guidance and you could see one other person or maybe 6 at that time but 2 metre rule was never law

Buzzinwithbez · 11/11/2022 22:47

What was guidance, not law?

RosettaStormer · 11/11/2022 22:59

I was having some treatment today and the practitioner was telling me some horrific stories about how the rules impacted people he knows. He was telling me a friend of his sons at school was sitting on a park bench with a friend talking . He was suffering badly with mental health issues and his friend was also struggling. They were trying to support each other. The Police came along and read them the riot act . Threatened to issue fines. He went home and hung himself.

User438651209 · 11/11/2022 23:03

Hugging was never against the law, it was always only guidance/advice, a lot of fines got thrown out because the police didn't know what was law and what was guidance. Forums like this didn't help because everyone was posting that stuff was against the law and it wasn't. Like the fictional hour of exercise

JenniferBooth · 11/11/2022 23:10

And yet the courts are going ahead (have gone ahead) with the prosecutions

User438651209 · 11/11/2022 23:25

In our county there were 14 £10000 fines issued and only 2 people actually had to pay a fine and nowhere near £10000

www.northamptonchron.co.uk/health/coronavirus/covid-tickets-worth-ps140000-brought-fines-of-ps780-in-northamptonshire-3392003

in the case of the £50 fines people probably paid up without thinking if they were justified

SirMingeALot · 12/11/2022 07:50

Yes, there will have been lots of people who could afford to pay £50 for a quiet life and did so, regardless of whether the fine would've stood up in court. Those who didn't have the £50 to spare did not of course have that option.

This twitter thread by Tristan Kirk, courts correspondent at the Evening Standard, makes for a maddening read.

twitter.com/kirkkorner/status/1591063867425435648

The investigation into the Tory HQ Christmas party in 2020 is over and nobody will be charged.

twitter.com/peterwalker99/status/1591046853130215424

One rule for them...

nether · 12/11/2022 08:51

£50 fines?

Remember those still screwed because Covid sn't over. About £5000 a year covid bill here in the UK for about 500,000 - happening now in another step towards a two-tier health service

Those for whom the vaccines don't work (eg everyone on cancer treatment, those who have had transplants). For whom there is an MHRA approved preventative drug.

This drug -Evusheld - will cost the NHS £400 per dose with the manufacturers offering a money back offer if it doesn't work well enough (an offer made to get the drug into parients asap, because it's life-changing). There's a large (growing) body of international evidence which shows it does work - in use in 33 countries, and Britain is the only country which has made a decision to have failed to provide it. It's even free in US because it's so important at keeping the vulnerable out of ICU

We have a creaking health system, but won't do this to take pressure off ours

Instead it's "buy it privately" at £1,000 now rising to £1,400 next year. With typical associated private appointments for prescription, dispensing and administration being about a further ££££s, twice a year.

Things like cancer already make a train wreck of many family's finances. But our lovely government wants to make it even worse for those people (it's called 'kicking them when down") whist setting a precedent that they don't need to ensure that everyone is protected.

It's m like multiplying a £50 fine by 100, and imposing it annually, just so the most vulnerable get their lives back

I think people forget there's a population, about the size of Sheffield or Glasgow or Bristol - people of all ages, and any occupation - who are still being told to shield.

Everyone should get get their lives back, not just some

SirMingeALot · 12/11/2022 09:00

The point is that the fine being £50 only was something that was geared towards those who were in a position to engage and pay it immediately. People who for whatever reason couldn't do that were put in more precarious positions and in many cases ended up paying more because of that. It was a grossly unfair system.

The fact that we should also be providing Evushed has no bearing whatsoever on that, they are two quite separate issues. This pandemic has been so badly handled that there's plenty of room for people to be fucked over for a diverse array of reasons. The failure to provide Evushed doesn't make a poorly designed, frequently unscrutinised, grossly unfair fines system less of a problem and it's frankly dangerous to pretend it does.

User17459398 · 12/11/2022 09:32

Fines always favour the well off, it was completely wrong using fines for Covid misdemeanours, the fact that although it was £50, that was only if you paid within 2 weeks, bit like parking tickets, well off people could just do what they wanted really as Boris and Rishi did because for them it was a small amount to pay.

T1Dmama · 12/11/2022 10:41

Covid certainly showed peoples true nature!

You had the people rushing out buying pasta and toilet rolls and not giving a damn that there was nothing left for anyone else!
You had people emptying the shelves of hand soap like they’d never washed their hands before the pandemic!
You had others taking to social media just to bully others with made up rules, or sat at their windows with a notepad keeping note of everyone’s movements…shouting at people in stores if they got a little too close, leaving notes on car windows telling older people off for driving somewhere in order to walk their dog… I’m glad I wasn’t on mumsnet back then… had I have been I probably would’ve left!… I didn’t get all the nastiness..
Then on the other side of it you had the lovely people doing shopping for the medically vulnerable, walking peoples dogs for them, making up food parcels for people who couldn’t shop for themselves ..

our government didn’t know their arsed from their elbow… there was much for rule breaking than what we know about… the parties, drives to test their eyes and snogging their secretary was the tip of the iceberg I’m sure…. But thank god we weren’t as strict as other countries! We have family in Spain and they had to get a permission slip to go shopping, police patrolled the streets… they weren’t allowed off their drives unless they food shopping.
we got round the ridiculous rules…. I’d pick up medication for family and deliver it and then stand at the end of their drive and chat for a little while, then do their food shopping and do the same… it had to done just so people had some sort of contact!… my nan is 96, lives alone… It disgusted me that people forced their ‘stay at home’ down peoples throats…. What harm does it do anyone if I stand at the end of my nans garden and have a conversation with her to stop her feeling lonely ! (She can’t hear on the telephone) At one point she put a chair in her porch so she could sit and chat to us outside… we always picked up some item of food on the way just so the busy bodies were pacified!
Some people I’m sure left their elderly during the pandemic… We saw her mental state as more important than following silly rules… not once did we put her at risk though, and not one of us caught covid till this year…
I said at the time and I still agree that the medically vulnerable should’ve shielded (as they did) and employees with health conditions or family with health conditions be allowed to shield (paid to furlough) but everyone else should’ve been allowed to
carry on, go to work, school etc….keep the economy going. Keep people mentally well.
Children suffered… some abused during lockdown and went unnoticed… others felt so safe at home that it’s been traumatising going back to school… my daughter was so confident before… 2 years of lockdown/social distancing etc and she’s now overwhelmed by crowded places, gets so anxious at school by the sheer volume of kids in corridors it panics her… It’s odd as we’re laid back during covid… but I think all the rules and regulations in school, having to only mix with the 30 kids in her class for 2 years … staggered breaks and finishing times… crowds are alien to them…
We were all fooled into thinking we were ‘safe’ if we stayed indoors… it was for the good of everyone to be isolated and locked away…. I knew healthy young families who
shielded for years… not even sending kids back to school when they were allowed back…. Terrified of catching what was for many just a cold…. Their kids have suffered so much, with one of their children now identifying as a cat!!

Im sure the covid generation of kids will have increased mental health issues and obsessions with cleanliness…. Problems with social Interaction and physical contact. My niece and nephew (now 3 & 5) have real issues with hugging or kissing family members… because for the majority of their lives they were told not to! With mental health services having huge financial cuts, and waiting lists for children to be seen being 2 years plus long we are certainly heading for disaster when it comes to our children.
schools aren’t even surprised now when a child has anxiety! It’s scary that this is now our norm!
(This is just my experience/observation) I appreciate it’s different for others!

jennakong · 12/11/2022 10:57

'It’s odd as we’re laid back during covid… but I think all the rules and regulations in school, having to only mix with the 30 kids in her class for 2 years … staggered breaks and finishing times.'

My kids now have a very nonchalant attitude to school attendance and punctuality, which I think in part stems from Covid. OK, they might just be getting older, but they aren't as conscientious. It's 'so what' if they're late etc. Is this something they have picked up from the authorities closing schools at the drop of a hat for two years, and telling entire classes to stay at home because of one + test, and the staggered home times? School closures and restrictions really rattled kids' sense of certainty and routine.

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