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 😂😭

It's still going on though. I'm currently having a 'discussion' on Twitter with an idiot who has accused people of killing their friends and relatives if they hug them or spend time with them. I mentioned that I hugged a friend at her Dad's funeral and apparently I'm lucky I didn't cause another funeral. According to them the pandemic would be over if people weren't too selfish to go without for a month.

I have little sympathy with people spouting this crap now.

I remember meeting up with parents and siblings on the beach to toast my birthday, illegally, May 2020. A helicopter flew overhead and we all ran and hid behind a giant rock. Ludicrous.

Had to do the shopping for my parents and grandmother who were stranded in their holiday homes near me, plus another stranded family. The filthy looks I got in Morrisons for having so much shopping! Needed two trollies as dad wanted so much wine. Then when I delivered the shopping, he made me put on an N95 mask to leave the bags on the path while he stayed ten feet away and only collected the bags once I was back in the car.

Two months later, they were round my place for a party laughing about the absurdity of it all.

People always have to go and ruin it, don’t they?

I thought this was a really nice, positive thread where lots of people were finally able to look back on a very difficult time, acknowledge how bonkers it was, and begin to laugh about it a little bit.

As someone who had some very severe anxiety and agoraphobia triggered by the lockdowns (having never previously suffered from anything like that before) I’ve found it really comforting to realise I wasn’t alone and the world really was a very, very weird place to live in back then. It’s been a very cathartic and healing thread to read.

Why can’t we just keep it at that, without slinging mud at each other and trying to make people feel shit again?

Anyway, I’ve just remembered another one of mine. We lived in a big city centre apartment building and taking the bins out involved a few flights of stairs and a trip outside. I once took only half the bins out because I didn’t want to be ‘greedy’ and deprive my husband of the opportunity for some precious exercise and an excuse to go outside! He thought I was joking when I came back and said ‘I took the bins out but don’t worry, I left some for you’. I wasn’t joking

@PinkSparklyPussyCat

It's still going on though. I'm currently having a 'discussion' on Twitter with an idiot who has accused people of killing their friends and relatives if they hug them or spend time with them. I mentioned that I hugged a friend at her Dad's funeral and apparently I'm lucky I didn't cause another funeral. According to them the pandemic would be over if people weren't too selfish to go without for a month.

I have little sympathy with people spouting this crap now.

The one thing we bitterly regret doing, and would not do again even if we were breaking the rules, was not going to see my 93 year old fil. He lives alone and all his routines of church, library and us visiting were whipped away from him overnight. He's too deaf to do outside visits, totally unable to do zoom etc and I'm convinced the isolation has shortened his life and certainly had decreased his quality of life years left, we did try end of garden path visits but his cognitive function had plummeted by the time we started seeing him indoors regularly again. His attitude has always been that he has to die of something and he had no wish to go into ICU under any circumstances. Ironically he was in very close, prolonged contact with a family member before Christmas 2020 who tested positive the following day and didn't catch it. He was tested every week as part of the ONS studies so we know he wasn't even asymptomatic.

I'm sorry to hear about FIL @Recycledblonde. Back at the beginning we all thought we were doing the right thing.

Anti bac gel on my hands after I'd picked up a stick and thrown it in the lake for my dog. Because of course it was almost certainly covered in virus

@Delilah79544

My friends birthday and wanted to nip to the nearest village to drop off her present, about 3 miles away. I packed a bag of groceries out my own cupboards just in case I was stopped I could say I was delivering groceries!! Dropped the present off, didn't get stopped so put all muy groceries back and that was that!

Love that!

@Delilah79544

My friend in Spain used to go for a walk carrying a bag of food shopping as at one point they couldn’t even go for a walk… and then the police started asking to see a receipt to see what time the food was bought! Madness

I did the holding my breath when I was going past people thing for about a week! It makes me laugh now.

I do feel lucky to live in a country where the public messaging was actually encouraging people to go outside a lot and exercise and to take care of our mental and physical wellbeing beyond just avoiding covid. We were never stopped from seeing friends and family, either.

Although it wasn't a bed of roses anywhere, the mood in some countries that limited access to the outdoors seemed truly horrible at some points. There's not much point avoiding one disease if what you're doing is also making you very unhealthy.

Although it wasn't a bed of roses anywhere, the mood in some countries that limited access to the outdoors seemed truly horrible at some points.

Yes @JojobaFromOctober, that’s the part that really gets me now, looking back on the UK situation. Even when it became really well understood that ventilation was key, and that the likelihood of catching the virus outdoors was so, so much smaller than indoors, people were being made to feel like criminals just for going on a walk, sitting on a bench, or having a snack in public. You’d bump into a friend out and about in the park, stop for a chat, and feel like you were getting dirty looks for daring to ‘socialise’. It was awful and I genuinely think people will have PTSD from that experience for years to come.

I did sympathise with some of the reasoning. People meeting in parks meant people travelling to those parks, potentially crowding public transport, going to shops to get supplies, potentially creating increased demand and putting pressure on emergency services and local businesses in particularly popular spots. But fuck me, it was no way to live.

@Toanewstart22

@SummerBluez

Why are all those who went to such ridiculous extremes so offended that some people maintained a normal existence?

I never washed shopping, rarely wear a mask and have never so much as wiped a trolley. I work in a secondary school, both my kids go to separate settings and husband worked all through. I'm only single jabbed. Never had covid. Some people just aren't scared of it, don't take it personally if you were/are.

Well bully for you, I hope you didn't have symptomless CV and pass it on. I'm not scared or offended (why would people be offended?) - I actually think you sound a bit smug without good cause I'm also slightly sceptical that you were so blase right from the off. Of course people were scared of a new and deadly virus that virtually nothing was known about, was killing people in large numbers, overwhelmed the NHS and can leave you with life changing health issues. I'm guessing you didn't lose anyone to CV?

Why the sarcasm towards the pretty normal attitude of not wanting to risk infecting others? Exactly what we are being advised to do!

There are several studies going on as to why some people do not seem to catch CV. The current thinking is that some people have been exposed to other viruses so their immune system reacts to CV too (they will have high levels of cross-reactive T cells). So, they think, these people do actually get infected by CV but only briefly as they then manage fight it off.

Maybe you were one of the lucky ones? Count your blessings

Didn’t do anything odd, but did wonder at people I know on FB complaining about their sore hands from washing them all the time, when they were at home and hadn’t left the house.

What I do find a bit bonkers now is the fact we have to wear masks on planes, cinemas, theatres, etc., but, if you have a drink or snack, it's OK to remove the mask!

Stopped opening the windows when I was cooking in case covid germs floated in and landed on the food.

I left Mumsnet back in 2020 as it was affecting my mental health. I wasn't in the UK at the time and lived in the Middle East. We had very strict restrictions from Feb 2020. My kids last day at school was on Feb 20 2020. They didn't return to physical school until 8 Nov 2021 - and they involved physically moving to another country. When we under the first lockdown , only supermarkets were open. You had to book an appointment and only 1 person per household could attend every 6 days. We had police checking the appointments and some areas of the country I was in at the time put barbed wire around areas and actual concrete road blocks to stop people getting in and out. The airport completely closed. We had a period of complete lockdown for 20odd days where there were no grocery or takeaway deliveries and you could only leave the house between 4:30pm and 6:30pm - it was in the summer and still over 40 degrees. It made me jealous/ill to see people going on walks in the lovely weather back in the UK and eating out to help out when we were physically incapable of going anywhere. It was terrible. My son has never celebrated his birthday in Kuwait as it always fell during Ramadan and 2020 was going to be his first party year and covid put paid to that. We made the decision to leave and are now in SE Asia. It was very strict when we arrived but it's easing now. I always wear a mask and sanitize as I think it's good practice anyway. I haven't been sick with anything for over 2 years which is a blessing IMO. However I haven't seen my family in 2 years and we haven't seen DHs for almost 3. All part and parcel of expat life but it's fucking hard.

My mum died of COVID, alone in the hospital, because we couldn’t see her. My uncle and three work colleagues are still very ill from long COVID. One can hardly breathe going up the stairs, another has chronic fatigue, another has neuropathy and lung damage. Have another friend who is front line NHS, and it has been utter hell for them. A lot of people died. My colleague in Italy who lives in Bergamo…the epicentre of the first wave….told me some things that were pretty grim.

So, I still wash hands, wear a mask whilst inside, got the booster. I also avoid crowds inside, supermarkets, won’t use public transport and haven’t been on holiday, and WFH. Did this during lockdown and do this now.

On the plus side, my garden is beautiful from all the work on it, I learned a lot about veg and flower propagation, and loads of DIY on the house is done. I also finished a book and published it in 2021. I learned how to trim my hair myself which has saved a lot of money on going to the salon.

I don’t look at any of the things people did on here as crazy really. Too many unknowns about transmission. Pre vaccination, it was a very deadly virus. The lockdowns and precautions saved lives.

I’m hoping by summer 2022 to be able to get more back to normal again. We’ll see. Let’s hope Omicron burns itself out, and not too many people get Long COVID, although I do worry about the latter having witnessed what my friends are going through.

@BeeDavis

I genuinely cannot believe people washed their shopping.

I did it for absolutely fucking ages. And quarantined stuff too!

@Beseen22

Carried home uniform in bag that went straight in washing machine then stripped off in communal hallway so clothes that had been in hospital (only from ward to door) went straight in the washing machine. Left shoes outside for next shift.

Carried about a pen lid to press button at pedestrian crossing.

I remember in Scotland there was an announcement that from 4pm grandparents could hug their grandchildren and we all sat in the garden until 4pm. Baby (that one grandparent hadn't met) woke up at 3.55 and my MIL looked over at me to get permission before she went to get him because it wasn't technically legal yet.

Oh my god that actually made me cry and I've heard a lot of sad covid stories! In my defence I am super tired and period stated today! 😬

@1967buglet

I'm so sorry for all the grief you have endured.

And I'm so impressed that you have poured your heart into your garden x