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?

Keir's event was later in the pandemic (April 21) the rules were different. So tired of pointing this out.

A wedding bring postponed doesn’t really compare to someone’s dad dying alone. Ffs.

But New Zealand were fortunate: female Prime Minister! 🤣Always wisest in a crisis!

You've said everything I wanted to say.

Yes, in hindsight, some decisions and behaviour made no sense, and some seem quite bizarre - but we were living in utterly unprecedented times with huge, life-ending unknowns, so some decisions had to be made, that in time, and with more evidence, may be weren't necessary or could have been done differently.

Some of the other things we did, now seem crazy because of course we have adapted back into normal society of communication, interaction and socialisation. But in those long lonely months, we took the scraps of connection we could get, even if those seem cringeworthy now!

It was a really dreadful period for me, though I was fortunate to have a secure job that could be done online - but other than that I had 3 small children, single parent, no support, my own family didn't really care or go out of their way when they could to make any accommodations that would help me. Even though I know it wasn't all blissful, I never did any of the cosy, happy stuff of 'snuggling together watching movies'. Like many others I was exhaustedly trying to fit in work (university, teaching, and team management role - it was crazy) around 3 DC and homeschooling, and meals and the nightmare of shopping and all that.

I realised that I and my DC really need the external stimuli, points of connection and interactions. We didn't work well, just the 4 of us!

The only positive of it was recognising that I did need that interaction and appreciating it much more now - from the casual sideline chats with other parents at matches, the quick word with the person getting me coffee, having a laugh with my hairdresser. I don't take them for granted now.

My local hospital still has disposable masks on a large table as you enter, for those who want one. The "have you been in contact with someone with Covid in the past 7 days?" question still is asked on admittance to hospital. My sister has just returned from a hospital waiting room where patients are seated separately behind perspex.
Lots of people in our local town centre still wearing masks while shopping.

Conspiracy theories should have been closed down as quick as they'd started.

COVID did happen, people did die and terribly and the NHS didn't cope well at all.

The government didn't have a clue how to handle it, apart from badly , but what's done is done and can't be changed.

My 18 year old son and his two friends had spent weeks cooped up revising for non existent exams, missing college, sports clubs, proms, 18th birthdays, uni open days and god knows what.
They went out to play basketball for half an hour as a one off and someone called the police.
I could have wept for them.

I am so sorry
I remember going round to my gran’s house (she was in our bubble) and finding her sat at her kitchen table, in her oldest clothes (she was the most elegant lady ever), and she said ‘this is it for me isn’t it, I’ll never do the things I live for again’.
I decided enough is enough and the next day took her to the supermarket with me. Life is too short to spend your final years sat at home.

The weirdest thing I saw was that supermarkets (the one near me anyway) had an NHS hour, I think 8-9 just for nhs staff. Apart from the ones on early shift obviously. Or the ones who’d worked the night shift and were now in bed, or probably the ones on lates who might prefer a slow morning.

I felt it really mostly suited admin staff

It might have felt more worth it if we had locked down earlier and saved more lives, like New Zealand did.

The UK, thanks to BJ, was crackers in its approach.

However, the NZ example is a poor one to choose. They COULD lockdown like that - they are a very isolated land mass.

It wasn't possible for the UK or Ireland, for example, or wider mainland Europe to do this a) with regard to the Free Movement precept of the EU and b) physically by being attached to other countries.

The whole economic structure that our societies are based on is facilitated by at least a certain amount of movement, despite a degree of curtailment that we had in Covid times.

NZ literally closed borders and did the zero Covid approach - it was never going to be possible in our countries.

Equally in Australia, the stories of how some people were treated, in terms of being really stuck, with no resources or support, were shocking - in their decision to similarly lock down certain states, so as to create zero Covid conditions in others.

A single friend argued that single people should be allowed to date. I asked if in that case I could 'date' my best friend (I am married, but not to her) and she said no. She couldn't see how nutty it was to suggest that people could have sex but they couldn't sit beside each other on the couch and chat. It was that sort of thing that made me realise how little reasoning power a lot of people have - they couldn't actually think things through in a way that made any sense. That's why they were so susceptible to the manipulation.

People have very selective memories.

I knew people who died from covid. Over 200 thousand people died in the UK. Here is a peer reviewed John Hopkins paper for all the stats. The death rate didn't go down until the vaccine was widely distributed

We were led (still are) by an incompetent government through a deadly pandemic.

Yes some really dire things happened - Boris not turning up for the first 5 cobra meetings was reflective of how he managed the pandemic - he was (is) truly woeful and let our country down. Parties. PPE quality & contracts. Dominic Cummings.............

I thought the clapping was pointless but I did it as my sister said it cheered her up and made her feel appreciated (she's a nurse).

I remember my neighbours and friends helping us when we got covid - leaving food at the doorstep.

Yes the lockdowns were shit but it was science that got us out of this mess - not conspiracy theorists.

I would like to think that when there is another pandemic, there will be better process, particularly with schools and when to lockdown (and not).

I'm not saying this to be smug, but I'm so glad I saw through the BS really early on.

MN was an unpleasant place to hang around if you were at all sceptical of the government response and a lot of the more insane "rules" for a long time.

LOL at the "it's only batshit in hindsight" argument being thrown around. Really, things like walking in one direction in the shop didn't occur to you as batshit at the time?

Or the time it was a few days before xmas and govt said that starting tomorrow leaving London is not allowed so everyone packed each other on trains leaving London that day so they can spend xmas with their family? Because being on a crowded train is not a risk!

Mind you my bf took the train from London next day and trains were still running and no one was stopping people from getting on the train, so it's not like people were unable to leave London, they were just told by the govt they are not allowed and they obeyed like little sheep. If that's not batshit than I don't know what is

I didnt clap for nhs cos i was mostly sitting isolated in a hospital room with my extremely ill newborn who was undergoing brain surgeries. The drs and nurses who saved him have my everlasting gratitude. Show our appreciation by paying them a decent wage and treating them well...not by bloody clapping once a week.

I wasn't on Mumsnet during lockdown but I can guess what it was like. I used Twitter a lot and there was some barking mad stuff on there but I am sure MN was something else

'The clapping and pan-bashing were a new nadir for British culture.'

Loads of other countries did it! Italy seemed to start it and others followed suit.

It wasnt really clapping the nhs it was a way for people to feel less isolated amd have a quick chat to their neighbours.

@Lampslights

"7 million people have died from Covid. It’s just to easy to forget the scale of this,"

I don't dispute this but how many have died since from cancer that wasn't picked up in time, from an increase in alcohol consumption and deaths since COVID, from suicide, mental health issues amongst the young plus a reduction in GDP which in turn creates more poverty and deaths.

Plus harsh as it sounds with an average age of death from Covid of 82 a large number of those who died would have been dead by now from other causes.

The damage caused by the measures against Covid caused and will cause more harm than Covid itself.

Speak for yourself, didn't do any of this crap - continued to see people who were happy to meet.

It was disturbing how many people just rolled over and allowed rules such as not seeing your own family - absolutely ridiculous

I do think there is an emerging tendency appearing to rewrite the narrative to suit what we now know.

But at the time, I really felt it. Everybody's experience of lockdown was different but with many CEV family members and friends including a fit 60-something close colleague who died in the first few weeks, I felt terrified and staying apart was the only thing I could do to protect the ones I cared for.

It was new and scary because noone really knew what was going on but apart from hearing how many people had died it every day, was bloody annoying that we just didnt just close all the doors stop flights and people coming in from the start. Oh and the toilet roll fiasco.lots of the work from homeers are still working from home and think its thier right to stay like that. I think everyone should go back to normal before Covid now. It was very rare you would get a job where you could just stay home and do it.

Totally agree. I was blue in the face from trying to explain to people at the time how stupid the rules were but it was like they'd switched their brains off or they simply didn't have the brain power to understand. And yes, to be clear, I am saying people were (and are) stupid because you'd have to be stupid to think that you could chat to a neighbour over your fence but walking with a friend down a street was 'dangerous' - it just makes no sense whatsoever. And the whole belief that you couldn't go out more than once a day (which wasn't ever an actual rule) is so moronic that if you ever believed that then you should really take a long hard look at yourself and consider whether you might in fact be extremely and dangerously dim.

@trekking1

"LOL at the "it's only batshit in hindsight" argument being thrown around"

My personal favourite of mass hysterical stupidity was the using of anti bacterial hand gel to combat a virus.

FFS the clue is in the label.

You're right there was loads of flouters. Mumsnet was full of folk proud of having all their pals round and the gov could get fucked with their silly rulez. Next breath same posters bleating on that they had covid..