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?

I haven’t RTwholeFT but it seems the OP has probably got the message now. But it does boil my piss sometimes when people talk about the pandemic in terms of having a lovely family time going for walks and banging saucepans without a thought about those who suffered loss.

As well as losing my DH, I had to isolate with my parents and nurse my dad who had terminal cancer in the first wave. It was a truly shitty year for many. Huge hugs to all affected on this thread.

@Pigriver with writing the following you’ve made me see just how much my husband shielded me from during the pandemic when he was working. I was worried enough about him without knowing about the wills and death in service thing, they were so brave. Several nurses in my husband’s trust died from Covid, some leaving small children which was tragic.

“Friend was an A&E nurse and has PTSD. Being told to get wills in order, having to name who would get your death in service money and rules and availablity of PPE changing daily.”

I think Covid did affect everyone differently. I know some who loved it, without my husband working where he does that might have been us.

I read at the time about the screaming of children stuck in lockdown tower blocks and that sounded absolutely horrific.

I was one of the lucky ones during covid. I was a single mum on UC and had recently opened my own business. That obviously got put on hiatus but I still received full UC award so we were ok financially. I started another online business that went well for a few years.

So we stayed home baking banana bread and fixing up the garden. Kids were in nursery and reception so homeschooling wasn't too challenging. I actually look back fondly on our personal situation as we were in a lovely little bubble.

But the absolute horror that other people suffered, along with the complete betrayal and corruption of the government is something I'll never get over. It was a weird mix of seeing the best of humanity and people coming together, but at the same time our utter selfishness and how much the people at the top (government) don't give a shit about us. 💐 for everyone who suffered and continues to be affected by it all.

Remembered another thing. It was a catalyst for the end of my marriage.

We were both in "essential" jobs so we weren't at home together all day, thankfully, but despite my friend being in ICU fighting for her life, exDH was on the internet getting into all the conspiracies and getting sucked into them. He kept spouting rubbish that it COVID didn't exist, it was just a chest infection, the NHS was lying about the pressure it was under, he refused to wear a mask, all of it. The only thing I did agree with him was, we didn't give the jab to DD, because we both heard about kids getting heart problems on it, and we both had heart problems in the family, so we didn't trust that it wouldn't trigger something in her.

But after things eased he kept on with the conspiracy theories and that in part was the reason I divorced him.

My husband has long Covid.

DS’s education was hugely impacted. He has dyspraxia and the online lessons and lack of teacher contact hit him like a brick. He was also stuffed by the grade boundary changes that occurred in his A level year, which were needed because of the inflated grades during Covid. He’s thriving at university now but those grades will hang around like a bad smell.

And our elderly parents lost confidence and mobility that they have never got back.

Mask wearing and isolating ourselves was sold as an 'in it together' effort, however it wasn't that. We weren't protecting each other, we were protecting ourselves. A culture of snitching and judging was nurtured.

This is true. The general narrative didn't explore the way in which these things made some people more vulnerable. Hopefully we all know now about things like the increase in DV and deaths from alcohol abuse. On masking specifically, there's a poster on here whose teenage daughter was mask exempt, for example, and was on the end of shitloads of bullying from members of the public who you can bet wouldn't have dared open their mouths to an unmasked person they thought was going to twat them.

And it's not gone away either. There are people now who think they've got the right to judge and comment on those who still wish to wear masks for whatever reason. Normalising the idea that it's the collective business what people put on their faces has created a problem, whatever benefits there may be to properly fitted high quality masks.

For me the ridiculous increase in anti vaxxers and conspiracy theorists has been a very unfortunate legacy of Covid. It has given the likes of Elon Musk and Trump traction as well, as one look at X will confirm.

Yep, there has definitely been a number done on the collective mental health of the population. And people look to conspiracy theories when their trust has been eroded.

We experienced a charmed COVID existence, but many didn’t, so it was a case of “there but for the grace…” in our family.
However, in the current Epidemic (and yes, it is happening now - hospitals and morgue’s unable to cope with the number of deaths at the moment), my DC, who has “‘flu”, is so very ill, that unlike pre-COVID, I am seriously anxious about their survival now…

There was a norovirus outbreak at DS's school a few weeks ago. The head very quickly went back into lockdown measures to try to contain it. Initially the kids weren't allowed outside at break /lunch time then only allowed to mix with their classmates in their own patch of playground and they had to eat lunch in their classroom. I'm not sure if this really helped, or if the weekend gave a natural break. Or the head reminding families to stay at home for 48 hrs after symptoms.
Luckily DS doesn't remember much about the first lockdown, he was 5 so I think it was a bit of a novelty for him.

My best friends young child developed T1 during the covid outbreak, the hospital said they had had more new childhood diagnoses jan-march of that year than they usually see in a year. Scary. But amazing the improvements in treatments available.

This thread is a hard and sobering read.
My (fit, not old) mother died from Covid, no visitors. Still haunts me.
I lost 4 colleagues in their 40s and 50s to it, leaving behind young families.
I work in the NHS, our department was given no PPE for months so most of us caught it in the first wave. All the staff deaths were of people unprotected working in supposedly low risk areas.
We each covered the work of 4 people as colleagues were deployed to Covid wards and itu. When those areas quietened down in lockdown the staff were not returned for months.
My field was busy throughout. Busier as we worked hard to treat patients at home.
Hospitals were slow to change once lockdown kicked in. Once testing was widely available we should’ve moved to hot and cold hospitals to get electives back up and running. GP services remain a disgrace.
DC were sent home from school and worked alone as DH and I were needed at work.
School closures went on too long, I remember being furious that people were allowed to travel overseas and bring back new waves of infection while schools remained closed.
Many of ‘the rules’ were bonkers.
I know people whose jobs disappeared and never recovered.
The amount of public money blown on nonsense and scammers.
The small upsides for me were the weather and the peace. No crowds, cars or pollution and a simpler home life. Lots of walks in the countryside.
If we get another wave in my working lifetime I would take early retirement. The NHS and government were bullies and we had no reward, forced into strike action afterwards. They can fuck right off, the goodwill that held it up for years has disappeared.

I have Long Covid and so do both our children so it's been life altering here.

It is not really okay to get COVID but society would rather not deal with it and nobody wishes to pay. Individuals have been left to do their own risk assessments and many have concluded that they personally will not get a short, medium or long term consequence that merits behavioural change. It is just a roll of the dice.

There's still rampant infection levels of all varieties including COVID, flu etc and no airborne health and safety measures have been put in place by the UK Government for the public (they have air filtration in the Houses of Parliament and other Govt buildings). It is seen as a peculiar thing to say there should be clean air.

My dad had a severe stroke in January 2020 and came out of hospital the week before lockdown. He missed out on a lot of follow-up care and didn’t recover as well as he’d been predicted to. My mum had to care for him alone as she was clinically vulnerable and it destroyed her mental and physical health. She ended up having a catastrophic heart attack just before the second lockdown.

I spent the entirety of the pandemic incredibly angry, as my DH and adult children were all in “essential” jobs (not related in any way to healthcare) so had to go to work every day and risk catching covid just so people could do their shopping and buy stuff online. Why were my family’s lives worth less than people who worked in offices??

I was already chronically ill and had mental health issues before the pandemic, but I became agoraphobic and I still am.

It is worth saying that T1D can be triggered by many viruses and the relationship isn't unique to Covid - in my brother's case it was chickenpox. It's undoubtedly the case that there has been a dramatic uptick in the rate of new diagnoses however, and that Covid is a major factor.

I don’t see anyone bothering to keep their hands clean any more. The amount of times I’ve come out of a public loo to find (usually older ladies) leaving without washing their hands is astounding. It’s actually given me OCD and now I am a crazy hand washer because of the other dirty bastards out there.

It was awful. My upstairs neighbour made my life hell with the noise. I was lucky that during January 2022 he finally moved out. I was pretty much housebound due to being clinically vulnerable and my disabilities.

Waiting lists - during winter 2021 I became ill and all covid tests were clear. I had to beg for help from my GP who dismissed me with anxiety. Finally got referred to the chest clinic but there were huge waits

Our school recently went back to normal parents evening. I hate it. Wish I could go back to on-line.

I think a lot of the rules were nuts and looking back all the clapping for the NHS on a Thursday night while the people imposing the rules on us were quaffing champagne was embarrassing but I do know someone who died and I was seriously ill when I got it. By day 5 I almost ended up in hospital because I couldn't breathe properly but thankfully I began to get better at that point. I have no doubt it was real but I don't think we will ever get the real truth because it is being kept covered up. I think scientists were messing about with something that wasn't meant to escape into the community and something went terribly wrong.

I spent the entirety of the pandemic incredibly angry, as my DH and adult children were all in “essential” jobs (not related in any way to healthcare) so had to go to work every day and risk catching covid just so people could do their shopping and buy stuff online. Why were my family’s lives worth less than people who worked in offices??

Interesting to see this perspective. Most of the people we heard from working outside the home at that time were in health, sometimes social care. There wasn't half as much noise made about the people in roles that involved leaving the house so they could work in, essentially, population pacification. I think it's because that was inconvenient to acknowledge at the time. Speaking as a remote worker.

Please feed this back to the school. They will only have changed because they think it’s what parents want.

@SassK Most in government were stunned by how willing the majority were to abide, without question, by ridiculous and arbitrary rules. It seems incredible now that no one in government felt it necessary to explain/forewarn that the financial cost would be huge.
This is precisely what I find so incredibly terrifying, much more than any virus, that there was not a shred of public resistance. It's saying something if even the government did not expect it. And now that the government has discovered that this method of frightening the public "works" (although with Partygate, it's slightly more debatable), they may well use it again, when they think we've forgotten about it (I will not forget it for as long as I live). The precedent has been set: that is what really worries me. Five years ago, such methods seemed unthinkable. Now, the possibility of it happening again is very, very real. I was one of those who felt it was my duty to resist the more nonsensical stuff.

i think the good weather helped,
people were glad to lockdown in the spring of sunshine

My friend who had recently emigrated was so lonely in her new country under lockdown she took her own life. (Significant time difference so online contact challenging)

Of course we now have a government in power in the USA whose attitude to any future pandemic is "do nothing to prevent it, and if it happens pretend it isn't".

So there's a high chance of going through the whole thing again.