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?

I absolutely didn't follow the 'rule' about only going out once a day, as there wasn't such a rule. We also had family round in the back garden before it was strictly allowed...we'd had a bereavement in the family just before lockdown and were still grieving. the family needed to see each other. But tbh, would have done anyway.

I sat in my in laws garden after doing their shopping and had a glass of wine with them and a gossip before it was 'allowed'.

I never washed my shopping.

But I was quite careful who I told what to ... some friends had gone completely rule based and would have flipped if I'd said we'd had my husband's kids round to sit in the garden and have a beer.

My boss was very anti lockdown, though will admit that in the first few weeks when no one really knew what was going on it was probably best - but any longer than that as strict as it was had poorer outcomes in the long term than lighter measures.

👍

I posted twice that I would not be banging saucepans and clapping when what the NHS really needed was PPE. We did some signs for the bin men and hospital workers for our window.

I look back and feel terribly sad for all of the unnecessary deaths and how quickly people have forgotten them. I feel people who spat in people's faces and went out of their way to mock people who vaccinated and went into lockdown sooner should be hanging their heads in shame.

All that said we had a lovely lockdown, really good change of pace and focus on the house. Many friend changed jobs and it highlighted things that weren't working and needed change as much as the good we are all the more grateful for now.

It was fucking hard. People just did what they needed to to get through it.

It was when we were allowed to eat in a restaurant as they had magic covid killing powers but we weren’t allowed people in our gardens. So people who knew they were vulnerable didn’t go anywhere or see people for a lot longer because of that stupid rule.

This really.

I remember being on a boozy zoom chat with friends and one of them having to go off to clap on the doorstep as the neighbours would judge her if she didn’t. I bought the fucking Easter eggs and some days I had a morning run as well as an evening walk. I couldn’t stand those dickheads moaning about kids playing in the park or people getting the tube (to fucking work no less, we didn’t all get a lockdown). Honestly, I never understood why anyone cared so much about the actions of others. Unless they were within touching distance breathing on you then it was fuck all to do with you. This sort of thing reinforced the reasons we chose to move to the back end of beyond (fortunately before Covid hit). People can be knobs.

Judging from this thread I think a lot of people have forgotten what the first few months of 2020 were actually like.

Nobody knew how dangerous COVID was. Nobody knew how it spread, whether we could develop a vaccine for it or what was going to happen both short and long term. Anyone sitting here saying "oh, I knew right from the start it was all nonsense" is, to be frank, talking shit. People were fucking scared, and scared people don't necessarily behave rationally.

It's easy to look back, post covid, and say that xyz weren't necessary. Doesn't mean a thing.

What a relief only 200,000 people died then eh

Spending 12 weeks doing fuck all whilst having to arrange a funeral, stop my dad from drowning in grief, worried shitless that my job would no longer be there (it wasn't. 400 of us made redundant), listening to my adult DD crying over the phone because she, too, was grieving for her beloved nanna and I could give her no hugs of comfort. I would gladly have swapped all of that for your life back then. Oh and people say it was a glorious Spring/Summer but I have no memories of that.

I didn’t really do any of these things but I bloody loved lockdown so no regrets here. It was one of the nicest times as didn’t have to go anywhere.

I do appreciate this is from someone that was on mat leave, hates people and lives in a rural
idyll. We also had a loft full of food as DH had predicted the issues and we had weekly Ocado slots throughout.

I’d do it all again tomorrow quite happily!

Am I remembering correctly that early on in the pandemic, anyone who suggested the virus might have come from the Wuhan lab, was torn to shreds?

Why was this the case?

Our neighbours called the Police because children from three families were seen playing together in a communal (gated) car park. Probably the same sort of people who grassed up their Jewish neighbours to the Nazis.

People also died from lockdown but somehow they don't count. If someone died from covid it was horrendous, sad, awful, but if someone died, like my friend's mother did, emaciated and confused because lockdown had completely destroyed her ability to cope, then oh well what does that matter.

I didn’t do any of the lockdown stuff apart from not mixing.
i thought it was BS from the start and I’m embarrassed I even stayed away from friends. It was really cringey the whole thing

I haven't forgotten. We did know from the start that younger people were at low risk. So I wasn't scared. Sadly I don't have any elderly relatives to worry for.

I remember a tik took video of a nurse crying that she had to queue for her own shopping at Sainsbury's and how outraged she was, while non NHS carers who were queuing for their actual patient's shopping were told they couldn't slip the queue because they weren't NHS. that was weird

Some of the measures were necessary to try and prevent the spread of a disease that was (at one stage) killing thousands of people per day, but the clapping and pan bashing was pretty cringeworthy. As were some of the attempts to police other people's behaviour.

The togetherness is fine, the world would be a better place.

I didn't take part in the gossiping about non essential this and that and sat on benches, travelled and shopped as i wanted. I missed my kids a bit, young adults

We bought a jigsaw to pass the time.

Divorce in box.

I really regret that now.

I remember hearing about a work colleague having died very early on in the whole thing and thinking "thank goodness I haven't seen him recently!" In my defense this is when they were broadcasting scenes of people on their hands and knees leaving a tray of food at a sick person bedroom door to avoid catching it.

Haven't rtft but the thing that shocked me most was the neighbour reporting and how easy everyone accepted it. It reminded me of something I'd read about nazi Germany and how neighbours were reporting each other for breaking rules 😪

I think because at the time a) it sounded like a conspiracy theory b) Trump labelled it 'The China Virus' and anyone with half a brain cell had long ago stopped listening to anything he said and c) fear of being thought of as xenophobic.

And then the evidence came out ... but a lot of people STILL don't accept that Covid is a man-made virus that was created in a lab in Wuhan, despite huge amounts of evidence that shows that it was and that it could not have occurred naturally.

@Youdontevengohere

To be fair, my friend who was a nurse loved it and was regularly on the news outside the hospital. So I don't think ALL NHS workers hated it. Do if some of them liked it and most of the people taking part enjoyed it then why does that make me selfish??

I'm a positive person who likes to look for the best in things. If you're not, that's fine, but don't tell me I'm wrong for doing so.

Thank you

Rishi and his "Eat Out To Spread Long Term Sickness About" - something he is now complaining about bitterly.