What would you do differently if there were another lockdown?

[Ifithappens]

If we had another lockdown happen, i doubt it but if it did, what would you do different this time round.

I cant say i would change anything as i live alone, and i enjoyed it tbvh.
I didnt go mad with stock piling.

But if it happened again i would knit another quilt.

Was that in Wales? I think I've heard people talk about it happening there.

One hour was a recommendation that many people treated as law.

I think it hugely depends on the nature of the virus people are "locking down" from.

Plenty of people saying they wouldn't abide by the rules, but if it was something that spread relatively easily and had a high mortality rate (v unlikely) i think lots of folk would be keen to take whatever steps they could to lower their/their family's risk of catching it.

No, there wasn’t. The regulations didn’t impose a time limit, or an official frequency limit (beyond “once a day” guidance in some messaging), or a distance restriction in England. Similar rules applied across the UK with minor variations but no time limit. Michael Gove said an hour or so should be enough for most people but it was never a rule.

OP I assume you are talking about hantavirus when you say ‘new virus’?

you realise hantavirus is not a new virus in the same way that covid 19 was, don’t you?

I dont think its tbat people want to ignore rules. But knowing the long term effect that Lockdowns and School Closures had on DDs mental health, I would do just eniugh to make sure that isnt repeated. And will urge anyone with children DDs age last time (7yo) to do the same.

Im not sure there’s anything I could do differently to be honest, it wasn’t really in my control. DH and I still have to work full time from home, but as I didn’t count as a key worker the school/nursery wouldn’t take my kids, including my toddler who we realised during this period was profoundly autistic. Working full time with 3 young children at home, including an autistic toddler who only slept 3-4 hours a night nearly killed me TBH.
I’m not sure what I could do differently though. I couldn’t force the school/nursery to take my children.

it will depend on the illness and spread including how it affects children.

It’s easy for people to say they would ignore things. That would work if what you plan to do involves just walking or cycling unless you have an electric car. If sure if needed fuel would be rationed - key workers who need it for work. Companies, certainly large ones would follow government orders on opening as staff would be ill or insurance invalid.

You’d need to be careful not to need other treatment. While it might be true that most healthy adults and children would suffer but not need hospitalisation vulnerable people would be on the normal wards and in A&E so your fall while gardening or cycling or your child bad cut would be treated in a different way. Not because the staff would not want to treat but being overwhelmed.

I don’t think we’d do anything different really. Once I started WFH for 2 weeks we started visiting family and friends and just sitting in their garden. Tested before we visited, gardens were obviously super ventilated and everyone was fine. I can’t believe some of the stuff I’m reading here, that people never even sat in their own garden - I never understood why some people hated lockdown but I’m starting to understand it more. Hopefully a bit more common sense would prevail.

All the things that humans need - exercise, fresh air, nature, company and connection, love and laughter. I'd do that.

I know which of my friends would do it with me now.

I don't know if I would comply. My only child DD didn't see another child in the flesh for weeks at a time (months, possibly, in the third lockdown) and it had a vicious impact, causing acute separation anxiety when society did reopen. I also can't believe we complied with ridiculous rules like going back into workplaces to sit alongside colleagues while still being banned from seeing and hugging our parents and wider families.

I'm finding it hard to read all these comments since my sister died of COVID I. February 2020 and my brother died from it August 2021

Dunno, not caught covid and then nearly died just before lockdown? Had a job that meant I could be furloughed rather than just cracking on through it all?

I think many people are completely forgetting the horrific social pressures during that time.
Everyone watching their neighbours’ every move. Reporting to the authorities any potential breach of the rules. Noting houses not coming out to clap on a Thursday and unilaterally deciding they were some of the worst people in the world.
Calling people murderers for taking their kids to the park.

It was a really shameful time as a society.

Said gently but this is not a thread you should be reading. You will understandably find it painful given what happened to your family.

I’d still see my family, I wouldn’t wash the groceries before putting them away, I wouldn’t shower and change clothes every time I came back from a walk.

Ditto! I went from the end of February till 23rd May without seeing my dad who then died of covid on 25th May…the longest I’d gone without seeing I’m in my life. Never ever again.

I'd try not to mutter to myself behind the mask when shopping. The privacy it gave me seems to have brought out the inner loon who needed to keep up a running commentary on what I was buying 🤡

I’m sorry that happened. Losing our dad to it (in a care home) made us all the more determined to get out there and grab life and live it

Not catch it! When I got it the second time it really fucked me over physically.

Personally I wasn’t majorly bothered by the lockdowns, but my then-teen DCs really suffered. I def would’ve let them have more freedom than I did. I know they didn’t totally stick to rules but they did ask to do a couple of social things and I said no. Don’t know if that made much difference to their overall mental state though.

Would’ve advised eldest to not start uni in summer 2020 - that was a shitshow.

So most of my regrets or what I’d not do with hindsight are children related.

I didn’t do things like quarantine post or bleach shopping - just stuck to the ‘rules’. I wouldn’t even do that next time or be so angry towards those that didn’t.

I would refuse to be guilt-tripped by anyone trying to pull the 'how hard is it to stay the fuck at home and watch the fuck out of Netflix' bollocks, especially when coming from my-little-family types, even more so when they were furloughed or SAHPs. I wouldn't necessarily not comply with the regulations, but any smug banana bread and gardening types who reacted in horror at the thought of people who live alone not wanting to go without seeing a loved one for months at end would be getting very short shrift from me, Extremely Clinically Vulnerable™ or not.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-52012432

Scroll down to the comments.

A real time capsule.

I would quietly ignore it. We probably should have done the Sweden thing. So many businesses in our town were destroyed by the government.

I'm so sorry to hear about your siblings. A family member died of an unrelated illness and all the time not seeing him while thinking we had years ahead was wasted. I regret that.

Yeah. I think the first thing I might do is remove any social media, including Mumsnet to minimise social pressure..

Without that I would not know there were drones persuing hikers, or that police were checking shopping baskets, or that the busy body down the beach was photographing the fish and chip queue.