To be really fucked off that COVID has become the new millennium bug?

[PulseFinger]

Remember the millennium bug? Yeah, never happened. Not because the threat didn’t exist - the threat was recognised, measures were put in place to prevent catastrophic consequences, years of work was done to ensure information and IT systems were kept safe. But ‘the millennium bug’ became a joke about experts overestimating a threat, about hysteria, about all those silly people who fell for it. Not like us, the genius majority, who knew the whole thing was a load of froth about nothing. Shut up, doom-sayers, you were wrong.

AIBU to think COVID has become this generation’s millennium bug?

The bitterness and bile recently thrown on Mumsnet at anyone who dares to bring up the work they did during the pandemic - junior doctors, for example - has boggled me. It’s not a surprise that people want to put the pandemic behind them - it’s foolish and short-sighted, but it’s what society does. Exactly the same thing happened after the Spanish Flu. Lockdown was shit for the majority and had many, many negative consequences for the economy, people’s mental health, etc. So, I get it - people are bored of talking about it, think it no longer matters to them, want to move on. But the extent to which people are willing to re-write such recent history in order to belittle anyone who doesn’t share their perspective has really taken me by surprise.

As a newly identified virus moving rapidly through the population, SARS-CoV-2 was an unknown quantity in late 2019/early 2020. The response of the WHO to designate it a pandemic and the response of governments to try to control its spread was entirely appropriate. The work of hundreds of thousands of medical professionals meant that the majority emerged from the lockdown periods relatively unscathed in terms of their physical health. Seems like public health policy doing its job, to me.

“Yeah, well, we should have just let old people/the vulnerable/anyone who isn’t me because the sheer power of my ignorance makes me immune to disease DIE, shouldn’t we? Let the rest of us get on with our lives!” WE LIVE IN A SOCIETY, JANET.

The NHS didn’t completely buckle under the strain, which meant significant numbers requiring hospitalisation were able to access treatment. And people are somehow seeing this as proof that we DIDN’T need to be in lockdown? Lunacy.

I’m so fed up with some people, with the benefit of hindsight, minimising the threat posed by COVID. Apart from anything else, it’s fucking insulting to those who died, those suffering with long COVID and related conditions, young people left with lifelong cardiac and respiratory issues, the clinically vulnerable who still have to live with a high level of risk in alongside an increasingly complacent general public. Mavis down the shops is not somehow magically more qualified to comprehend the implications of the unchecked spread of COVID than a swathe of epidemiologists just because she says so and “that’s her opinion!!1!”

If you do disagree, I’m genuinely, grimly fascinated by what you, as an armchair expert on epidemiology and public health, would have advised, in March 2020?

Tldr: a vocal minority (on Mumsnet) persists in claiming that COVID wasn’t a genuine threat to public health; AIBU in wishing they’d stfu?

I agree, OP. So many people saying that lockdown etc was too much, masks were ridiculous and didn't work etc, but they don't have any better ideas than "they should've just let it rip". It usually boils down to "they should've done some gibb that didn't inconvenience me".

I don't think lockdown (or really much of the process) was implemented well, but I do think that at the time it was the only option (for the first few weeks anyway). Equally, other things could've been done better, but the people who say those things shouldn't have been done at all (while offering no alternative suggestions) drive me up the wall.

I worked with many who who were pretty terrified. Not of catching covid per se, but terrified about what was happening. We lost colleagues quite early, set up new wards and pulled staff from their normal jobs to work on the wards. So nurses - diabetic nurses, school nurses, health visitors are suddenly have emergency training to work on covid wards.. physios who have spent 20 years treating old ladies hips are suddenly chest physios keeping people alive while wearing full PPE... Speech and language therapists are suddenly becoming HCA's and being taught how to wrap a dead body. Yes. People were terrified. BUT, it was also the most inspiring time of my entire career. These scared people who pulled together, supported each other and did everything that was needed. They were all incredible.

Well said OP.

The anti-lockdown voices have grown with 20/20 hindsight and the knowledge that they didn't die of covid, as though that outcome was inevitable.

I suppose that people's ignorance and selfishness shouldn't be a surprise, but I am always a bit taken aback by how keen they are to publicise it!!

If I, and everyone else, had adequate financial support then I wouldn't have been quite so opposed to it.

I would still have had grave concerns about the impact on vulnerable children. Look at the cases of Kaylea Titford and Dylan Freeman - both cases of families who were doing fine before lockdown and whose children died of abuse or neglect during lockdown - plus all the cases of children where things weren't right before but got so much worse during lockdown, like Arthur Labinjo-Hughes.

I would still have had grave concerns over the impact on victims of domestic abuse - like Helen Bannister who tried to get help but couldn't before she was murdered by her partner.

I would still have had grave concerns about the impact on education, which is still being felt now e.g. in high rates of persistent absence.

I was trying to teach/support four DC across four different Key Stages, two of whom are disabled. One of my disabled DC has significant SEN and attends specialist provision, no school place as the whole school closed even to key worker children. No respite care. Medical appointments were either cancelled or moved to phone appointments which weren't fit for purpose, multiple times I was told x, y, or z intervention/therapy/treatment was needed but that it would have to wait because covid. Disabled DC care needed massively increased both due to the delay with interventions and as they needed additional support while they tried to make sense of the new world. Both thrive on routine and that routine was upended. One has a very limited diet and I had difficulty getting their safe foods. I needed surgery which would usually necessitate a stay in hospital, my surgery was delayed multiple times then was eventually done as an emergency. I was discharged same day with pain killers to manage at home because it was deemed too much of a risk to stay in hospital despite me needing nursing care. One of my parents was very unwell, I couldn't go see them. I lost two family members and a friend to covid and their funerals were held on Zoom - fucking Zoom.

And that's my experience. Other people lost their livelihoods, were locked up with their abuser(s) with no one coming to check on them, had difficulty accessing food, medical care, or human contact. One of my other friends spent the entire first lockdown without a single piece of physical contact because they lived alone, their mental health is still suffering now because despite the existence of video calls sometimes you just need a hand to hold or a cuddle from someone who loves you. Some people had limited or no access to outside spaces. Disabled people indoors with no respite care. People afraid that they were going to be forgotten about or that they were going to die.

But yeah, jolly japes in the countryside. Fantastic. Happy days.

The economic and societal fallout from the pandemic has made people feel that every decision made during this time was wrong because times are so fucking shit now.

Probably thank you for answering honestly.

Quite.

The only thing we can hope is that we are better prepared for something like this happening again. The whole thing seemed a total shambles tbh and I think this is why it resulted in lockdowns as a last resort.

The way this country dealt with Covid was nothing more than a political point scoring machine, the habitually ignored the science, and proceeded to move forward with policy after policy to curry favour from the public lapping up what ever was presented to them.

Scotland keeping masks on, no science to back it up, lets do masks. England coming out of lockdown? Wales, lets stay in for another week.

I for one will never forgive, how our leaders treated us during this time. The lockdown parties, show, that those with the actual facts, were not scared, they created fear. Shame on them.

I guess you've never gone from working in an office and having an active social life to living and working 24-7 on your own then 🙄
Lockdown was one thing but all that crap that followed it afterwards with different rules in different tiers / levels got to be nothing short of riduculous.

The tiers were ridiculous. We were in the highest tier so had lockdown in all but name, my friend lives a twenty minute walk away but is across the border into a different local authority and was in the lowest tier. How does COVID know to stop being dangerous at the boundary line!?

No i didnt work in an office. I work In a shopping centre where I could see thousands of people a day to seeing the same 4/5 twice a day and it was brilliant. Maybe years of working with the general public didnt make me miss them. Working by myself for 5hrs every other day. Long walks in the afternoon/evening. 18miles one day.

What can I say my experience was great

What about the people who crop up saying “we never had a proper lockdown!” - I find that just enormously frustrating. People were terrified that if they went out for a longer walk than was necessary they’d get arrested. Playgrounds were shut for months and benches were roped off.

I think a lot of people approach the whole of lockdown with the attitude most of us had at the end - that it was strictly enforced, that there were a million get outs and versions of bubbles you could have to allow you to do most things. It wasn’t like this in 2020 at all.

I also completely agree with you on this. I remember the Cheltenham Races going ahead, thinking "What the actual fuck are they doing????"

I agree with your points OP.

COVID was a brand new serious virus with no vaccine or cure, ripping through the world's population.

Yes there were massive problems caused by the lockdowns, but there also would have been massive problems caused by not locking down, i.e. thousands more people dying of COVID. The government, in fact the world, were in a no-win situation really. It's very easy to criticise with hindsight, but I'm not sure what would have been a better strategy in the early stages of the pandemic.

Totally agree, and the fact that it happened before (Spanish ’flu after WWII) and has happened historically, normally in cycles of 100 years, means that no thought had been given by Governments across the world to how to organise a lockdown/quarantine, even after the warning signs of impending pandemic, such as the SARS and Ebola outbreaks leading up to COVID 19. (Except, in fact, I believe that a US response had been identified, only to be dismantled by the orange buffoon, Trump!)
There should be a recognised Global response put in place and reviewed every 10 years as technology moves on, so that the next Pandemic benefits from the latest innovations and causes less disruption to healthcare providers, education and business.

I remember Fauci saying something like this- basically that any successful response will look like an overreaction, of necessit

Another line that should be studied in schools.

I wasnt terrified . As I said I went for a 16mile walk one day, drove 10miles to go for 2-4miles walks alot of other days.

Try living in a village where half the retired population made it their business to shame anyone not adhering strictly to lockdown rules! Fucking nightmare.

There are things the government could have done better with the benefit of hindsight, and for that I don’t blame them. I do blame them for being piss poor at sorting PPE in hospitals and the shit show that was track and trace etc.

However, YABVU to not post this is the COVID chat because frankly many of us are all just a bit sick of hearing people lecturing us (like you are), because we’d all rather forget what was a shit time for many people. COVID is here to stay, we now have to live with it. Doesn’t mean I want to hear about it every day on MN.

Having the credentials of an epidemiologist also doesn’t make any of those advisors ‘right’. There is no right/wrong when you’re deciding on a lockdown - it’s a series of trade off decisions and we now know the unknown consequences of lockdowns. Doesn’t mean we shouldn’t have had them but you are also pushing your own agenda with this post.

Bully for you, but do you not remember the people stopped by police for driving to beauty spots for their walks? The drones used by local police forces? Derbyshire police and their interpretation of the law? People were fined for doing what you did. In retrospect, this was MADNESS, but that’s where we were at the time.

Like you, I did, on occasion, break the spirit of the law / the guidance and when I did so, lockdown was perfectly fine. Plenty of people were scared that driving to go for a walk was tantamount to murder though - remember the Mumsnet threads at the time?

I am forgiving of the early part of the first lockdown. By mid April it was very apparent that cases had peaked before the start of the full lockdown, and that to the vast majority, COVID was no more threat than the flu, so it should have ended in April.

The strategy that the government pursued between April 2020 and December 2020 was just bizarre. Prior to the vaccine, just what was the plan? Ongoing lockdown and restrictions if they had any effect, simply dragged the inevitable second wave into winter where its impact was far greater.

My feelings, reinforced by the 'lockdown files' whatsapps is that it was government by focus groups rather than good balanced sense. They scared us half to death with those posters of someone on oxygen "tell her you never bend the rules" and then inevitably a large proportion of people wanted more restrictions, so they obliged to look like they were doing something and avoid stupid accusations of killing people in the press.

COVID was very real and was clearly a health concern, but I'll never forgive the imposition of those rules beyond May 2020.

I wasnt terrified because I didnt break any laws. The "guidelines" were open to interpretation.

I do remember the posts. And the facebook posts that normally started "while doing my daily exercise" I noticed there was far too many people outside. And every time I'd be thinking stfu. Ironically probably being moaned about by someone else doing the same thing on another post.

www.derbytelegraph.co.uk/news/derby-news/derbyshire-police-criticised-covid-crackdown-4876037

^Police have handed out sizeable penalties to people who travelled just a few miles to Derbyshire beauty spots for their socially-distanced daily exercise.

Officers confirmed they had issued £200 penalties to visitors of Calke Abbey after they were found to have driven from nearby areas such as Burton, Nottinghamshire and Leicestershire - even though some had only driven 10 minutes to get there.

Two women were also fined hundreds after meeting for a socially-distanced walk at Foremark Reservoir after police deemed their journey to the site to be "not in the spirit" of lockdown.^

I agree they were open to interpretation but it was clear which way many police forces were interpreting the law.

I acted outside “the spirit of lockdown” a fair few times. I decided that if it came to it, I’d just pay the fine. I know a lot of people didn’t feel like that though and were scared of the fines and scared that they were putting lives at risk by walking too far…

There was a poster on Mumsnet the other day saying how she’s locked down before the official lockdown had started and how the lockdown had been wonderful - she’d formed an early bubble in March 2020 etc. Bubbles were not at thing at that point so she was breaking the law for many months and this is likely why her lockdown was so blissful.