To ask if anyone else feels like the covid era is a bad dream

[23rMarch2020]

Whenever I think of 2020 or 2021 it just doesn’t feel real at all. The lockdowns for months on end, the clapping for the NHS, the track and trace system, entire school years being sent home because a single case was discovered, panic buying, people developing intricate methods of sanitising their shopping, public shaming of rule breakers, religious holidays being stopped at very short notice. It’s all so bizarre to think of that this was in our country so recently and, really, there’s nothing to stop any of it happening again. In so many ways it just feels like a different world, my DS who had his GCSE’s cancelled is about to go off to uni (if he gets the grades 🤞) and my then little year 7 DD is doing her own GCSE’s next year. I guess my Aibu is to ask if anyone else feels so totally disconnected from that era to the extent it’s all like a bad dream?

I work as a hospital consultant in psychiatry. It was a terrible couple of years on the wards. Not because of the virus but because of the rules. Confining sectioned patients to their rooms, not being allowed to give them leave if there was an outbreak, making paranoid and claustrophobic people worse, forcing people to wear masks etc was hell on earth.

Now we are getting so many referrals from people traumatised by the isolation of lockdown. Many people who never had MH issues before.

The lockdowns went on for too long. Schools should have opened much sooner and fully. The impact of lockdown on the mental health of the nation is catastrophic. Especially young people.

Anyway, covid is not a huge worry for me at work. Dealing with the deluge of new referrals is a massive concern. Whilst the nhs is more poorly-staffed than ever. For now, I am just keeping my head down and focussing on other stuff. Like getting my teens tickets for Taylor Swift. I am not wasting a further second of my personal and professional life on covid.

That sounds horrific. Ashamed to say I'd never given any thought to the pandemic experiences of psychiatric inpatients and staff until now.

One autistic man had two weeks quarantine in his room, he came out in an anxious state and then had to go back in immediately for another two weeks due to another case on the ward that day. Management showed no leeway. It’s the nearest I have come to crying in my job for years. It was so cruel.

They were a forgotten group. Imagine how the paranoid people felt when staff were all wearing masks. And not being able to communicate properly. Just dreadful. I was ashamed to be part of it all.

Owlhop Why are you so convinced that we're all in denial? It couldn't possibly be that we've made informed decisions for ourselves, that we don't share your priorities but have our own which are valid? I'm not scared of your articles. I feel absolutely nothing when I read them. There are a million things out there that could get me. We face numerous risks every single day whether we go outside or stay in. Life is one big risk so no I really don't care more about covid than the others. I've had it 4x and it's still way down my list of things that I'm concerned about.

I’m so sorry about your husband. I’m really not trying to say that people don’t die of Covid. For reasons not yet fully understood sadly some still do. Any yes vaccines wear off/ don’t work for some. Some
people are affected far worse than others.

What do you want us to do?? I am genuinely not bothered in the slightest about Covid.

There are many deadly diseases circulating. My child could get meningitis for example?

You can link to every paper you want about Covid. It will not change how I live my life. I’ve survived cancer - I’m seizing every moment thank you!

Yes, they are. I just think that there's a lot not known about this research lab generated virus. Sadly. 🙁

Yes this is a sad example of how the ‘cure’ was worse than the disease.

Now this is what people are in denial about!

How would you know it was mild from very early on? Did you create the virus?

Because we were told, right from the start in 2020 by (I think) Chris Witty "this is a mild illness for the vast majority of people".

Because we were told, right from the start in 2020 by (I think) Chris Witty "this is a mild illness for the vast majority of people".

But a small percentage across a population is a big number - and that's what happened to the hospitals in Italy and was starting to happen here.

YANBU. I worked in person the whole way through so I was out even when we were in total lockdown. I walked down completely empty high streets at the very beginning. It was like 28 days later. At the time I had this weird sense I was in a dystopian film. Logically I knew I wasn't but it was borderline delusional at times.

I dealt with deaths (only indirectly related to covid) and extreme levels of distress from patients. The burn out and moral injury still impacts me now.

Looking back, it feels hazy. I have memories but they almost don't feel like mine. I'm definitely disconnected. I think it's an adaptive response to trauma.

Irrelevant. I was responding to the poster who asked how we knew it was mild for the majority from the beginning.

Irrelevant. I was responding to the poster who asked how we knew it was mild for the majority from the beginning.

Okay.

It is relevant when it comes to the context of our response though.

Absolutely. I have no idea what OwlHop is trying to achieve other than try and get everyone else to live a life in fear of a virus.

Theres many more illnesses and diseases out there - - should be just be terrified of ever getting ill. And then get knocked down by the proverbial bus.

Covid never crosses my mind. I go out, I live my life, I recently flew to Greece - 2 people on the flight wore masks out of 200. So it appears most of us are getting on with normal life without self imposed restrictions.

It's not really a matter of consent though is it Owlhop? I don't consent to getting a cold, the flu or hayfever. Tiny flying particles get up my nose regardless.

I certainly don't consent to wearing a mask because it's pointless. Tiny particles don't stop at them (and surgeons wear them to stop bodily fluid not viruses).

Getting ill is part of life and dying is inevitable. I'll live with as much meaning and joy while I can and the best mitigation is to get the vaccine & open a window and I'm happy to do that

What do I want people to do?

• advocate for clean air, ventilation & filtration especially in schools which are major factors of airborne viruses
• advocate for proper respiratory protective masks in healthcare (not surgical baggy masks or cloths which are indeed useless against aerosolized viral exhalations; ffp3/N95 should be used)
• advocate for worker protection. Workers & students at school/college should not be told to come in sick
• advocate for free, better testing
• normalize wearing masks to avoid getting sick or passing it on (see Japan, Korea etc who learned from SARS1)
• teach people it’s airborne - this has been known since 2021 but people are still using droplet precautions
• offer free boosters to all & consider Novavax as an option not just mRNA
• listen to those with Long Covid. ONE IN TEN INFECTIONS leads to Long Covid. 1 in 10, not people, infections. This is a huge issue that’s not going away.
• understand that the trauma and grief of lockdowns remains very raw, & empower people to understand that protecting themselves & their communities is not lockdown and life can go ahead without fear but with many risks reduced resulting in better conditions input health and fewer harms.

all of this would actually work out cheaper than the current strategy of pretending it’s all fine.

Apols for typos,
vectors not factors

Nobody will do that. You’re wasting your time and energy. Carry on limiting your life and we’ll all focus on living ours.

You won’t get much support for this, people have moved on

It’s unclear why @OwlHop you fear Covid more than all the other diseases we now live with? I’d rather a dose of Covid than flu which knocked me out for months versus the couple of days for Covid.

Yeah, I'm all for better air quality and doing something about the UK's appalling statutory sick pay, but the concept of consent when it comes to contagious diseases is stupid. As we've heard so often in the last three years, covid doesn't care what you want.

I'm also not up for paying so that anyone who feels like it can do a test before they go to Tesco, which is what free testing access would inevitably turn into. That went on more than long enough. Those who fancy that can fund it themselves. Exceptions of course for people who need tests for medical reasons- I know this is the case for some immunocompromised people for example. But nobody has yet managed to demonstrate how carrying on with that particular subsidy is going to save us money.

@OwlHop putting things in capitals does not make them true. 1/10 infections do not lead to long covid

If that was anything like true then 1 in every 4/5 people would be suffering long covid and that’s absolutely not true.

I know one person who has long covid and she already had lung damage from pneumonia after she caught SARS 20 odd years ago - she works on a central London hospital.

I am over 50 my parents are late 70’s and I can say hand on heart that after the first wave in March/April 2020 when a couple of friends who are asthmatic were hospitalised. I don’t know a SINGLE person who has had more than a bad cold with Covid.

As another PP said, if OwlHop and others want to restrict their lives and live in fear of covid then that’s their call but the vast majority of us will continue to live our lives free from worrying about ‘what ifs’

The difficulty wrt long covid is there isn't a universally agreed definition. The ONS for example include anyone who's still got symptoms after 4 weeks. Still having a cough or feeling a bit tired on Day 29 is such a low threshold as to be meaningless, speaking as someone who'd have met it. Added to which a lot of the data is self reported, which is probably inevitable in the circumstances, but there are a great many caveats to any figures people want to cite.

Here is the head of WHO on 23 April 2023 explaining that one in ten infections leads to Long Covid/Post Covid condition suggesting that hundreds of millions will need long term care. Don’t look up! 🙃

https://www.who.int/director-general/speeches/detail/who-director-general-s-opening-remarks-at-the-media-briefing---26-april-2023