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?

If you’d been on the Scottish side of the border things would have been quite different, my son was same age but up here still in primary and missed all his transition to high school. He has special needs and was supposed to have enhanced transition. He got the same as all the other kids that year, 1 2hr visit

I find it really difficult to talk to people online. Had two meetings last week to do with DS and either the connection wasn’t very good, or it was hard to know when to speak… Maybe it’s just me, but I’m thankful I don’t have to do many online meetings in my job. It feels very unnatural!

Close family member left disabled and in a wheelchair, requires 24/7 care. Another has long covid and can no longer work due to Chronic Fatigue. Two friends have heart issues and lung damage. Both were fit, healthy ex-Army men running marathons prior to Covid. DH lost sense of smell never to return. One DC has healthy anxiety.

Personally, I have worked in government roles for many years and was working on the covid response. It was hideous at the time, but the reailty is there has been no let up since at a senior level due to Johnson, Truss, Sunak and Starmer failing to make things better. We have no money (Johnson & Truss) and no plans (Sunak and Starmer) and the pressure on senior civil servants to find the magic beanstalk and the golden egg to save the economy is enormous at the moment. While health wise I had no challenges with Covid, professionally I have never worked in anything like it - not even the 2008 financial crash. It is round the clock and I am not just exhausted, I am burnt out as are many many of my colleagues.

So yes. I notice the pandemic.

My girls were 14 and 13 in 2020... Their brother was 10.
I think about the girls doing their school work on their phones, in their shared bedroom whilst their younger brother shielded due to his disabilities.
I think about how ds had to cope with a whole new regime, how I gave up my job to homeschool him and manage his secondary transition.
I think about their resilience and how they worked so hard to achieve the grades they have and are achieving, how their mental health struggled (one girl was under CAMHs for anxiety and OCD, one became very introverted and socially isolated, ds was already having camhs support as a result if his complex needs) and I feel so proud of them.
To the outside world I think it would be easy to overlook the huge effect that the pandemic had on their lives.

I’m not sure she is tbh. She seems to be stuck in a very middle class and privileged bubble

There were always going to be people who were unscathed, the lucky few.

I'm glad some of those people are willing and interested to look outside their comfortable world, consider themselves to be part of the same humanity and want to know the breadth if experience that came about at that time.

The ones I have beef with are those who look away, don't want to know, or worse think those less fortunate deserve their fate while they deserve their special protection.

It would be easy not to ask the question.

What a charming post Mightymoog, hope you are feeling all happy and smug now. Well done sunshine!

Agreed.

There were winners and losers from pandemic policy. As there would also have been if we'd dealt with it differently. We can either be aware of this, or not. Option one is better.

Not doubting it, but why did you lose most of your friends?

How is she stuck in a bubble! She's here asking people to share their perspective. That's the opposite of being stuck in a bubble.

Obviously her situation remains sublime compared to some, so that's not going to change.
But 'stuck in a bubble' is referring to the inability to make the mental leap that others may be in a very different place and to be talking as though you can't imagine that... Which nothing the op has said suggests is the case.

I'm absolutely fortunate, and am interested in the greater world and other people's experiences.

My dh had a stroke the night after having the 3rd covid jab. Our doctor said it could be linked, they just didn't know. Luckily he is now mostly fine but his memory is shot and he can't go anywhere on his own.
For me I got very resentful of people because I worked in a shop and the number of people who came every day because they could really impacted me as I constantly worried about getting it and taking it home to my family. Three of us did get it but luckily we had no lasting effects.
A lady I worked withdidn't work during the first lockfown but she came back and told everyone how we were "keyworkers" god how I hate that phrase. We weren't special just doing our jobs because we didn't have an excuse not to.

Those who 'met up anyway' (in what I presume means against the rules) must be rather self-centred and lacking in empathy for others. We stayed apart to protect each other, surely.

Thank you for everything you did at that time x

He was and still is brilliant. I think. Using the phrase "hysterical narrative" says everything

Quite. I've never seen anyone less hysterical.

In answer to @LaceWingMother last post ..

Lol
Sorry but I have LC. After catching it for the first time uch much after all the lockdowns etc..l.
No one cared then about protecting other people when they ‘just going doing their own business’ whilst having Covid. No one cares anymore. And yet Covid is still very much present. People get ill and some still die.

So the hand wringing about ‘they dud not care about people’ because the rules said No then feels utterly hypocritical tbh.

Not quite. We stayed apart to protect those who were better off it we did, because we as a society collectively chose to prioritise them over those who were better off if we didn't. It wasn't possible to protect everyone.

It’s hard to believe you’ve read the accounts of devastated lives that your OP triggered, and can still post a trite follow-up like this.

Well surely you must know about the thousands of chikdren suffering if LC and cant attend school or inly on a limited basis?
Have not you seen any of them having their life destroyed NOW and not then? Or do you think your privileged area is protecting you and them from getting ill like that

I was very anti lockdown after the first one. And was very much of the opinion that Covid was mild now we have immunity. Had it a year or so ago and was just tired for a week.

This current strain (had it in Nov) has left me with post viral syndrome. I’ve gone from running 30 miles a week to just doing walks. Hoping for an
improvement soon but it’s taken away something I love doing and need for my mental health (and I was very good at). I’m not alone. Post Covid syndrome (or long covid) affects 10% of people even if you have a mild case (mine was quite mild).

I do worry for the future. I’m on a ‘long Covid for endurance athletes’ support group and there are thousands (probably more) of fit, healthy people who can’t exercise any more.

It’s a very complicated virus and can cause issues with multiple organs.

I just do the maths in my head - it will circulate every year. Then 10% of those people will get issues. Every year. It’s already having a huge impact on the workplace with many unable to work.

I don’t know what the answer is. I still don’t believe in lockdowns. We are living with it. But it’s shit. I can only hope for more treatments and research.

Yes, being redeployed to work in ITU twice.

If it happens again, I’ll be getting myself signed off I can’t deal with that again, it was too distressing and fucking scary.

OP if you are interested in the wider world and have to ask on here, then you really have been in a bubble. You were fortunate that you enjoyed the lockdowns and were / are in a public sector job that was never going to be affected, but the country took on enormous levels of debt to pay for closing down the economy and many, many people suffered from them, even though their risk of dying from Covid was very low. And yet you would have liked more / longer lockdowns. And if you think a Labour government would have done any better, that's laughable.

I would suggest doing some research on how Sweden handled the pandemic. They chose not to implement lockdowns and were not any worse off in terms of numbers of deaths and so on, but they didn't cripple their economy in the process, and presumably their school children weren't held back and impacted mentally as ours were.

Where you are correct is in how it forced people to make better use of technology. At my workplace, remote working was up and running pretty quickly. Against that, productivity slumped as a result, and I think this was even more true in the public sector.

The thread is a hard read, we were relatively untouched by it (we worked throughout and mainly onsite but in relatively low pressure environments, not public facing, essential supply chain) and life has gone back to how it was before for us and most people I know IRL. Our income has suffered but it’s hard to know what is due to Brexit and what is Covid. I think it is good for those of us who weren’t badly affected to be reminded of the horrors that have affected so many, awareness is important.

We locked down mainly to protect the NHS. Sweden had its way of dealing with Covid but the country is around 6 million population and large landmass, smaller cities and therefore more space per person - so more room for people to naturally keep distance.
60 million people in a more confined space meant we needed a different response.