COVID cringe memories (light hearted)

[Floogal]

Looking back at the pandemic, especially at its height in 2020, what made your toes curl?

1. "Imagine". Enough said.
2. The Marsh family.
3. On the local news, footage was shown of the Thursday clap (may or June). There was a parade of bhangra drummers and smarmy bratty kids doing the irritating floss dance. Was that point the 'applause' was seen as having had it's day.

I know some people may mention the dancing nurses, I only saw tiny clips on the news. Even that made me cringe.

Being given 5 days notice we were going into lockdown in October (iirc) 2020.
The night before by local high street was like New Year’s Eve - every pub bar restaurant etc was rammed to the rafters because obviously covid was waiting to pounce after midnight when everything shut again.

Oh and the bloody substantial meal nonsense. Covid knew it couldn’t pounce if you had fish and chips but a glass of wine and it was ready did you

I went into Sainsbury's either just before or just after lockdown was announced and the shelves had been stripped bare of all fresh meat and fish, most of the frozen food and half of the tinned food and booze. No loo roll of course. I can still feel the feeling of panic it gave me. It was as though Armageddon really was upon us. Horrible.

I didn't find lockdown a "doss" at all, and I don't think many did, contrary to pp. It really messed with my head for a while as it did with lots of other people's heads too - hence all the craziness on the covid threads. One or two people I know are still reluctant to go out to restaurants etc.

More lightheartedly, the chin mask wearers. Just why?

I’ve just goggled the Marsh family because I have never heard of them - what the hell?? 😂 I suppose as long as they had fun, they weren’t harming anyone.

Yes to a lot of the points made by previous posters. Thank F we are out of it all now. I still feel for the frontline workers who were in the proper thick of it all (hospitals, care homes, etc) as well as how the lockdown affected the mental health of many; elderly, children, etc.

Let's not forget that classic medical advice from no less than the President of the United States Donald Trump to drink bleach.

A fanatic mask-wearing colleague refused to allow me to enter the lift because my mask wasn't pulled high enough up my nose. How I didn't floor the bitch I'll never know.

My GP refused to see me or my baby until we could produce negative tests, despite me knowing we both had bacterial tonsillitis because we both had sloughy tonsils, raging sore throats, brutal fevers, and no cough.

Twice we were had to go for these fucking tests as they didn’t have an appointment for us immediately after the first one and decided we could have contracted Covid in the interim. We waited over a week to be seen. I knew what we had. I knew what we needed. In the end my baby had a seizure from the persistent fever and lack of antibiotics due to the delay and we wound up in hospital, who did give him antibiotics.

Not only that, the second one was ‘assisted’ and watching my baby scream as a non-clinical man in a boiler suit shoved a stick up his nose, causing a nose bleed, before he violently swabbed my raging strep throat, was one of the most hideous experiences of the whole entire shitshow.

Sunflower lanyards

We were at one like that! The police came on site and were doing circuits off the field at breakneck speed where there were children playing but it didn't matter if a few children were sent flying as long as no one caught covid.

We were all sat around fire pits near the stage and they came round asking if we were in our bubbles.

Ha I also worked in the wards throughout so husband did a lot of childcare while trying to work from home.
One memorable occasion he was on a work zoom call our then 3 year old insisted on using the ensuite attached to the bedroom where DH was working for a poo, then hollered loudly for dad to clean him before running out of the bathroom starkers and helicoptering his nethers in the full length mirror behind where DH had the laptop on shouting for DH to 'look what my willy can do, wheeeee' 🙈

Drakeford banning books, homeware, childrens clothes Etc in supermarkets

The 13 year old child who was left to die alone, the fact that the hospital rigidly stuck to the rules instead of using common sense. The fact he had to die with a nurse at his side whilst his parents watched on zoom.

The fact that he had to be buried with only 6 family members present, none of which were his parents or siblings because they had covid symptoms. That was just cruel, it was barbaric and I refuse to believe that if that had been a politician or member of the Royal families child that that would have been allowed to happen.

Also remembering breaking the rules once. I had massive anxiety about going, but was persuaded to go on a longstanding prebooked weekend trip to the Lakes to an Airbnb. It was just when the ‘zones’ were introduced, and we were travelling from a zone 3 area to a zone 1. Driving down the motorway with flashing signs saying ‘you are now entering a zone 1 area, please turn back if you are from zone 2 or 3’. We were frantically scouring the roads in case we came accross a police car who would likely stop us and give us a bollocking. The Airbnb neighbour accosting us as we were unloading our luggage demanding to know which zone we were from, and blocked the door til we told her, and we lied. The Airbnb host though didn’t give a toss about which zone we were from as long as he got his money. Crazy times…….

The disdain shown to teachers and LSAs in the press and social media was awful.

I worked all the way though in the classroom with vulnerable pupils and the children of frontline workers. Yet we were portrayed as having a jolly time off!

Being allowed to leave house once a day. How people agreed to this is still beyond my understanding. I guess they were trying to “do their bit” (hate it when people say this) even though it didn’t make any sense.

ShinyApple the second lockdown was November 2020

Oh and NHS admin marching to the front of supermarket queues, showing their bloody pass and strolling straight in whilst exhausted, unpaid carers had to wait outside and queue. Absolute pisstake.

Oh and those stupid food parcels they eventually cobbled together.

Teachers worked hard for the vulnerable pupils and frontline staff pupils
i know a lot of home visit drop offs of supplies and welfare checks were undertaken to vulnerable pupils

At the time we were told to stay at home, every night I drove to see my 92 year old father who lived alone. His house fronted the little access road to his estate, so I reversed onto his patch of pavement. He opened his door, put a chair and a little table with a wine glass on in his doorway, then retreated inside. I poured him a glass of wine without touching anything, then sat in my open car boot with my glass of wine. He then sat on his chair, wrapped up in his coat and a blanket and we had a distanced chat. I'm always absolutely fixated on being a law-abiding citizen but I had to support my father and seeing him in this way, I knew I wasn't putting him or anyone else at risk.

Marching you say? Oh I sashayed like a catwalk queen flashing that lanyard Presumably you did not have to fit in grocery shopping around 14hr days
the piss take is folk like you thinking staff getting to shop with their bloody pass was a perk

i am sorry you felt aggrieved or hard done to
but you in no way are justified in your criticism
your unpaid caring responsibilities were to a defined & familiar group.
In nhs our duty of care was to anyone who presented unfamiliar,unknown and posing a risk to us

The other insanity in wales was when I couldn’t even buy a bobble hat and gloves in Tesco to do playground support with my pupils so I had to pay an obscene amount for one on Amazon.

We also had the issue that you could not travel over the county line but you were allowed to take children to do sports in your county, my daughters gymnastics club had to find a club that was literally one minute away from the line as the coach also lived in our county. So the coach and 5 girls who lived over the border trained in this club instead for weeks and weeks until they decided to lift the rule. The rest of the team had a coach from the club we were seconded to who couldn’t cross the border. Utter insanity!

Nurses crying videos

Captain Tom, even he looked pissed off by all the hype

Hot tubs, ...now all selling because they can't afford the heat them

It was cruel, barbaric and inhumane,

And the fact that society as a whole thought it was acceptable, is why I have lost all faith in my fellow human beings.

The clapping. Seeing most my neighbors out with pots and pans making such a racket. It was bizarre!

It makes me cringe to think back to when I was frantically cutting up old clothes to make face masks. I couldn't breath with them on but thought I would be ok doing the weekly shop with it.

Queuing to get into the supermarket. Everyone keeping their 2m distance and getting evils if you dared to get too close.

Zoom quizzes. People I hadn't spoken to in months suddenly wanted to to nightly quizzes with me over zoom.

Home haircuts. Suddenly we all needed haircuts and i became a hairdresser overnight!

It was cruel, barbaric and inhumane,

It really was

Picking up the kids from primary who were blue with cold because the windows had to be open even the doors.