To look back on the things we did in lockdown and cringe?

[Applescruffle]

Isn't it all just really cringeworthy when we look back?

The clapping on our doorsteps, all that false commradarie and "we're all in this together" and the drawings of rainbows in people's windows?
Condemning our neighbours for buying Easter Eggs because they weren't "essential" and wondering whether we would get arrested for sitting on a park bench?

At the time I, and probably loads of us, thought we were doing the right things but doesn't it all just look so false and hollow now when we look back and see that number 10 were having parties and Dominic Cummings was running around the country testing his eyesight? My kids missed out on so much while this was going on, my mental and physical health has still not recovered from the effects of lockdown, and for what?

Know what I mean?

The clapping was ‘normal?’ In what sense?

I didn't do any of that stuff. From the very beginning I thought lockdown was a ridiculous idea. Even when people were posting on here about pulling their kids out of school I thought it was madness. My DS went to school until the last minute. I did mostly follow the rules but only out of pressure, I certainly didn't want to.

I don't cringe. Everyone was trying to do the right thing with the information they had.

Lockdown was the thing that caused my mums death. And I'm sure many others also

It wasn't cringe, it was a really fucking scary time and we all just did what we could to get through it. All those people trumpeting their bravado - lies. Everyone was scared at first. It was only as time went on and we all started to know people who'd caught it and been ok, that we realised it probably wasn't so scary so long as you weren't old or seriously ill.

The fact that Boris et al. were behaving like twats reflects badly on them, not us.

We went outside to clap because it was nice to see humans, and our neighbours would wave at our toddler. And because my friend was lived nearby and was working at the local hospital, and I wanted her to know how much she was appreciated.

We did what was asked of us because no one really knew what the new virus could or would do. Those that partied in number 10 are the ones who should be cringing x

The clapping was completely pointless for the NhS but everyone on our street got on their doorsteps, waved to each other and said hello. It was the only social interaction some of us had all week outside of our households.

Exactly. I went outside and clapped because for a couple of minutes a week it was a connection to other people, united in a positive feeling towards something - anything - when we were hit with relentless negative and frightening news.

Appreciating our neighbours who worked for the NHS was a harmless and cathartic thing to do, even though from a logical point of view it was daft as anything.

This ^

Its literally just common sense. We can never get evidence unless we can relive it and do things differently. We did the best we could. Thats all we can say

In the sense of belonging to a community and thanking those who were working without any break to help others. It may sound ridiculous now, it felt normal then. At least for me and probably others who did it. If you didn't feel like it and still don't, that's your right.

Exactly the same. I have friends who are nurses. They felt the clapping was condescending when they had no working PPE. I was a shielder, and up to now, I've had 6 covid vaccines. Covid19 was very real, but perhaps not all households had to stay away from each other fully.
Nursing homes should have released older people to the family members who wanted them.

How would you (and many others who think lockdowns were pointless) have prevented covid from spreading and causing an even larger number of deaths and people debilitated from long covid then?

As an elderly (therefore assumed to be vulnerable) I did not follow most of the lockdown rules and I still get the covid jab invites which get binned - I had the first 2 because we were more or,less,,dragooned into taking them

I went shopping if absolutely necessary but I walked my dog, socialised with my family (who I knew well) and carried on 80% as normal without eating out. clapping on doorstep.

My low point came when my dog got sick and I could not get an early appt - by the time I did and I had taken her in the car 5 mins down the road - she died in the car and I had no last moments with her as she was whisked away from the car park.

My very sincere sympathy is for those who had the same distancing with their loved ones (it was cruel to keep family from the sick and dying)

I bet you voted for Brexit too

It's not up to me to make those choices so what I would have done is irrelevant. But I would have carried on as normal while giving those who did want to shield the option of doing so.

One thing that's been conveniently forgotten is that all the modelling of potential deaths done by Imperial College were entirely and utterly and laughably wrong, as in, so wrong that they didn't even vaguely correspond to reality. So all the 'EVERYONE'S GOING TO DIE' nonsense was based on predictions that had no chance of ever coming true - largely because they weren't based on actual human behaviour.

I didn’t do any of those things. The clapping was ridiculous, the post and shopping quarantining was obviously unnecessary, and I still bought whatever the fuck I wanted to.

I just kept my distance, worked from home, and looked after myself and my family.

I can’t forget it. My dad died, alone, in a nursing home, of Covid, because of hospitals discharging positive patients, during the first lockdown.

My DH, despite all the precautions and vaccines, died of Covid last April.☹️

Did I heck. I'm pro EU and vote Labour.

No lies on my part. I would give you my old username from the time, when I was posting my views, but as I was abused and basically hounded off the site at the time I don’t really want to open that all back again.
Some of us did speak up from the start.

It was good for me personally, I got time with my kids that I wouldn't have got and showed me that my work/life balance was for shit and needed to be changed. I also enjoyed the clearer roads and social distancing 😂(apart from from my mum etc). But I remember I was genuinely afraid at times and I've had Covid twice and it was fucking awful.

I think it did my dc harm socially and emotionally and so that kind of voids everything good about it. Not to mention, people died. A friend my age died.

It was all very hysterical at points and the clapping was a terrible substitute for paying health and social care workers what they're actually worth.

I think it's a shame that it seems like that gratitude has also been lost and hasn't translated into the demand & will to properly fund the NHS and social care, and instead we're spending millions on sending a few hundred people to Rwanda. It's really fucked up.

Rubbish. I agree with this poster and am also a Labour voting remainer.

This makes me so angry still. Healthy, not infected people weren’t allowed to visit family but infected elderly were sent back to their nursing homes to infect the most vulnerable.
I’m not usually one for conspiracy theories, but I’m sure there must be some handwritten notes somewhere of Boris and his lot planning it ti actively cull some of the elderly.

Hindsight is a wonderful thing . Covid - it could have been Ebola like . We did some things we were meant to and somethings we weren’t meant to . No clapping . The biggest impact here was on my youngest not being in school . We are still dealing with the impact now.

Agreed. Pre-vaccines we had nothing else to prevent mass transmission/swamping of NHS services other than lockdown/social distancing. That was understandable and unfortunately necessary. It was all the other stupid shit that I took issue with and the way people took it upon themselves to police and judge others.

The govt rules really jumped the shark when they came up with things like the 'rule of six', where six people from different households could get together, but a family consisting of six people couldn't get together with anyone!

Or the utterly insane 'eat out to help out' where after months of being told to stay at home and that you couldn't meet a friend for a walk if it involved driving somewhere first, we were all urged to pack ourselves into pubs and restaurants to help the hospitality industry get back on its feet. Cue mass transmission and another lockdown FFS!