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

[BaggyTrousing]

• 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?

My normally very placid DH going nuts because in a queue to get into B&Q (went there for a day out, even though never been in one before….or since), a guy behind us stepped closer than the two yellow line rule. Crazy times……

I had a baby in lockdown, I remember being out for a coffee once the restrictions had been lifted and we could go out again and one of my cousins came in to the cafe and came over to see the baby and the staff member shouted at her that we couldn’t ‘mix groups’ ffs 🙄

Or measure tiny little portions of milk into an ice cube tray and pop one out each time you fancied a cuppa? Better than popping out to the shops for 'non essentials' like milk I guess, and of course everyone has a car to carry back the 100 liters they bought in a single 'essential' outing.

Some of these make me laugh and others shudder. A ridiculous local traffic light system meant I couldn't go to my usual local shops which were just over the border of the next county and it was being policed (in Wales) but at the same time I was able to drive to collect my daughter from uni in Bristol unbothered. It was a beautiful sunny Satursay and the M4 was EMPTY. So weird.

Yes, as per a PP footage from Italy and Spain was spun to look far more horrific and panic-inducing than it should. I was so frightened in the very early days!

I am surprised how many forms, websites etc still have their Covid T&Cs on them about social distancing etc. Take it down, those rules have gone.

I assumed lock smiths

Spending 3 hours sitting around a small pub table with another couple, then offering them a 10 minute lift home (with the windows open) and them declining in case we might catch covid off each other.

The brief phase when it was suggested that we should wear TWO masks at the same time - and some even did!

I understand people continuing to mask if they’re in an at risk group, but the ones still wearing them completely incorrectly make me laugh (over their chins, under their noses, moving them down to speak etc etc)

I was on phone to insurance company. They still have a it may take longer to answer your call due to covid message playing.

Some of the pp are amusing but mn and generally it was vicious and pretty awful at the time

I would just say I am still ashamed of all the conspiracy theorists who said it was all a hoax, dragging very sick people out of hospital beds, and wrote uninventive anti-vax slogans all over town.

The only answers I want are from the people in charge who partyed while most others played their part and those who fleeced the system during a time of national crisis.

We also need answers on why National preparations for such an event were so woefully inadequate as due to climate change it is not if but when it happens again.

That reminds me a saw someone last week walking around with a mask on but not over her nose, I mean why bother? I remember seeing loads of people not wearing them properly and I couldn’t work out if it was that the masks didn’t fit over their noses or if it was an act of civil disobedience?

@YearningForAWinteryWinter
"
Isn't it scary how everyone became unthinking rule followers?
Normal intelligent people became obsessed with making sure rules were followed and wouldn't even consider any other point of view."

What I found was more scary is that rational people pointing out illogical rules or mass hysteria were denounced as anti vaxxers or covid deniers.

In an " Animal Farm kind of way", JK Rowlings book the Ickabog is a good analogy of the Covid pandemic.

Just remembered another.

Travelling through Heathrow and queuing 1 metre apart from the person in front, but cheek by jowl with the people in the lines either side of me and then sitting right next to complete strangers on the aircraft itself!

Still at the airport. The separation of travellers from different countries in different areas - until 10pm when the shifts changed, and we all ended up lumped together. Was covid less infectious after 10pm or something?

Ugh … I find that so annoying when companies do that. It’s just an excuse by this point for being understaffed.

Paddington is innocent!

Airport rules were the craziest. Various rules in place until the moment they delivered their nasty meals on the plane at which point everyone took their masks off & proceeded to eat & drink very very slowly before the masks had to go back on.

The whole key worker thing is still alive and well here, someone posted in a local group on FB about a near miss at a junction as they were 'driving to work as a key worker' last week

I had a friend who wanted to report her elderly neighbour whose daughter visited and 'got too close' when handing over shopping.

People are mental

How many people still have a picture of a fucking rainbow in the front room window?

Post lockdown but still restrictions. Trains that crossed the border from Wales to England. As you crossed there was an announcement over the tannoy that you were now crossing the border (can't remember which direction) and you had to don a mask. Covid apparently couldn't cross the borderline!

Again staying on the border between England and Wales. Pub just beyond the town was open while the one 200 yards down the road but on the other side of the invisible borderline not allowed to. Made no sense whatsoever.

This thread explains the chart in the FT today about global incumbent election losses better than any political analyst

My doctors' surgery still has a poster up asking if we have returned from Wuhan in the last two weeks.

None of it made sense.

we applied the same interpretation of rules as the politicians, which allowed us to live as normally as possible during crazy times. Amazingly, none of my immediate family have ever caught covid.

This reminds me of a woman on our area Facebook group 🤣

“Can anyone recommend a handyman to build a couple of flat packs, I work for the NHS”
And 4 years down the line STILL has “I can’t stay home I’m a healthcare worker” on her profile picture

It feels another life time ago now, but strangely also only yesterday.

It was such a strange year. I'm a fan of F1, and watching clips from that season with all the empty grandstands etc - still so weird and eerie.

Frightening how many people became self appointed rule enforcers too.

A friend of mine had a neighbour who was clearly watching her family’s movements and came out to ask her teenage son when he got home in his car, ‘if his journey was really necessary?’

Remember how we were counted in and counted out of supermarkets? Staff standing there with their number clickers and walkie talkies.