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It's been five years since the pandemic and I have questions

596 replies

BaggyTrousing · 06/11/2024 22:18

  • will Paddington ever be investigated for his role in the departure of our dear old queen?
  • was the woman who wrote "and the people stayed home" ever taken to task for her contribution to the awfulness?
  • what about that nurse who was roaring about bread in a supermarket car park? Hopefully shunned and avoided at least
  • how do you all feel now about protecting the NHS?
OP posts:
Thread gallery
8
Unexpectedlysinglemum · 07/11/2024 14:10

VioletCrawleyForever · 07/11/2024 05:24

Walking along the road in Spain eating an ice cream and being stopped by the police who told me that I could only eat the ice cream if I stood still. Walking and eating at the same time was forbidden.

This was because Spain required masks to be worn outdoors and the only time you could remove the mask was if you were eating or drinking.

So I stood rooted on the spot whilst the police watched me finish my ice cream. Then put my mask back on and continued on my way.

🤣

Snugglemonkey · 07/11/2024 14:10

MoMhathair · 07/11/2024 13:25

The hindsight argument really annoys me. There were plenty of people at the time pointing out the issues who were just ignored or silenced.

I wasn't frightened of the virus because all of the evidence (which was available and easy to find) was that it was of little or no threat to me and my family. I was afraid of the complete lack of forward thinking that was going into the attempts to control the virus.

This was my position then and still is. Plenty of people had foresight, it just was not deemed socially acceptable.

Unexpectedlysinglemum · 07/11/2024 14:12

Foxybyname · 07/11/2024 07:26

At the time, I was in a job where I had 10 direct reports. They were all furloughed and we topped up their pay so they weren't out of pocket at all.
On their return in the September, one of them asked me if they could take the 5 days lieu that was owed them - apparently as they were 'off work because of furlough' they didn't benefit from the 5 bank holidays in that time so we owed them back. Wouldn't take no for an answer, so they took it to HR.

Grabby and greedy at best.

Those times sure did make people's true colours come out.

Just remembered - I posted about the above at the time but made the hideous crime of making it a reverse. Wow. Never again!

Edited

Let's see a link to that thread!

SoiledMyselfDuringSomeTurbulence · 07/11/2024 14:13

Snugglemonkey · 07/11/2024 14:07

I would love to believe that, but people are really fucking stupid. So many things illustrate that. Covid. Brexit, Trump. Honestly, I have so little respect for humans as a species now that it saddens me. I think lots of people enjoyed aspects of the batshittery and would love to be able to justify haranguing strangers and spying on neighbours again.

People are fucking stupid, I just don't think it would be expressed in that way. If it was something bad enough to actually get the population to accept it was happening, I reckon we'd end up with basic services not functioning. Basically, it'd be Walking Dead not covid monitors.

UnctuousUnicorns · 07/11/2024 14:18

"Ah having an excuse not to see people. Bliss. I see some people are still using this today."

See also celebs and people up to no good at protest marches etc. using masks to badly disguise themselves.

Hoppinggreen · 07/11/2024 14:19

I remember telling DD and her BF they couldnt touch eachother when we went out for dinner as we were all supposed to be the "same family" and if they held hands we would look like weirdos. They spent all day together at school anyway

DD and DS couldn't get within 6 feet of eachother at school but walked home together.

OptimisticMermaid · 07/11/2024 14:32

Covid had been over for a couple of years. No more rules or restrictions. I needed to have a dr appointment and a friend at the time was insisting I took a Covid test in order to ‘protect the dr and all the other patients’. She had been to a festival the night before with hundreds of people with no mention of a test. The hypocrisy got to me the most. Rules for everyone but themselves. Friendship didn’t survive. I asked the dr and she said ‘don’t be daft’.

Iloveagoodnap · 07/11/2024 14:37

I could get behind the rules that made sense such as washing your hands regularly, using hand sanitiser on your way in and out of shops etc. But I always got annoyed by the rules that just made no sense.

In between lockdowns, when holiday parks were open, we went to a caravan site and went in the restaurant for food. I went to the bar area to order. There were arrows on the floor to follow and to get there following the arrows it was about triple the distance than to just walk up to the bar without following the arrows. Yes, I could understand in busy periods these arrows stopped everyone being too close. But on this day there was no one else there. So I didn't follow the arrows. And the guy at the till told me off for it. As if I'd just spread Covid all over the restaurant for going the quickest way to the bar in a deserted restaurant.

And mask wearing on buses. You had to wear a mask unless you were exempt. Children under 5 were exempt. People with certain conditions were exempt. The driver was exempt. So you could be on the bus with your mask on but could be surrounded by exempt people with no masks anyway. One day I was rushing to get my 3 year old to nursery and forgot my mask. Driver told me off. I said I could be exempt for all he knew. He argued I had to carry an exemption card. I argued that I was from the same house as my 3 year old who didn't have to wear a mask anyway so if I was harbouring any germs then so was she. He also wasn't wearing a mask. I said I was sorry, we were late and I needed to get her to school. And then went and sat down. He told me off again as we got off. My parting shot was that he might want to open the windows on his bus as surely keeping the air circulating would be more beneficial than insisting on everyone (except him) wearing a mask.

And like someone else said, bubbles in schools. Year groups being kept away from each other but siblings in those year groups obviously mixing at home. To me it seemed totally pointless to try to keep the children separated when the different sibling groups would ensure the mixing of any germs anyway.

And it has annoyed me for years now that pre Covid our local swimming pool was open all day every day and you could get into the pool at any time and swim for as long as you wanted. Covid shut it down for about two years and when it did open it did so with very limited times for swimming and each session only lasts for 50 minutes. So my kids who used to spend a lot of time in that pool now very rarely go because of the very limited times it's available for them.

Hoppinggreen · 07/11/2024 14:47

The Covid babies are in YR now, a Headteacher was telling me that in her school 25% of them are in nappies and almost 50% have some sort of SEN that she believes has been largely caused by Covid.
The YR Covid kids are now in Y7 and quite a few of them have very low social skills in some areas, several teachers I know also believe that this may be Covid related.
We lost a couple of people to Covid and had more lockdowns than most areas BUT in many ways were were lucky too and I have no issue finding some humour in how crazy the world was then.

Alwaysyoudoyou · 07/11/2024 14:48

@Iloveagoodnap yeah the rule changing was hard to keep up with. Remember meeting up with family, 6 of us for lunch which was allowed at the time, but I had my newborn in a sling...which made us 7, so we were denied entry to the restaurant. Whereas a few weeks prior children under the age of something or other hadn't counted in the numbers. Just couldn't keep up!!

IcedPurple · 07/11/2024 14:52

Feelingathomenow · 07/11/2024 14:00

People have replaced priests with scientists and consider themselves progressive. They’ve just replaced one group of people who tell them what to think and explain their lives and world with another set. Both involve an abdication of thinking for one’s self

The smug 'I prefer to follow the science' line was meant to shut down all argument.

MoMhathair · 07/11/2024 14:52

Hoppinggreen · 07/11/2024 14:47

The Covid babies are in YR now, a Headteacher was telling me that in her school 25% of them are in nappies and almost 50% have some sort of SEN that she believes has been largely caused by Covid.
The YR Covid kids are now in Y7 and quite a few of them have very low social skills in some areas, several teachers I know also believe that this may be Covid related.
We lost a couple of people to Covid and had more lockdowns than most areas BUT in many ways were were lucky too and I have no issue finding some humour in how crazy the world was then.

I had a really fraught conversation with a work contact around this recently. He had his second child in lockdown and he was very dismissively saying he doesn't see why YR children are struggling, he and his wife were able to spend loads of time with their kids, if anything it was better, it's all just an excuse blah blah blah. I had to point out to him that 1) lots of people had their first baby in lockdown, which meant the hadn't a clue what they were doing and had to get on with learning how to be parents with no support from friends, family, health visitors, baby groups, anything. Inevitably those parents would find it a lot harder and potentially get a lot of things wrong. 2) not everyone had their cushy situation. Some women gave birth alone in terrible circumstances, then had to go back to care for a baby either entirely alone (because they're single) or almost entirely alone because their partner has to work away or was a key worker. It was lovely for them but it was hellish for others. It struck me, not for the first time, how incapable some people are of imagining other people's circumstances, which may be different to theirs. To give him his due he did acknowledge that he hadn't really thought it through.

Herewegoagainandagainandagain · 07/11/2024 14:54

MoMhathair · 07/11/2024 11:18

I'm fascinated by this post. Do you genuinely think you can tell other people what they're allowed to discuss? I don't mean that in a confrontational way, I find it interesting - you have a belief that you can tell others that what they can and can't talk about online because of your feelings?

If anyone doesn't care about being insensitive and disrespectful to victims of a tragedy and the millions of people impacted by the biggest tragedy of our lifetimes, they are obviously free to discuss whatever they want.

Can we have a lighthearted and humourous thread about the Manchester bombings or Southport murders next?

IcedPurple · 07/11/2024 14:56

BraceletSleeves · 07/11/2024 13:25

I remember we had family friends round for a BBQ in the summer of 2020. I arranged the chairs into two separate 'bubbles' and divided all the salads into two sets of bowls. They brought their own cutlery, serving spoons and tongs.

One of the Covid 'highlights' was one of those annoying Van Tulleken twins writing an article in the BBC about how if you must have guests around, obviously you do so outdoor, you use brooms to measure out 2 metre distance between you, set alarms for when guests should wash their hands and encourage all men over 50 to bring their own utensils. Sounds miserable. I think I'd rather just read a book.

MoMhathair · 07/11/2024 14:57

Herewegoagainandagainandagain · 07/11/2024 14:54

If anyone doesn't care about being insensitive and disrespectful to victims of a tragedy and the millions of people impacted by the biggest tragedy of our lifetimes, they are obviously free to discuss whatever they want.

Can we have a lighthearted and humourous thread about the Manchester bombings or Southport murders next?

Ooh that's some great silencing - invoking other events to enhance the judgement.
People are allowed to talk about their own experiences in any way they want to. It's not up to you police them, no matter what the event is.

SoiledMyselfDuringSomeTurbulence · 07/11/2024 14:58

Herewegoagainandagainandagain · 07/11/2024 14:54

If anyone doesn't care about being insensitive and disrespectful to victims of a tragedy and the millions of people impacted by the biggest tragedy of our lifetimes, they are obviously free to discuss whatever they want.

Can we have a lighthearted and humourous thread about the Manchester bombings or Southport murders next?

Could you tell us what qualifies you to decide that there's no cathartic humour to be found for anyone at all in this thread? Because there are 60 odd million people who went through the UK lockdown, many of whom experience a wide range of awful effects, and I don't recall electing anyone to speak for us about it.

The fact that we all went through it and many suffered makes it quite different to the Manchester bombings and Southport murders, incidentally. Or any other completely dissimilar tragedy you want to co-opt.

Turboislander · 07/11/2024 15:00

Organising daughter's 8th birthday party during the 'rule of six' and joking that we should change it to a hunting trip as then we'd be allowed to invite more people.

Ohthatsabitshit · 07/11/2024 15:02

Snugglemonkey · 07/11/2024 14:02

The direction of the thread was clear from the outset. Reading something you know will upset you and then bring outraged that people wrote something that annoyed you is ridiculous. Noone is forced to participate in threads they find annoying, upsetting or tasteless, yet some think they have the right to prevent the threads existing. Nonsense.

But nobody IS trying to prevent threads from existing and people disagree on threads all the time and don’t expect only the like minded to respond. Why is this different?

Luddite26 · 07/11/2024 15:05

The rule of six ! 😂

Feelingathomenow · 07/11/2024 15:07

Turboislander · 07/11/2024 15:00

Organising daughter's 8th birthday party during the 'rule of six' and joking that we should change it to a hunting trip as then we'd be allowed to invite more people.

I came across my a picture/video of my sons 8th birthday “party” with his friends crammed onto a zoom screen singing happy birthday whilst he blew out his candles. He had months of no real time contact with kids being an only child. Completely criminal. I once found him watching tv with a friend on his IPad propped up beside him.

GrannyWeatherwaxsHatpin · 07/11/2024 15:08

That stupid NHS app - it amused me that they never released how many unique user downloads there were as I suspect quite a few did what I did, which is to download it, scan the QR code (or more accurately, wave my phone near the thing) then delete it immediately. They didn't reintroduce its use in the subsequent lockdown which makes me think they absolutely knew the short-comings, they just viewed those who had to unnecessarily isolate as collateral damage.

Isolation itself was awful, I was alone and by the last day I just cried all the time because I was so lonely and devoid of actual human company. A screen just didn't cut it.

But the worst thing by far was the bullying. The people who suddenly made it their business to monitor what others did, the NHS staff of my acquaintance who were thoroughly unpleasant to anyone "avoiding" isolation (i.e. not doing things that meant you might have to isolate ) as if you weren't suffering properly, the friends who lectured anyone who carried on doing leisure activities they deemed too high a risk, the shop staff who treated customers like they were a problem before you'd even crossed the threshold, the trashing of everyone's mental health and no-one giving a shit because all that mattered was Covid. Covid, covid, nothing else counted but fucking covid.

Feelingathomenow · 07/11/2024 15:11

Herewegoagainandagainandagain · 07/11/2024 14:54

If anyone doesn't care about being insensitive and disrespectful to victims of a tragedy and the millions of people impacted by the biggest tragedy of our lifetimes, they are obviously free to discuss whatever they want.

Can we have a lighthearted and humourous thread about the Manchester bombings or Southport murders next?

Actually if I had been part of the Manchester bombings, yes that would be fine for me to have a joke about it if that was my way of dealing with it. Everyone here was affected in some way by the pandemic. Just because it isn’t your way of coping it doesn’t mean others shouldn’t cope in their way. Its graveyard humour. It’s a well known coping mechanism- if you don’t like it hide the thread

GrannyWeatherwaxsHatpin · 07/11/2024 15:13

Oh, and "Following the science" as if there was one consensus. There bloody wasn't but no-one listened to the dissenting voices, did they? Nope, it was that fucking hysterical IndySAGE group and Neil Ferguson whose (flawed) modelling caused the unnecessary death of thousands of cattle during F&M so he thought that qualified him to have another go during covid. And thought rules didn't apply to him if he wanted to visit his mistress Hmm

PickAChew · 07/11/2024 15:17

I was fairly though not religiously compliant - made easier by being an introvert with no close family nearby - but refused to let a cobbled together app anywhere near my phone. If I didn't use it, I couldn't get pinged. I also left the house to take severely autistic Ds2 out for some fresh air and exercise when I had covid. I was able to do this without meeting a soul and his social worker thought it was perfectly reasonable.

TorroFerney · 07/11/2024 15:20

MoMhathair · 07/11/2024 11:18

I'm fascinated by this post. Do you genuinely think you can tell other people what they're allowed to discuss? I don't mean that in a confrontational way, I find it interesting - you have a belief that you can tell others that what they can and can't talk about online because of your feelings?

It is fascinating.

Two things can be true can't they, the rules were batshit crazy/illogical and also people died and that was sad. Also true is that people were said on the death cert to have died of covid when they hadn't so the figures were inflated. This happened to my MIL who had Covid when she died but did not die from it.