The next person who tells me we all need to move on...

[Youknowaboutthepaint]

Is likely to get both barrels.

So many people still seem convinced that "the other lot" would be even worse, even though they can't begin to tell me why.

That Christmas, while our esteemed leaders were partying was DH's last. He spent it at home, in pain, without access to the medical care he needed and without seeing anyone except those he lived with.

A few days later he went into to hospital where he stayed for 3 months, without a single visitor. During that time he was told, alone, by telephone because his consultant was shielding, that his cancer was terminal, stil he wasn't allowed any visitors. He never met his oncologist and I had to fight every day to find anyone who would talk to me about his prognosis/ treatment/pain control/return home.

He came home eventually once they'd managed to get his pain under some sort of control, to die, a shadow of the man his DC had last seen, still officially not allowed any visitors. (Although by that point anyone who wanted to visited, I classified as a carer).

Then we had to restrict numbers at his funeral.

All the while those making the decisions that had affected us so badly were having the time of their life. Most are still in power/working in governement, making the laws that affect us all, dishing out or receiving honours, spending our money. And they've lied about it continuously since.

I'm still trying to support severely traumatised children whose lives were badly affected by lockdowns, even if they hadn't had to deal with all the stuff with their dad.

I'm generally a fairly easy going, resilient sort, but I dare anyone to tell me it's time we got over it.

YANBU. I am an ex-Conservative voter and we need a public enquiry.

How some jumped-up irrelevant back office guys got honours is worthy of another public enquiry.

Absolutely vile.

@Youknowaboutthepaint And everyone who lost people or suffered terribly, I’m sorry that happened and hoping for peace for you 💐

I work in the NHS and could wail for the experiences people had to endure, truly heartbreaking.

I will never forgive the government for enforcing those rules whilst partying.

they should be sacked and heavily fined.

people need an acknowledgment and apology and for it to never happen again.

There was a woman on Radio 4 a few weeks ago that I just can't get out of my head.

She spoke about her adult daughter who had been struggling with her mental health during lockdown. Her parents had been very worried about her and wanted to visit, but they didn't want to break any rules so they contacted the police to ask if a visit would be permitted under such circumstances. The police told them not to visit, but said that that they would get the local police to do a welfare check instead. By the time they eventually got around to doing that, the daughter had tragically killed herself. And those poor bereaved parents now have to live the rest of their lives wondering whether things might have been different if they had just ignored the rules and gone to see her. They will never know.

Meanwhile, Boris and his mates were partying. It makes me feel physically sick to think about it.

So no, we can't just fucking move on.

That is utterly heartbreaking 😔

I was hospitalised with Covid - thankfully not in intensive care, but I needed oxygen for a few days - but it has left me with long covid, which has had a real impact on my life.

I haven’t lost anyone, but Covid has affected my life - and dh’s life, because I can do so little round the house that he ends up doing most of it - even cooking a simple meal leaves me shaking with tiredness. I wish I could move on.

@MrsBennetsPoorNerves Yep thats the one being shared all over Twitter And cos of Covid rulz they had to empty her flat the same day as the funeral

@Boydd I'm so very sorry you experienced this. I've sat here with tears running down - what a bunch of c they are. It's bad enough that this was the situation out there but the fact that they were totally taking the piss themselves is the absolute icing on the cake. People also need to note that it wasn't all 80 year olds with known conditions either. One of the writers for Mojo magazine lost his wife in her early 40s, no known conditions at all -

@Crikeyalmighty thank you so much for your kind words. I will never get over the fact that I failed him. As his mum I should have broke the rules and not listened.

@Boydd you most certainly didn't fail him- the way it was done was that the restrictions in place made it totally outside your control- . The system failed him- not you. I know I would feel exactly as you do. I have a 25 year old and he was in London the whole time and working , also going through an adult ADHD diagnosis. I know that whole period affected his mental health and he's still never had a proper girlfriend.

@Boydd you haven’t failed your son, not in the slightest. You were there for him as a Mum as much as you could be and dealing with extraordinary circumstances.

By adhering to the rules you may have stopped spread and a similar situation for others arising.

We have a vulnerable child and had to stop seeing half the family for over a year 2021-2022 because they refused to adhere to rules/vaccination. We couldn’t risk DC being exposed to a bunch of adults who could have covid in a domestic setting.

Like you I remember not seeing family/friends when they were in hospital/care home before they died.

It was awful and I can’t fathom how indescribably painful it must have been for you to lose your lovely son in this way,

You did not fail him. You behaved like a decent human being trying to cope with hellish circumstances.

The gov and others like them were indecent.

No it isn't. Your DH having been furloughed and losing tens of thousands categorically does not mean some people weren't better off furloughed. They were, that's a fact.

As is the inadequacy of SSP. Sure, it's more than some people got, but nobody said it wasn't- and the fact that some people were excluded from it is further evidence that it wasn't good enough. If that's your barometer, it's the wrong one.

Isolation has a cost. If that cost wasn't met from somewhere, be that the state, the employer or the person's own resources, the isolation could not happen. Our failure to provide adequate sick pay meant that people not being able to afford it was inevitable. It was a policy choice.

@StormShadow

The inadequacy of SSP aside.

This argument that people could not afford to isolate is a nonsense.

It is a ten day period.

We could certainly not afford to lose the amount of money we did. But we coped with it. And got on with it because we had to and suffered the financial hit ourselves. It was awful. But we accepted the situation and were more concerned about avoiding the deaths of ourselves or others.

People making piss poor excuses about not being able to afford a short period on the sick to stop people becoming seriously ill and dying…. It just makes them selfish. We suffered it for the greater good, they should have too.

I have no respect for anyone who didn’t pull their knickers up and get on with what was required at the time.

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/coronavirus/4576426-we-have-to-isolate-at-work-but-we-dont-get-sick-pay

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/4296592-Employer-not-paying-dd-to-isolate

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/4281523-Lost-a-lot-of-money-due-to-Covid-and-stressed

I'm so sorry for your loss.

I agree with you. My parents both passed of covid - my dad was on his own and I was allowed 5 mins the day before to say goodbye.

The attitude of the government around one rule for them and one for everyone else disgusts me.

This is completely nonsensical. The inadequacy of SSP is the reason why many people couldn't afford to isolate. There is no 'aside'.

You're attaching far too much importance to your own subjective feelings about what people should've done. Whether you have respect for anyone in that position or not is irrelevant to the question of whether people could afford to isolate and whether inadequate sick pay priced some people out of it. They're two totally different things.

Similarly, your experiences are not definitive. Some people took no financial hit at all during covid, plenty were better off, but it would clearly be absurd to suggest that this means you didn't lose any money. You cannot make a sensible argument on this point by generalising.

@JenniferBooth

I don’t know what you are trying to prove with those posts.

These are people taking about 300 - 400 quid lost. If they were struggling with that then the CoL crisis is going to drop them off a cliff!! Their predicament is due to lack of forward planning. One of the people was in difficulty because she had lent £800 to a deadbeat bf and wiped a good part of emergency savings…. That is down to her own stupidity, not gov policy.

We lost 30k+ + promotion DH was due. And we got on with it. Had to retrain and move into a different sector.

We didn’t behave badly not following guidance because we aren’t dickheads. And we actually care about other people.

There is no way, especially after losing multiple people to covid, that we would ever have wished to contribute to spreading covid and cause misery for another family.

If they were struggling with that then the CoL crisis is going to drop them off a cliff!!

Yep, very possibly. What's your point?

@Robinni You are proving the point i made back in April 2020 That whatever people do it wont be enough.
Wish i could go back to it and say whatever people do for the laptop classes it wont be enough. And that is my prediction for the next pandemic.

There is a real whiff of Amazon drivers care workers should have protected their "betters" tone to your posts.

@StormShadow

All this “people couldn’t afford to take time off”.

What you are saying is that people chose not to put themselves at any financial disadvantage.

They did not want to be out of pocket or struggling at all.

And they chose to prioritise their financial comfort over playing a part in society and preventing illness/death in others.

Personally I think that’s a pretty shitty choice to make.

Especially since the amount of money for a 10 day period a few times a year amounts to less than a few grand at most.

While some people on furlough with generous bosses suffered no financial hardship, many did lose quite a bit, others were out of work entirely.

And they got on with it.

Why couldn’t people across society who were required to follow rules do it?!* So selfish!! There is no excuse.

• Be that rule of six, bubbles, vaccination, social distancing, testing, isolation etc etc

Nope, I'm not. If I'd meant that I'd have said it. There are people who were excluded from isolation because they had no mechanism to keep their basic bills paid otherwise. This isn't a matter of opinion.

I have no interest in anyone's moral call about what these people should've done and as such, haven't argued with you on that one. My point, and the only thing I'm discussing, is that when our government chose not to guarantee that people could afford to isolate, it then became inevitable that some wouldn't because it was unaffordable. You're not addressing that point, much less arguing against it, by saying you don't like the decisions that people in that situation made.

@StormShadow That in any job you go into you should be aware of the difficulties you may encounter and the relative support available.

Any sensible thinking person would, if they wish to stay in a position where sick pay etc is low, try to build a buffer to deal with potential sickness/other issues that could arise.

My point is that people who had failed to forward plan for difficulties in covid are really going to struggle now. Which is in part due to the dreadful price rises. And in part due to their lack of forward planning and risk assessment.

Well Strictly didnt do rule of six for their 2020 series. Did you really expect the public to go along with this shit when celebs got to carry on as normal THIS was in front of your eyes LIVE at the time. The knowledge of partygate came later though i knew they wouldnt be doing what they were telling us to do

Any sensible thinking person would, if they wish to stay in a position where sick pay etc is low, try to build a buffer to deal with potential sickness/other issues that could arise.

That's some impressive privilege blindness on display there.