Have been following these threads but not posted because I still haven't come to terms with what happened to me and my team during 2020-2021 - while these parties were happening.
I was managing a team of scientists setting up and running the labs for testing. We were on a rota to work 24 h a day. As the one in charge I was covering 18 of those hours 7 days a week.
I had young science graduates nearly collapse with exhaustion.
Some of the nurses and doctors working alongside us, especially in ICU now have PTSD due to some of the things they saw on the wards.
Many of my staff, and I, spent hours on the wards holding the hands and comforting those who were dying because the clinical staff were needed to deal with those who might survive.
I held up phones and iPads to people on ventilators so their families could say goodbye.
I watched people my age die.
I saw my staff's mental health deteriorate daily.
I wanted to hug them, comfort them, sit next to them for a cup of tea and a cake and listen to them - but I couldn't because it was against the rules.
The Johnson apologists in these threads make me, and others like me, sick. While they joke and insult, we remember the sacrifices we made because it was the law and because we understood that to stop the virus from killing more people, we had to follow the rules and impose those rules on other people, however much we didn't want to.