Evidence of the pandemic?

[LaceWingMother]

Just idly wondering whether it's clear from any aspect of my life that the covid era ever happened.

Fortunately, no one I knew died or became seriously unwell from it, DH and I don't work from home because of it, DC now going through secondary school as normal, I didn't make any large purchases linked to it (one friend built a home office and a feckless neighbour bought a now-neglected dog). Apart from a few face masks stuffed in a drawer and forgotten about, I don't think there's any evidence of it in the house.

Does the impact of the pandemic appear in your life now?

Ever since I first had COVID (in 2022!) every cold results in a lingering dry/tickly cough that lasts about 5 weeks after all my other symptoms have gone.

I live outside the UK and my local hospital is requiring people to wear masks against. Not because of COVID but flu and RSV.

I worked from home before COVID because I moved away from where I work in 2025 but the rest of the office never fully went back. They have one office day a week and work from home the rest of the time. At my partner's work everyone has to be in the office three days a week or switch to a purely remote contract.

Just last year a colleague who is also fully remote spent a week working in the office, unknowingly had COVID before she arrived and infected half the office. Three people had severe enough symptoms that they were off work for 2 weeks.

My then teenage children lost their father(my ex) to Covid , said goodbye on the phone, he died the next day .

This has obviously had a huge impact on them they have done remarkably well and have since gone to college/ uni made lives for themselves , they live good lives we all their dad missed all this though and will miss all the future big events .

I’d say my eldest benefitted hugely during covid. He has dyslexia and become a real schoolwork avoider / masker. So in school he’d dodge work and they’d let for an easy life. Took him back to basic phonics and worked with him one on one. Got his reading age up from 4.5 years behind to his actual age.

It was a tremendous effort but top sets in high school now. He’s just had a parents evening and all teachers said things like engaged, trying his best and are keen for him to stay in their subjects.

For me personally I do wonder if the vaccine made me quite ill. A few weeks after I came down with lots of weird symptoms, facial paralysis, stroke like symptoms down one side, phytophobia, a facial twitch on the non paralysed side. It was put down to post viral inflammation as couldn’t find another cause or possibly Lyme disease. It’s a two stage test and I tested positive for a previous infection but not a current one. Test is not completely reliable though and apparently Lyme can cause an autoimmune type response to stressors.

Correlation is not causation so can’t say for sure either way but regardless I wouldn’t take another covid vaccine.

You are extremely lucky if you were not affected by covid. I worked on a covid ward for 2 years, got covid twice.....saw numerous people die on there own with no family fightened and alone......a time in my life I will never ever forget.

We were also similarly unaffected directly by Covid. Don’t know anyone who died of it, don’t know anyone with long covid. Carried on working as normal throughout as we were considered ‘key workers’.

I do know several people who died of diseases, other than Covid, in terrible circumstances thanks to the barbaric lockdown rules. Their deaths haunt me.

Lost two friends to Covid.

Employer has shut office so everyone wfh now - hooray!!!

I have a young family member whose life has been wrecked by Long Covid.

I saved over £10k.

It is so sad reading this thread, and infuriating because the reasons I left mumsnet during the pandemic are all still there... the lack of empathy, the blind belief that 'their' experience is the only truth and the dogged belief that there was a100% right way and 100% wrong way of managing Covid.
The thing is Covid was new and terrifying, for some it may have been a mild, for others it was deadly or devastating long term health wise... and we didn't know who it would hit hardest, or the best way to manage it, and the government of the time was woefully lacking in their management of the situation.
Lockdown was also crap, but at a time where we didn't know how else to manage a developing situation, it was necessary albeit poorly managed and probably done at the wrong times.
As a country we are still seeing the devastating effects of both covid the disease and lockdown as a way of dealing with it, in every single day.
If/when there is another pandemic on that or a bigger scale, I fear for how we will cope, because I'm not sure lessons have been learnt, I don't think grief and trauma from Covid has been processed and I think the conspiracy theorists and downplayers make it very hard for there to be a collective response.

Thankfully not affected, but I had a good friend in his early 40's (was in good health) ended up in hospital for a week during the first wave, struggling to breath. Thankfully he's good now. It's affected my mum's lungs and caused some problems there.

My partner lost their sense of smell and taste two years ago (they can smell a few generic smells, but nothing like their original scent), and it hasn't returned. Most of the foods they loved, now taste bland, all the same, or horrible.

I work in education and anticipate that we will be actively addressing children's social and educational gaps for at least the next six years. The cohorts most badly affected from a curriculum point of view are the current year 9 and the current year 5.

I don't know from the health point of view, but it had a really bad impact on our dc education, this switch to online, never working properly, and then university interviews online - such a disadvantage, no words. And even now post covid era, idiotic online lectures with uni lecturers not wearing headsets, swallowing words, slides disappearing, rubbish sound. etc. In other words, sub-standard education delivery - one of the most awful aspects of the covid era.

I caught it just before the first lock down. I was in bed for 5 weeks. I have never fully recovered and am exhausted most of the time.
Not a non-event at all.

You're very lucky, I suffer from long Covid, my health and energy levels have deteriorated quite significantly. My partner of 14 years was undergoing hospital treatment for cancer, he caught Covid while in hospital and we weren't able to visit him until he was at 'end of life care' and wearing protective clothing etc. Unfortunately his condition deteriorated so quickly that I only saw him twice before he passed away, the last time was on the day that he passed. Count your blessings, Covid has had a massive negative effect on my life.

My DD is still waiting for an NHS referral for hospital dental care after 4years (waiting lists exploded due to covid).
I still get twitchy if I don’t get out enough on the weekend (lock downs made me totally crazy),
My sister has long covid.

No one close to me died because of it but people in our town did.
My dad developed pneumonia in May 2020 and it was horrendous. We couldn’t go and see him and I wasn’t allowed to go and see my mother! The doctor said they thought he’d previously had Covid due to the state on his lungs. He survived thank god, but hasn’t been the same since. It is awful seeing him so weak now.

I remember our daily “Boris walks” around a local industrial estate with my baby in the pram and my husband would say I can’t go out walking more than once as it wasn’t allowed. (And those fuckers in power were partying!!)

WFH- only good thing to come from it. oh and quiet roads

DH is now 90% remote and it’s been a game changer! Our lives are much more balanced.

I now have non alcoholic fatty liver disease which I've been advised could be as a result of catching covid. My partner had appendicitis a couple of weeks after catching covid, also advised by the surgeon that he'd seen more appendicitis than he normally would.

I work in a GP surgery and patients died alone in hospital and some are still suffering from the affects, physically and mentally.

Can well believe it. I'm constantly amazed by the number of people who think there's a time limit on the educational impact of the pandemic and especially school closures.

That is really interesting - DD2 Y9 is really struggling this year especially, to the point where she is finally getting an Ed Statement.

I've always wondered how much was attributable to Covid.

My friend and colleague almost died from it. Thankfully she's ok now, except from lung damage and some MH issues. We work in public transport.

@Supersimkin7 I won’t believe a government again in a hurry.
Exactly this, my "evidence" is that I don't think I will ever believe, respect or trust any government again in my life, now that we've seen just how much gaslighting and damage they can do, with no shame at all. I do think covid was real, and could have been handled better by protecting the vulnerable, instead of destroying the whole country. And we really didn't need the exaggeration, complete refusal to acknowledge harms of prolonged lockdowns, the active stifling of any debate, throwing children under the bus, the deliberately frightening the pants off the public (Matt Hancock's words), coercing and bullying people to take the vaccine, claiming it was "absolutely safe" when they knew it wasn't, deliberately playing divide and conquer and provoking public infighting, the hypocrisy of the parties, although that might be a blessing in disguise - I think that if it wasn't for Partygate, we might still be having seasonal restrictions now, and hence far more "evidence". It's also led to a creed that the government can solve anything - "I can protect you from this nasty virus, if you follow my orders; and as for side effects (of lockdown), there aren't any!" Saint Boris declared, and so many people believed him. If he had instead said "we cannot beat the virus, we can only lessen the harms", I would have had far more respect for that; but realism isn't part of his world.

@foxandbee "This government"? The government we have now is not the same as the government in power during and in the years after after covid. Maybe not, but as for the party who is in government now: did they have ANYTHING AT ALL to say about the damage that lockdowns were causing to children? The only criticism they had of lockdown was that it ended. As far as I am concerned, they completely failed to be the opposition. They cheered lockdown on, and complained that it wasn't hard and long enough. They had plenty to say about Partygate, but that's a red herring. The real scandal of Partygate was the draconican rules being in place at all, especially people having to say goodbye to their dying loved ones through a glass screen, or in some cases, not even being able to do that. Even now, has Labour had anything to say about the damage caused by the lockdowns which they cheered on? Nope, it's still "ssssh... lockdown didn't really happen, we don't talk about that".

I was extremely lucky because no one I loved died from it. But it changed me. I was living in between two awful neighbours and I worked long hours. My mental health took a big hit. I think it either made people more selfish or I saw it more. And this seems to be the way it is now.

I used to love people and being out amongst them. I don't any longer.

Oh and DD was left with mild OCD/ fear of germs.

Lost my dad who contracted covid at the end of the pandemic. He also got covid a year before, there was no hospital room available, and when he finally got a room after begging his dialysis doctor, my mom said they saw many dead people wheeled out of the hospital he was in.

I couldn't be with him at his side in the end as I was stuck here. I missed his funeral as I needed PCR and had to be isolated in a hotel room for days.

Lost my favourite teacher too who left a young family.

Is that enough evidence or are you some idiotic conspiracy theorist OP?

A friend's mum died of it, reasonably healthy, got it, hospitalised then died so quickly.

Wfh : made my life so much better

Here in italy, y'all still need a covid test to step foot in a&e.