Page 8 | To think there should be some kind of national reflection on the pandemic?

23rdmarch2020 · 2023-03-20T18:46:12+00:00

It’s coming up to three years since the first lockdown. In many ways, it feels an absolute age ago. From personal experience, my life completely changed in the space of a week and so many things happened in my life that never would have because of the pandemic (some good, some bad). For some, it has been an absolute tragedy. In the space of a few weeks we went from being in our normal lives to it being a criminal offence to step outside our homes without a valid excuse. Obviously people are keen to move on but AIBU to think there should be more reflection on the pandemic than there has been?

purpledalmation · 21/03/2023 10:49

I think there should be a service in Westminster abbey in memory of the people who died, and the people on the front line who died. It's not all about lockdowns and not visiting families in care homes. A lot of people died and a lot of people are living with the after affects.

shrimp88 · 21/03/2023 10:52

purpledalmation · 21/03/2023 10:49

I think there should be a service in Westminster abbey in memory of the people who died, and the people on the front line who died. It's not all about lockdowns and not visiting families in care homes. A lot of people died and a lot of people are living with the after affects.

They still are dying though.

shrimp88 · 21/03/2023 10:56

Ruffpuff · 21/03/2023 10:19

My mh has never recovered. I’ve developed poor coping methods that I never had before. I feel traumatised from it, and now no one talks about it. It’s as if this collective thing we all went through never happened. I can’t process it at all.

When I was 22, my dad died of Covid in the first few months. I had to deal with the pitiful funeral of 10 people for 10 minutes, sat socially distanced. I didn’t know my dad’s family, so I essentially had to go through it alone.

I started a new job I was really looking forward to. I’d been off work for a year to look after the baby, and I was already isolated. Instead the job became work-from-home-while-looking-after-a-15 month old baby-for-months, because the nursery couldn’t have him and neither could family.

I was suicidal by the end of the lockdowns. I’d been enveloped by grief, loneliness, stress and guilt.

Something to recognise that horrible event would at least comfort me that people remember. Otherwise I feel like I’ve been left with a load of issues that have been brushed under the carpet. People like my dad were snatched away so suddenly and unexpectedly. The government behaved awfully. It should not be forgotten.

People still are being snatched away by covid though.

shrimp88 · 21/03/2023 11:05

Aishah231 · 21/03/2023 06:02

But if we don't seek to understand what went right and what went wrong we could make the same mistakes again. The lockdown and the vaccine mandates seem to have been terrible mistakes. We need to know if that statement is true or false. We spent hundreds of billions on these policies we deserve to know if they were the right ones.

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There weren't vaccine mandates in the UK. Most people don't think lockdown was a "terrible mistake" although there were some stupid non sensical rules. Even if it was decided it wasn't necessary for Covid in retrospect that doesn't mean it wouldn't be necessary another more dangerous virus. A new virus/disease isn’t going to be exactly the same and it could affect a different demographic such as young healthy people.

DanceMonster · 21/03/2023 11:09

There weren't vaccine mandates in the UK

Tell that to the HCP’s who were sacked for not having the vaccine.

GrannyWeatherwaxsHatpin · 21/03/2023 11:10

I certainly feel [the stupid rules] need to be critically analysed and the harms spelled out, but I don't see how this is the mechanism for it.

I agree. I don't want some kind of national mourning for what happened but I do want there to be an acknowledgement, at an official level, that the Covid prevention measures often did more harm than good and, at the very least, were not without societal cost. Yes, the measures quite probably reduced your chance of getting Covid, but at what price if it fucked your mental health/wrecked your marriage or business/shut you up with your abuser/kyboshed your children's education and development? There was an endlessly pious air of "It's for your own good, we're saving lives and protecting the NHS". Any criticism or questioning why you could walk past a bench but not sit on it for two minutes automatically marked you out as one of The Terrible People.

But what I REALLY REALLY want to see is an acknowledgment from those who behaved like nasty little cunts, that they were nasty little cunts. Not ONCE have I seen acknowledgment or apology from those who hurled abuse at those who went out twice a day, were out for more than The Regulation One Hour (which never existed), went the wrong way round a one-way system, didn't wear a mask because they couldn't, met up with someone because they were desperately lonely or in any other way tried to keep a foot on the bottom of their sanity pool.

THOSE people who made other people's lives worse at a time when everyone was struggling - EVERY SINGLE FUCKING ONE OF THEM - should hang their heads in utter shame. May you never be forgiven.

shrimp88 · 21/03/2023 11:18

DanceMonster · 21/03/2023 11:09

There weren't vaccine mandates in the UK

Tell that to the HCP’s who were sacked for not having the vaccine.

They might have left because they thought the mandate would come in but health care professionals weren't sacked.

DanceMonster · 21/03/2023 11:19

Ah ok, they were just threatened with the sack then.

BashirWithTheGoodBeard · 21/03/2023 11:22

It was care workers who were required to leave their jobs if they didn't have the vaccine, not NHS staff. A fucking terrible policy, one that the government were told well in advance was going to decimate the sector, and which we continue to feel the effects of now.

UpperLowerMiddleClass · 21/03/2023 11:31

Rather than ‘reflection’ which, though potentially useful to some people, has no concrete output, I’d much rather see a clear-sighted assessment of the long term societal problems caused by the pandemic. And then concrete policy actions to help e.g. children still suffering from missing education, or who have ongoing mental health issues from the lockdowns.

My overall broad view of the pandemic is that children and young people sacrificed so much for a illness that didn’t affect them much, in order to protect the elderly. In return I think any reflection on the pandemic should result in actions that recognise this generational aspect. Such as ending the ridiculous triple lock on pensions at a time when many younger people are in poverty. We cannot just view the pandemic in isolation - it has to be connected to broader issues and policies.

SkyandSurf · 21/03/2023 11:43

UpperLowerMiddleClass · 21/03/2023 11:31

Rather than ‘reflection’ which, though potentially useful to some people, has no concrete output, I’d much rather see a clear-sighted assessment of the long term societal problems caused by the pandemic. And then concrete policy actions to help e.g. children still suffering from missing education, or who have ongoing mental health issues from the lockdowns.

My overall broad view of the pandemic is that children and young people sacrificed so much for a illness that didn’t affect them much, in order to protect the elderly. In return I think any reflection on the pandemic should result in actions that recognise this generational aspect. Such as ending the ridiculous triple lock on pensions at a time when many younger people are in poverty. We cannot just view the pandemic in isolation - it has to be connected to broader issues and policies.

I agree with this. It would be good to see some real looks resources in recognition of the generational inequality.

MarshaBradyo · 21/03/2023 11:45

UpperLowerMiddleClass · 21/03/2023 11:31

Rather than ‘reflection’ which, though potentially useful to some people, has no concrete output, I’d much rather see a clear-sighted assessment of the long term societal problems caused by the pandemic. And then concrete policy actions to help e.g. children still suffering from missing education, or who have ongoing mental health issues from the lockdowns.

My overall broad view of the pandemic is that children and young people sacrificed so much for a illness that didn’t affect them much, in order to protect the elderly. In return I think any reflection on the pandemic should result in actions that recognise this generational aspect. Such as ending the ridiculous triple lock on pensions at a time when many younger people are in poverty. We cannot just view the pandemic in isolation - it has to be connected to broader issues and policies.

I agree with this. We let young people down hugely

UserNameTwo · 21/03/2023 11:55

I suspect that people who enthusiastically clamoured for more more more authoritarian measures and became fully paid up members of the covid cult privately know they were had in a big way, and they are the ones who want to move on.

Mitchumforthewin · 21/03/2023 12:13

@GrannyWeatherwaxsHatpin yes!!! This is exactly how I feel too. I know so many people locally who were total cunts on Facebook about people walking their dogs in the ‘wrong’ village, not sanitising bloody farm gates etc - they were absolutely vile.

They’ll never admit it though. They were ‘good’ and you were ‘bad’. Absolutely appalling. Banging fucking pots in the front garden but snitching on people for daring to go on 2 walks a day. I hate every single one of them still - and I know who a lot of them locally are and I still judge them. It’s made me really hate so many people.

I bet a lot of them are still on mumsnet too like they were at the time, telling people off for buying a mascara with their Tesco shop as it wasn’t ‘essential’ (WHY DID IT MATTER?!) There was a thread about a lady dropping off some homemade cakes to a neighbour and everyone saying what a stupid thing to do, don’t you know homemade cakes will KILL YOUR NEIGHBOUR. Fucking hell. Any dissenting voices (I was one of them) were quickly shut down in a really nasty manner. There was no place to reason, or to question. This is what frightens me, how many people just loved being fucking covid marshals and being total cunts to everyone else.

shrimp88 · 21/03/2023 12:16

UpperLowerMiddleClass · 21/03/2023 11:31

Rather than ‘reflection’ which, though potentially useful to some people, has no concrete output, I’d much rather see a clear-sighted assessment of the long term societal problems caused by the pandemic. And then concrete policy actions to help e.g. children still suffering from missing education, or who have ongoing mental health issues from the lockdowns.

My overall broad view of the pandemic is that children and young people sacrificed so much for a illness that didn’t affect them much, in order to protect the elderly. In return I think any reflection on the pandemic should result in actions that recognise this generational aspect. Such as ending the ridiculous triple lock on pensions at a time when many younger people are in poverty. We cannot just view the pandemic in isolation - it has to be connected to broader issues and policies.

The next pandemic could effect children and young people much more though. They are often the most vulnerable.

shrimp88 · 21/03/2023 12:22

DanceMonster · 21/03/2023 11:19

Ah ok, they were just threatened with the sack then.

Just because it wasn't necessary for COVID, it doesn't mean it wouldn't be necessary for a future virus. If there was an infectious virus with a 90% chance of killing your child, and there was a vaccine that could completely prevent the spread, would you want him to be treated by a non-vaccinated HCP?

BashirWithTheGoodBeard · 21/03/2023 12:25

shrimp88 · 21/03/2023 12:22

Just because it wasn't necessary for COVID, it doesn't mean it wouldn't be necessary for a future virus. If there was an infectious virus with a 90% chance of killing your child, and there was a vaccine that could completely prevent the spread, would you want him to be treated by a non-vaccinated HCP?

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Or who? The second part of that completely irrelevant example is missing.

DanceMonster · 21/03/2023 12:25

shrimp88 · 21/03/2023 12:22

Just because it wasn't necessary for COVID, it doesn't mean it wouldn't be necessary for a future virus. If there was an infectious virus with a 90% chance of killing your child, and there was a vaccine that could completely prevent the spread, would you want him to be treated by a non-vaccinated HCP?

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I’m not talking about a future unspecified pandemic, I’m talking about it this one. If there is a future pandemic in which there is a 90% chance of death, and the vaccination prevents spread, then there may be a case for mandated vaccinations. Why does that make it ok that care workers and HCP’s were threatened with the sack for not taking the covid vaccination?

Bookist · 21/03/2023 12:26

No point in looking backwards because I'm just not heading that way. I rarely think about Covid or lockdown because it was just something that happened for a while and then it stopped. I just cannot summon up any angst about any of it. A couple of friends on Facebook are still continuously posting about all things Covid and I believe they genuinely regret the lockdowns finishing and life returning to normal. I think there's a lot of damaged people out there who actually preferred their lives during the lockdowns which is rather worrying.

EilonwyWithRedGoldHair · 21/03/2023 12:27

Badbadbunny · 21/03/2023 08:04

It could only have happened, and lasted so long, because of the internet, so that people could shop and work and be educated from home. The lockdowns would have been a lot shorter without that as society would have failed to function.

I think we need to properly examine less developed countries where the internet isn't as widespread to see how they coped without the lockdowns (as they couldn't have locked down like we did). Was their death rate a lot higher? If not, why not?

What I'd hoped for after Covid was better hygiene, larger/better ventilated spaces, etc., but it seems lessons havn't been learned. I was aghast last weekend at the football match to see so many people leaving the loos not washing their hands. Our local hospital has gone back to patients being crowded into tiny unventilated waiting rooms, their pharmacy has been moved back into a tiny cramped corner, etc. Even the oncology dept which had moved into a huge ward so patients could be spread out has been squeezed back into it's tiny suite. My OH is back to having his chemo treatment squeezed into a small room with a dozen other people, no room to swing a cat - these are vulnerable people.

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The internet made it possible, higher population density, higher proportion of people being vulnerable or ECV (and not just the elderly) made it, perhaps, more necessary.

It would be interesting to know what happened in less developed countries, I seem to recall that at the time it was felt they might be less severely effected as they tend to have a younger population.

PropellerDance · 21/03/2023 12:29

MySugarBabyLove · 20/03/2023 19:53

Honestly? I think people don’t actually realise how easy we had it here.

Our measures were minimal compared to the majority of the rest of the world, and still people think that there should be a national reflection?

Reflection on what?

On the fact you didn’t have to have a letter to leave your house? (Spain/Italy)

The fact you were able to drink alcohol? (South Africa)

The fact no-one came round to inspect your house every day to make sure that you hadn’t been out? (China).

The fact that our borders weren’t closed for almost two years? (New Zealand.

Honestly the Uk had probably one of the least harsh lockdowns in the whole world.

Disagree.

PropellerDance · 21/03/2023 12:45

Lockdown pissed me off to no end.

My young sibling has terminal cancer, I was unable to see them throughout. My dad and my uncle were also diagnosed with cancer during lockdown.

I had to wear a mask to and from work and then at work for 10 hours a day. So for 12 hours I had to wear a poxy mask in an active job role, including during the heat waves.

Buying lunch was out of the question as everyone decided 1pm during the week was when they were going to stockpile on toilet rolls. Meanwhile the poor shop staff are getting abused and also having to slave away in masks.

Meanwhile I'm driving past Tom, Dick and Harry on my way to/from work living it up in the park in the sun with their newly purchased cockapoo being paid furlough and loving life.

shrimp88 · 21/03/2023 12:55

DanceMonster · 21/03/2023 12:25

I’m not talking about a future unspecified pandemic, I’m talking about it this one. If there is a future pandemic in which there is a 90% chance of death, and the vaccination prevents spread, then there may be a case for mandated vaccinations. Why does that make it ok that care workers and HCP’s were threatened with the sack for not taking the covid vaccination?

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So you don't want national reflection so that we can learn from it in case there is another one? In that case, I don't see the benefit.

DanceMonster · 21/03/2023 13:01

shrimp88 · 21/03/2023 12:55

So you don't want national reflection so that we can learn from it in case there is another one? In that case, I don't see the benefit.

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One of the reasons I said I don’t think there’s any point in a ‘national reflection’.

JeanniesDiary · 21/03/2023 13:04

Mitchumforthewin · 21/03/2023 12:13

@GrannyWeatherwaxsHatpin yes!!! This is exactly how I feel too. I know so many people locally who were total cunts on Facebook about people walking their dogs in the ‘wrong’ village, not sanitising bloody farm gates etc - they were absolutely vile.

They’ll never admit it though. They were ‘good’ and you were ‘bad’. Absolutely appalling. Banging fucking pots in the front garden but snitching on people for daring to go on 2 walks a day. I hate every single one of them still - and I know who a lot of them locally are and I still judge them. It’s made me really hate so many people.

I bet a lot of them are still on mumsnet too like they were at the time, telling people off for buying a mascara with their Tesco shop as it wasn’t ‘essential’ (WHY DID IT MATTER?!) There was a thread about a lady dropping off some homemade cakes to a neighbour and everyone saying what a stupid thing to do, don’t you know homemade cakes will KILL YOUR NEIGHBOUR. Fucking hell. Any dissenting voices (I was one of them) were quickly shut down in a really nasty manner. There was no place to reason, or to question. This is what frightens me, how many people just loved being fucking covid marshals and being total cunts to everyone else.

yes, I remembered a similar one about a girl dropping brownies on a friend's doorstep from a distance.
I just looked it up and, bloody hell, the responses... Now I know why I was a nervous wreck at the time, too scared to do anything, even take a walk or post a letter, lest I be branded A Bad Person.
And half of the screechers likely went back to normal, restaurants and pubs the minute restrictions were lifted while the others they terrified took months/years. Like the "hurrah, the schools are shut" lot were first to send theirs back when r/y1/y6 opened and we were given a "choice" whereas others felt shamed into not sending them.