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 was one who thought it was mad at the beginning and was called names, shamed for not wearing a mask, shamed for not bashing my saucepans, email from next door neighbour!
Our family was divided in their opinions and were entrenched in opposing camps sadly and then my 23 year old son had a heart attack after his two vaccines!
No family history of any cardiovascular issues.
It’s now united the family in regard to any future so called vaccines.

I do remember though, we brought our lab puppy home in May 2020. We took him outside for the clapping and his little tail wagged, he thought everyone was clapping for him. Then I'd walk him up and down the street to introduce him to the neighbours (until he got too big to carry, which didn't take long) haha.

Really, things like walking in one direction in the shop didn't occur to you as batshit at the time?

It didn't occur to me as batshit at time - or now.

It makes sense, when you are trying to limit person-to-person contact, of course it does.

Of course, as with all blanket rules, there are going to be moments when they don't make sense or are applied to rigorously but it's hard for it to be otherwise.

Hindsight is a fucking great thing.

@Oneofthesurvivors

"If anti bac has sufficient alcohol in it then it does kill viruses"

On that logic so does gasoline or an acid but I wouldn't recommend rubbing your hands with it.

Seriously why not just use a detergent like soap or fairy liquid it would be much more effective.

Hindsight is a wonderful thing! I think many have forgotten how scared some of us were at the thought of dying alone on a ventilator. I’d been very ill in icu, ventilated, just as
covid hit & wouldn’t wish for anyone to experience that.
I thought clapping for the nhs was awful as so many nurses and doctors are unpleasant -obviously there are some kind ones, but not many in my experience.

Agree

Nearly everything but I’ve pretty much blocked it out

Although I did just see the NZ comparison still!

At least the border issues was clarified - not possible here

I did it for a while, I live alone and was working from home and the isolation was eating me up. Coming out on my doorstep and seeing people and waving and smiling at each other made me feel connected and part of something for a while. Plus I worked for the NHS and had mates in the front line who were putting themselves at risk and at the time they did say it was heartening to hear the clapping. Of course it all seems very odd looking back but it was the oddest time of most people's lives and we were dealing with the unknown so it is not surprising that strange things happened.

I said to my children at the time that in years to come people will recognise that there was mass hysteria and most of the measures were batshit BUT people will try and justify this by saying "ah that's easy to say with hindsight" and that my children should remember and state that wasn't the case as there were many many people pointing this out at the time.

Oh come on everyone, we can all stand here now and smugly say ‘I knew it was all nonsense, I never did any of that shite puffs chest out pompously’ but at the time, we didn’t know a lot. Covid was new, it was scary and lots and lots of people were dying from it. Yes ok perhaps the clapping/ pan bashing stuff was strange but it gave a lot of people a sense that they were doing something when we really weren’t allowed to do anything much. At the very least I got to shout ‘hello!’ at some neighbours and actually I met (socially distanced) some neighbours I’d never seen before whom I’m quite friendly with now. For some people it was their only chance to see anyone. I’m certainly not sorry I did that for those reasons alone.

Looking back now, knowing what we know (for sure, not speculating) yes of course we could have done things differently. But that’s life, it’s how we learn and it (hopefully) informs decision making in the future. And if it had turned out that Covid was as bad as we all feared it could be, we may well be sitting here today thanking our lucky stars we did take a lot of the precautions we did back then.

Much of lockdown passed me by. I was nursing at home a terminally ill relative, who lived just 10 weeks from diagnosis to end of life I had a constant stream of doctors, health visitors, district nurses and carers, equipment delivers, undertakers in and out of the house. Neighbours doing shopping when they went and talking through the window as they dropped items off to us, Sainsbury delivery van.

In all honesty it was as if the world shut down with us as the day of diagnoses was 20th March, lockdown didn't mean that much to me as I was busy constantly

The local hospice closed, they just shut so we stayed at home and had time to talk, reflect, cry and just be a family as we were for the very last time

She opted to use both that and bleach 🤣. Which probably produced some horrific fumes …

I think most of us just did our best to not put other people at risk and to protect vulnerable family members.

There was some over reaction on MN though. I remember one poster going crazy at the thought that someone might go to the corner shop to get a newspaper and a bar of chocolate.

Because not everyone has a sink available all the time.

The reason people didn't listen to the "anti dementia" was because they were, and mostly still are, palpable idiots

Tbf it’s easy to show the posts on here that were not hindsight, since it’s a real time record

They didn’t go down well at the time but a few were saying it

Yes to that. If anything, the lock down wasn't done well enough and could have been even more effective.

The clapping and such was nonsense, though. PPE that worked would have been far more helpful (*understatement).

I always remember the poster who said she was "sobbing and shaking" reading a post about someone not sticking rigidly to some rule or another.

It was a very odd time and feels unreal to me now.

Which would have been fine, as with my Dad, but then to be told that those in power had virtually carried on as normal, while laughing at us, did send me nuts.😗

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.

This says a little bit more about you, than the people you are characterising as stupid.

When people spoke about 'anti bacterial hand gel', or shops had it outside their entrances, they most frequently really referred to alcohol-based hand sanitizer

This does have an impact on reducing the spread of viruses, including SARS-COV-2 (Covid) - once alcohol of a sufficient strength was used, the virus was destroyed.

Additionally, the act of rubbing any substance on one's hands, breaks down the physical presence of the virus - like, actually rubs it off, for want of simpler term!

Of course, as the virus progressed, the chief transmission method was established as being airborne, through droplets. But this doesn't mean that keeping one's hands clean had no affect, avoid surface transmission but also ensuring wider hygiene was observed, minimisising illness as a whole.

Perhaps best to be a little informed, before throwing out comments denigrating others!

A bit of me hopes it doesn’t. I can’t believe so many people on here are basically bragging about being arseholes. The unprecedented nature of the pandemic and the lack of knowledge within the general public on such things created an opportunity for the normally hard of thinking to feel a bit educated. Shame their education on the subject was through quacks lecturing at the University of YouTube, rather than just listening to the actual experts. Clowns.

It’s funny, whenever any of us dared express any concern that certain rules were causing more harm than good, or that they had no logic to them, or that some things (like the pot banging and captain Tom) were madness, we were absolutely torn apart on here. Now it’s all ‘hindsight is a wonderful thing’.

I clapped and yes it was a bit cringy but on the other hand we spoke to our neighbours and made each other laugh in what was otherwise quite a scary world. We looked forward to Thursday nights just so we’d speak to someone in person as due to health issues we were isolating. It brought us together as neighbours and I was grateful for it.

I wouldn’t criticise people for their fears or behaviour during lock-down UNLESS their actions targeted or impacted other individuals negatively or were motivated by malice. People had to do whatever they could to survive mentally and physically.

I think the 'hindsight' argument only applied to the first lockdown.

After that it just got ridiculous.

I spent much of lockdown entertaining my children with the nonsense on here!

Along with despairing at the general lack of intelligence of many of my fellow humans.

Some people were genuinely scared but others would have been applauded by the SS for their unquestioning submission to authority and commitment to reporting their neighbours!