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?

Realistically, if we hadn't had the mature internet, then we couldn't have had the lockdowns we suffered. It was only possible because of working from home (and home education), internet shopping, deliveries, etc. The internet basically meant we "could" lockdown but people could still get food, most could still work and receive some kind of education.

Yes, we may have needed a short lockdown at the start, and maybe a series of short lockdowns subsequently when infections/admissions peaked, but not the months of lockdowns that we suffered, with education/hospitality affected for 18 months!

Quite simply, without the internet, we'd have had to have shorter lockdowns and periods of restored activity between lockdowns.

Don't forget the Manchester mayor, Andy Burnham, who was also political point scoring, just like Scotland and Wales, for wanting to do things slightly differently for no obvious reason, other than to be different than the rest of the UK!

I’m in Australia, not the UK but I agree.

In some states masks were mandatory outside despite it making no scientific sense. Politicians here even admitted that some policies were put in place for the sole purpose of making the populace more scared. It was disgusting.

During the pandemic I was one of the few people I knew who spoke out against some of the restrictions. Some people were horrified (including my own sister) but others quietly admitted that they agreed with me but were too scared to speak up.

The media have much to answer for as well. Cherry picking the most alarmist public health ‘experts’ to be their trusted source for all things Covid and practically egging on politicians to impose harsher restrictions and lockdowns.

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'm not sure they are a minority on MN, but they are (still) very vocal. For people who seem so over Covid they sure don't make it their business to stay off the Covid board. I very much wish they'd stfu. It is alarming to be reminded of how many silly complacent people walk among us. And are here on this thread.

Same with Uni students who were warned they could face expulsion if they didn't comply with their own Uni's rules (which often went far beyond the Govt's guidance). Remember Manchester Uni who actually put security fences and guards around their Uni accommodation blocks!

At my son's Uni, the campus security guards would stop students just harmlessly walking around the campus, even on their own, and "warn" them to return to their flats unless they were doing something allowed, such as going to the shop for food! (They couldn't be going anywhere else as all the Uni buildings were locked, including the library, gym, etc!).

When the "rule of six" came in, the campus security would stop groups of 7 or 8 (or more) and tell them to split up (even when the students could show their key fobs to prove they lived in the same flat so made up a legally allowed "bubble"). Nor were they allowed to share a table in the Uni bars or cafes even though they shared a kitchen and lounge in their Uni flat!

When the Uni library re-opened (with lots of social distancing posters), one way systems, 2 metre markings on the floor, etc.), my son went in for a book, and he was literally the only student on the floor. The desk had one of those zig-zag queuing systems like airports, so when he had to go to the desk, no one else was there, so he ducked under the barriers rather than do the up/down zig zag walk and the librarian shouted abuse at him, warning him about covid, saying he'd kill people, etc., i.e. completely out of control - yet there was no one else there, no-one at all and she was behind a desk with floor to ceiling perspex screen. Just yet another jumped-up jobsworth!

So it wasn't just the police who loved the extra power they had, there was lots of jobsworths all over the place imposing non sensical rules and making up their own.

I think some people don't understand what is meant by threat to public health.

It's not just about individual deaths it's about what happens to a country when 20% of it's workforce is off sick and what happens to the infrastructure.

In the week before lockdown my husband's workplace sent everyone home who wasn't critical to the running of the petrochemical plant. They could not risk all the people who make sure the plant doesn't blow up get sick.

My dd1 school year was sent home as they didn't have enough teachers.

Two days later dd2 was told her year would be home from the following Monday again because of the number of sick teachers.

My brother's restaurant closed because they had no diners

My dad was "self isolating" in his taxi as there were no passengers

The country was already in a state of closing down before lockdown happened.

I dont disagree covid was a significant threat to those vulnerable to it. It remains a threat to some.

I completely disagree that extended lockdowns with a covid only focus was the correct response

The harm done was worse than the initial threat

Yeah it was all stupid madness. Still makes me angry.

So it wasn't just the police who loved the extra power they had, there was lots of jobsworths all over the place imposing non sensical rules and making up their own.

One that sticks out in my mind is that my local farmers market decided to close down for about 3 or 4 months even though

A) it was allowed to open because they were selling food
B) it was open air and infinitely ventilated, so surely safer than going to the Asda down the road
C) the traders relied on it for a significant proportion of their income

Infuriating.

I think lots of mistakes were made but I agree it was clear in April 2020 that we had passed the peak and should have reopened the economy from then.

At the very least outdoor restrictions should have been lifted. I remember it being June 2020 before you could eat in a restaurant indoors as I took my aunt out for lunch the first weekend it was legal to do so.

We also shouldn't have shut the schools. There was no scientific evidence for that, but the behaviour experts said that unless you close the schools people won't comply with restrictions as they'd say (with some justification) that since their kid is in a room with 30 others, why can't they go and see their friends/family?

We were right to shut the schools since we were unable to staff classes. People seem to forget the ratio of staff to pupils. Schools were having to shut themselves prior to lockdown.

Lockdowns are great if you don't stick to them, eh?

Have people forgotten what the rules and guidance actually were? No driving to exercise, out for an hour only. People were being shamed online by the police for driving somewhere to go for a walk, fined for walking with a coffee or wearing jeans ("it's not exercise"), moved on from sitting in their own front gardens etc etc.

Was there any actual laws saying you couldnt do any of those things . Or just guidance?

Guidance but guidance that the police took it on themselves to enforce. It was appalling. Government ministers calling on people to snitch if their neighbours went out for too long.

Lucky you if you lived somewhere this wasn't happening but for a lot of us lockdowns meant being inside a small flat 23 hours out of 24. So perhaps before asking "how were lockdowns horrific?" you might bear in mind that your situation wasn't everyone's.

Hampshire constabulary arnt the greatest lol. I was parked up having a drink (soft drink) before I was going food shopping once .the police just asked me to move on ,obviously fair and correct way of handling the situation. But If I was walking a dog there I would be ok but sitting in a car wasnt 🤔. It was what it was .

Ha ha. We got told off by the police for sitting down in a nearly empty park one evening. Apparently it could have given us covid. 🤪

That said we walked miles and miles across London every weekend. No one cared or stopped us.

out for an hour only

Only being allowed out for an hour was never in the law or the guidelines. It came about being the lettering referred to going out for a "reasonable" period and, when asked what reasonable means, a minister (think it might have been Gove?) said that around an hour is a reasonable period of time for a walk or bike ride. People took this to mean "you're only allowed out for an hour" and lots of them became fairly rabid about this fixed time period.

When we went out for walks, we went out for hours, did a 12 mile round trip through the woods one sunny afternoon with the DC.

never heard of Eyam, but total lock downs have never been unusual in pandemic situations

Of course, becaue it wa soften they only resposne they had. It was not sustainable long term and came a a very very heavy cost. May people locked up in plague houses starved to death, it was horrific and brutal. Eyam is well known hundreds of years for locking down at huge cost to thier own residents.

I went out for far more than an hour because there wasn't an hour limit. I had to walk my younger child and then run the eldest.

Without a lockdown and people keeping apart inside the NHS would have broken, they could barely manage as it was. As I don't hug anyone from one year to the next and don't have a social life lockdown wasn't a problem. Lone parenting prepared me for a pandemic.

Yanbu