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?

MNHQ should submit this thread to the Covid enquiry

I actually think the biggest crime of the whole thing is that it was handled badly people now give less of a shit about spreading germs than they ever did. Partly because of the fury at how badly it was handled and partly because employers are even less understanding than they were before about people having time off when ill.

I have a DD with a life-limiting condition and more Covid people were so, so, so considerate.

If we were going somewhere and there was someone who had a cold or a bug we'd get a message as a heads up so we could decide to skip it or not. People happily washed their hands before coming into contact with DD.

Now it's all "well you just have to live" and "the children missed so much before..." and all manners have gone. To the point two parents have hidden illnesses (chicken pox and d&v) so we didn't cancel going as their child would be upset.

The LA don't consider Covid a reason for a teacher or other staff member in her specialist school - full of vulnerable pupils (one pupil at the school died from Covid. DD has been in ICU three times from it) - to stay off work.

It's much harder now for genuinely vulnerable people to risk assess.

Dh didn't take a single day off work. My kids were home from uni and school and all miserable and missed their friends. We all drank too much. Thank god for my dogs.

I sang the Stevie Wonder version. Was that the correct one?

True and there's record on here of how that went down

Similar for me - I live in a semi-rural area with easy access to lots of nice walks. The first lockdown was so peaceful, seeing lots of wildlife, hardly any traffic, lovely weather...I felt very lucky being able to go out and switch off from all the doom and gloom that was in the news. I still look back at that time now fondly.

But I totally appreciate for many others living in cities etc that it was a very different situation.

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

I worked in a supermarket. I remember hiding things I wanted to buy, and that were like gold dust, behind other things so I could go and buy them at the end of my shift.

On the shop floor we were told that we couldn't stand close to each other as it breached the 2 metre rules, or whatever it was, but when we were out the back we could all stand wherever we wanted, take our masks off and go for lunch together.

“Boris Johnson, fuck you” also fits the melody nicely.

In Wales, schools were not permitted to sing, so my gorgeous six year old DD had Happy Birthday spoken to her by the class, in a way that sounded more like a threat.

Remember the PINGdemic? 🙄🤣 That was absolutely insane.

That came about because of the ridiculous app designed by friends of some government ministers where you had to scan a QR code at every pub, restaurant or public building (museum etc.) that you entered. If your phone later pinged you because of perceived proximity to a person with COVID then you were supposed to isolate for 10 days.

I deleted the thing as soon as I realised that you couldn't even scan to say you had exited the place at a particular time. One day it had me in a coffee shop, going up The Shard and then in a restaurant between midday and midnight (when it automatically reset). All simultaneously! I never left any of them that day apparently, just stayed put and was suddenly able to be in several places at once.

People soon realised that all you had to do was click the camera of your phone to appear to have scanned the QR code and you could get into places.

The app even pinged at people whose neighbours through a solid party wall in terraced or semi-detached housing had tested positive. As if the virus could come through masonry walls.

I think that cost employers a heap more money on top of everything else because the pings were going off all over the place.

I remember being sat in the car, in a queue of traffic (obviously when we were allowed to go out) and thinking 'shit, I'm too close to the car in front; I haven't social distanced the 2 metres!!!'. I literally had a rush of anxiety at the time before realising how stupid I was...

"Masking up" made my toes curl. As does being 'anti mask' as if little strips with elastic attached to the end were people.

As did all those posts with people returning from whatever 'mask compliant' country to say how they were 'deeply ashamed' of 'anti mask' Britain, which was of course the 'laughing stock of the world'.

Ciries also had unexpected wildlife activities.
Like seagulls killing and eating pigeons in the middle of the roada because no takeaways in bins.... 👀 Was brutal

I live in Austria. It was absolutely fucking crazy in the pandemic with neighbours reporting neighbours for all sorts of minor things.

We had to have a green pass to do anything and you had to be vaccinated or have had a test within 24 hours.

The most ludicrous thing was when they started saying you had to have a green pass and a mask to go cross-country skiing. How the hell did they think you were going to catch covid from someone on a cross-country ski trail?? I can understand why they thought that it was a good idea for people using enclosed ski lifts for downhill skiing but fucking cross-country skiing?
Then they realized they couldn't police the green pass and masks on cross-country ski trails so they made a rule that if you had to pay to buy a ticket to go cross-country skiing you had to present the green pass and wear a mask but if you were on one of the many free trails you didn't.
Right, so I can infect people on a cross-country ski trail if I bought a ticket but not if it was a free trail.

Just one example of the many examples of complete and utter stupidity we were subjected to while our Chancellor got rich on contracts with his friends for tests and vaccines. Ordered over 40 million shots of vaccine for a population of 9 million, most of which ended up in the bin because they were out of date by the time people needed/wanted boosters.

I think lots of people did die, and that while treatment and vaccination has curbed that so the vast majority can forget it day to day it was until that point just as scary as we thought it was. Watching the daily deaths rising around the world like a score card was weird.

• was the woman who wrote "and the people stayed home" ever taken to task for her contribution to the awfulness?

I had never heard of this before (lucky me) and so googled it and just had to share the amazon description, which made me laugh...

🤣🤣 I don't know why this has made me laugh so much
I used to drive to my parents every week with some shopping. I'd stand on the front garden, in all weathers, shouting (because they're deaf). They used to get to sit in their hallway in nice comfy chairs, with a cup of coffee. Lucky sods.

I found a verse of the Sex Pistols Friggin’ in the Riggin’ a good alternative to Happy Birthday. Particularly therapeutic when sang out loud…

“It was on the good ship Venus
By Christ, ya should've seen us
The figurehead was a whore in bed
And the mast, a mammoth penis”

I was one of the supposed 'rule breakers' and was castigated by friends and family for not taking it all seriously enough. I was desperately trying to keep my small engineering business going - most people were on furlough but I still had to go in every day and look after the handful who weren't as they needed to produce parts for customers or lose the work forever.

My stress release was a couple of hours cycling after work, longer at the weekends but boy did that cause problems for some people - cos of Covid I was suddenly a MUCH higher risk of falling off and needing medical help than I had been during my previous 50 years of existence.
I drove down to London to collect my son from Uni - going via the back roads so no cameras could pick me up as we weren't supposed to travel. It was a crazy time.

I think, like everything else, it's got very polarised.

Some people have gone completely the other way with health anxiety. I got berated on a facebook group because I said my daughter hadn't had many days off nursery, which apparently proved I was sending her in sick (I wasn't, she just has quite a robust immune system).

I've also noticed (or maybe it's always been that way but I notice it now because I have a small child?) that people seek medical attention for everything. People taking their children to A & E with a fever or D & V. I saw a Mum online whose toddler had dipped his hand in her glass of wine and licked it, she was advised to get him straight to the hospital, although he seemed fine. I avoid A & E at all costs, especially if my daughter isn't well. There's very few things that aren't better off treated by cartoons in bed, fluids and cuddles- at least in a healthy, able-bodied child as my daughter is- than by sitting on a plastic chair in a waiting room full of sick people. It must be really awful for people who have conditions which genuinely require A & E on a regular basis. I'm very grateful my adrenal insufficiency is stable.

I do feel it's unfair to say that those who followed the rules were 'brainless ' as many people are not and didn't have a lot of choice. Especially in schools and other public places, it had to be enforced even if people didn't believe in it or were willing to break the rules.
Someone I know lost a relative after a prolonged stay in hospital with Covid because they didn't follow the rules enough. A healthy person lost because they thought it was all a conspiracy or whatever. It was a strange time and without some of the 'silly ' rules maybe more people would have died? Although maybe we shall never know.
I can't imagine anyone following the rules much now if there was another pandemic though!

We followed the rules. We disagreed with the rules. I was slaughtered on here for poiting out the statistical facts

No other than that everyone on Mumsnet seemed to think they were one or their DH was.

I posted about schools staying open and I recall the nastiest poster that would attack everyone and try to hound people away, pushed their way into a KW position in the second lockdown

They were pretty repugnant all round