To ask what the most COVID bonkers thing you did about

[Jay36]

First off this is not a COVID denier thread.

But I’m wondering what was the weird things you did at the start of the pandemic because you were worried about CV. I’ll go first;

Left my shoes outside the house as was worried about bringing the virus ‘in’ in case someone had coughed on the pavement !

Bleached the door handles daily.

Feel like I was a bit crazy now 😂😭

I took to taking a suitcase to the supermarket so that it was easier to carry my stash of booze back home (honestly it was only so we could have cheese and wine in the garden, with a few staff, well OK about 30 staff, it definitely wasn't a party, Yes the background music was a bit loud, but that was in case anyone was hard of hearing and no were not dancing, everyone got bitten by ants so we had to bounce around with our arms in tha air).
Boris (think everyone will fall for this, sounds convincing to me) Johnson

It is weird looking back isn't it ?
I remember when it all first kicked off thinking it would be like swine flu, bad for a small majority, then the numbers seemed to sky rocket. I messaged a relative who worked in another hospital further south, we had about 13 admissions, wondering how many they had and they messaged back with a much, much higher figure and thinking 'oh shit this is going to be serious'.
I did do the stripping and washing my uniform as soon as I came in the door, because that was what was being advised. I never washed or quarantined anything else coming into the house, but I know some of my colleagues did.
The messaging in the NHS seemed to be directly related to what PPE was available at the time, at least initially and it didn't take a rocket scientist to work this out. Didn't fill you with confidence, knowing that you were being given the bare minimum, not because of science but because they were having difficulty sourcing PPE.
The most covid bonkers thing was having an earnest discussion with colleagues about what to do if stopped by the police, in our car whilst wearing our NHS uniform and badges that said 'community nurse' on them and should we print off something to prove that we were infact community nurses and not just wearing the hideously unflattering and hot uniforms, with a boot full of assorted weird and wonderful nursey stuff, to visit somewhere we shouldn't

Anti bac every bit of shopping
Stripped and showered once home from work
Using tissue or wipe to open doors
May 2020 was my mums 60th, I parked my car in the next street and quietly met her in her garden to give her presents, we were terrified someone would report us.

I remember people really fretting (in a fb group) about needing to escape the little kids but they'd already had their allocated daily walk. Other sensible people told them to go out on an evening when their partners got home so they could have a sanity break, because that mattered a lot and they needed to not lose the plot. It was so bad. I also remember almost crying, really feeling freaked out and claustrophobic, when the government said we couldn't go to allotments - it was my one quiet place to escape to - and I remember a lovely lady down the road walking past with her dog as I nipped out to stick something in a bin and guiltily telling me she had to take the dog for a walk as she was old, stuck in her ways and wouldn't poo in her garden. Trying to reassure her that I understood without somehow suggesting that I was an inconsiderate virus vector... still think about that sometimes. Always say hi when I see her now. There was so much worry.

Respect to the people who are now prepared to fess up that they were panic buyers. I did some odd things, but I never panic bought, and I said some harsh things at the time about those who did : ‘stupid and selfish’ would have been at the politer end of it.

Looking back, though, I can now see that those panic buyers were frightened, that fear does very strange things to people, and I should have been more understanding of that.

Now, I have said even harsher things about anti-vaxxers : ignorant, thick, selfish morons. But maybe there’s more to it. Maybe they are not all stupid. Maybe they behaving irrationally because they are frightened. Just a thought…

I work in a secondary school, admin.
The day it locked down was surreal.
We loaded our cars up with equipment to work from home.
Me and a colleague, who’s also a good, good friend tearfully hugged in the car park in case we didn’t see each other again
We were completely serious…

I bought a she-wee thing, during that period where it felt like all you could do was meet one person for a bloody walk. With all the public toilets, pubs and cafes being closed I got a real bee in my bonnet about not being able to find a loo while out and about.

Never used it, it’s just sat in a cupboard somewhere now.

Looking back now, all the ‘one walk a day’ stuff really was fucking bonkers wasn’t it? I’m willing to bet nobody at all caught Covid from taking a walk around the block but my god we all got so worked up about it

Ha I also have an unused she wee

@Magicmum101 I’m sorry you lost your friend.

I worked really hard to keep my sanity during lockdowns - having had not-insignificant mental health problems I knew a) how quickly things can spiral in crisis situations and b) how much I value my mental health. There were those around me who just took to shouting at anyone who did things differently to them, even if it was for a good reason and not risking others, as if somehow they’d forgotten that I was not only an actual person (and not a monster) but someone with whom they’d been friends for years.

Those friendships have, by and large, not survived covid and I still feel like I’m grieving them.

@Stiffcondomhat that actually makes me feel so much better

@Magicmum101

In the second lockdown, after following every restriction to the letter, I was in a bad emotional place and went for a 10 mile drive when the limit was 5 miles. I didn’t stop anywhere and the windows were closed. When I told my best friend, she put the phone down on me and hasn’t spoken to me since (after speaking every day). It was the week after Boris had been caught cycling - with entourage - 10 miles from Downing St. I wonder what my former friend is thinking now… was it worth losing a 25 year friendship?

In summer 2020 My "best friend" of about 15 years cut me off and ghosted me after I made a Facebook post about how I wasn't scared of covid and thought most of the rules and regulations were bollocks. Just stopped speaking to me and blocked me on absolutely everything

I only found out why months later from a mutual friend

My youngest DD had been told to shield and my husband was furloughed so we sat in our back garden for nearly the whole time we were in lockdown.We thought if we ventured out into the front garden we might catch it from a passer by.We we're just very grateful we had good weather, otherwise we wouldn't have gone outside at all.🤣

I didn't necessarily didn't do anything different throughout the whole pandemic. Didn't isolate my Mail for 3 days . Didn't wash my shopping . Went to the supermarket. The only thing I did do was to add Dettol detergent to the was when I was doing my daughter's work uniform because she is a front line nurse. Wash was put on as soon as she got home from her night shift and she went straight into the shower.
I'm living a normal life .

I do look back and feel astonished at some of the things we all did. But I think it’s so easy to forget what it was actually like at the time. There weren’t even any Covid tests yet, so there was no way of knowing whether anyone had it. We didn’t know how serious it was, we were getting a different news story about it every day, and everyone was just doing whatever they could to feel a little bit safer.

It’s classic ‘safety behaviours’ isn’t it, in the face of so much uncertainty and so many unknowns. You latch onto the things you feel like you can actually control. Wiping down shopping and anti-baccing your hands every five minutes was a tangible thing you could decide to do, and feel like you were somehow controlling your situation just that little bit more.

It’s no surprise so many people are still struggling mentally after two years of this, even though we’re in a very different place now.

Last spring we sanitised a chair and put it on the drive for my mum to sit on when she visited a couple of times a week. I should have just let her sit on a chair in the kitchen with the door open.

Honestly, I cant think of anything. I still have vulnerable family members I wear masks around in their homes, as I'm a commuter on crowded trains where people don't bother wearing theirs . I still wipe down the shopping. I remember how black my clean hands were shortly after starting my shifts on supermarket tills back in the day; it was so disgusting, so it was a great habit to get into belatedly. I still take outdoor clothes off as soon as I get in. Being a keyworker and going in throughout, I felt so much better doing so, and that's continued

wore mask outside. cringe!

Waiting in a queue in the rain to get in the local shop who were only letting in 2 at a time... and I coughed - everyone gasped and stared at me and I muttered 'smokers cough, I don't have covid'...

Getting in to the shop and realising the news about panic buying toilet roll were true and there was none left (and that perhaps I shouldn't have waited 'til I had none left...) and discovering that the shop assistants had a stash of toilet roll in the back they were saving for 'locals only' and making sure that each family only got 1 pack of 4, because apparently some people were sending in their kids and so on to get loads .
Oh and some people in the village set up this insane facebook group documenting 'strange cars' and debating whether to report to the police as they were sure it wasn't someone from the area. "I saw a black BMW reg abcc123, is that anyones car before I report it as travelling out of area" "Did anyone else see the green van at the beach? I don't think they live here, we should report that and make sure we keep an eye on the parking place"

It all felt a bit bizarre as I am a teacher and still had to go in sometimes to work in the hub with the kids who had to go to school with nothing more than a wet paper towel to 'disinfect' desks.

The first covid was a different virus to this one though. I also washed my shopping and had an airlock in the porch, but let's not be too hard ourselves. We were scared based on what we were told, and we were told that because lots of people died. It wasn't bonkers to protect ourselves and our loved ones as best we could

I bought four chickens and a fuck ton of tomato plants. We were going to be self sufficient.

I wiped my door handles religiously and sprayed seats down after people sat on them in the garden.

I washed my shopping, took my own carrier bags that were then sprayed.

I did a decontamination process when I walked through the door with the shopping. I took my shoes and clothes off and placed them in bags, put the shopping in the sink and sprayed it sprays the room and bit of carpet I'd stood on and went up for a shower and washed my hair.

My dad told me we could have power cuts and to be prepared by buying a camping cooker and making sure I had plenty of wood to burn in the incinerator for heat.

Very little. Never used hand gel , didn't isolate mail or washed shopping.

@OfCourseIDontMind

After not being able to leave S.E. Asia for 14 months because of covid, we finally managed to get flights home. The threat was very real. Few people were vaccinated, including us and there isn't the medical infrastructure there like there is in the UK. We were dressed like this. We weren't the only ones. We might have looked like Lego people but we didn't catch the virus. Had to travel through 4 major airports to get home because flights were being cancelled and airports were closed all over the world.

I think you win

Being classed as a Key Worker and driving to and from work in my car with a letter from the bigwigs on letter headed paper stating I was as such in case I got stopped by the Police.

My mother in law had a covid fridge in the garage. When she got a Tesco delivery she’d wipe all groceries. She had wipes, gloves and a mask for this purpose. The shooing would go to the covid fridge for 48 hours before coming into the house fridge.
Covid fridge would then get cleaned.

When we could see her, we had to stand on a bin bag in the porch.

She never had this level of anxiety prior to covid. She’s much better now and fully admits she was crazy for a while.