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?

Yep and anything to do with children and young people - which has cropped up since

People were torn apart

I think there are two questions here.

One is the ways in which the establishment (Cummings's "eyesight test", parties at Number 10) wasn't walking the walk, when we all were. That would of course have been morally wrong whether the lockdown measures were really useful or not. Indeed, when the Partygate hearings were going on, Johnson was getting as much stick from the anti-vaxx/WEF/5G loons as the majority who respected the lockdowns and got their vaccines.

The other is whether, even if the people in power had scrupulously followed their own rules, it would all have been a waste of time. Personally I think it wasn't, because (a) hindsight makes almost everything we ever did look stupid, (b) the people who died as a result of them or others not following lockdown aren't here to tell us that it wasn't in fact a waste of time, and (c) we have very quickly discounted the speed of the development and rollout of the vaccines that got life back to normal. But there's no right answer and everyone will have to make their own judgement based on their experience.

There is something called the "prevention paradox" which stops us ever being able to know whether any precaution we might take is necessary. We can't go back in time, relax the lockdowns, and see how many more people might have died. Something similar applies with speed cameras: if you get a ticket you don't think much of them, but if your child's life is saved because someone slowed down for one and as a result didn't skid off the road and mount the pavement, you might not even know it.

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

I mean, the advice was 'wash your hands'. So of course, soap was perfect (and best) to use.

But not possible when out and about, or in shops etc, and it was a certain level of assistance to have hand gel to clean hands.

Yup.

I was late to the party on that but I wish with all my heart that I hadn't succumbed....

Absolutely this! I simply don't believe the smug, superior folk claiming they knew better all along.

I worked in the NHS throughout Covid and freely admit we, i.e. me and my colleagues, were scared. We simply did not know enough about Covid (maybe we should have asked Mumsnet seeing as so many here apparently knew everything ) so we all followed the rules about distancing at work and changed at the door and showered before hugging children and family, etc.

The clapping and rule following was all part of people finding solidarity and cohesion. I'd sooner that than move to an every man for himself, Lord of the Flies type of societal breakdown that this thread of Mumsnetty-sneering would likely lead to

But if you could talk to neighbours on a Thursday night, why couldn’t you talk to them at any other time? Thursday nights didn’t have magical virus fighting properties.

Standing outside Tesco in the pouring rain on a cold day while the security guard clocked one in one out. The security berating an old man with his confused elderly wife for not coming alone.

Following the footprints on the floor when you did get in. Barriers across aisles because you weren't allowed, books, magazines, clothes etc thanks to batshit Drakeford. Being shouted at for being too close to someone.

Wearing masks which aggravated my asthma.

I definitely became depressed in the second lockdown but also defiant. I saw my grandchildren and family when I felt like it. Having seen how terrified my toddler grandson had become of people after the first one.

I discovered the AD's on here which was a life line I wasn't alone. My husband had become a bit of a dementor by then.

The media/news was sucked into the batshittery so I stopped reading/watching it.

Before lockdown, when the messaging was to wash your hands and to socially distance I was talking to a bloke who'd just been to a conference on gastrointestinal illness, he said everyone there had seen a colossal fall in admissions. We're a dirty nation.

I'm probably talking shit but I will own it 😅 I can't help but think covid was like a big reset button . Almost to make a pathway for things to change. The Col/ expense of food/utility bills etc . Since covid you have to book most things . You can no longer be spontaneous. Kids can't spend a whole afternoon swimming etc. Cost of eating out has gone sky heigh. It feels sort of controlling to me.

I'm not in the UK but I did see that one UK council had to warn people not to step out onto dangerous roads in order to follow the 2 meter distancing rule because apparently all common sense went out the window for some people and they were risking getting knocked down by cars rather than risk getting too close to someone walking by!

I think the definition of party has been wildly overused in this context.
Boris Johnson nearly died of covid and he had a small surprise bday put on for him.
His time was managed by other people.

Many workers who had to be in work, many of whom had also had covid had drinks somewhere or met up.

I think it's a puerile and silly and highly annoying news story... The far more interesting, urgent and shocking story was about elderly people taken from the hospitals, put into care homes and seeding the diseases there.

People also working in care homes with zero protection.
And all the other awful things that went on.

But no it's about a very small group of people who had bad covid having a surprise bday party for someone and rich tories and their mates

I'm with you there's still remnants.

I thought the people on here determined to go on their skiing holidays in Feb half time were more bonkers than the hand clipping that came later if I'm honest

This place always goes to extremes , you had those that insisted they would not be staying in if the caught covid and then others washing and isolating their shopping and crying and shaking if the neighbour went our for more than one walk a day

And the amount of people who seemed to want schools to stay shut for even longer than they did was ridiculous

All childhood illnesses had a hiatus too. But they returned with a vengeance.

My street only did the clapping once, thankfully - it was a bit cringe.

I think the lockdown did have to happen - the key thing here is it was a novel virus , that meant we couldn't be sure how it would play out and you don't just shrug your shoulders and go 'Hopefully it'll be OK'. The issue also wasn't that it was going to kill vast numbers but that the health system would collapse, as it nearly did, in sheer weight of admissions if we just let everyone get it before we understood how to deal with it better, as medical professionals did after the first wave.

Obeying the rules was not about blindly believing things you are told but it was quite clear to me that even as I didn't trust the government as far as I could throw them I felt it appropriate to trust medical professionals, and the picture from Italy and as it got closer from within my community made it clear that something was up. Like most people I used a combination of the messages from authority and what I could see happening around me to make a judgement call that it was best to follow the official advice at least for the time being. I intensely dislike the idea that people following order were just dumbasses who do what they are told, people do actually have powers of judgement which they use to draw conclusions.

I never saw or heard directly of anyone being tattled on for reasonable behaviour - I think honestly the vast majority of people would understand if a few different family members called in on a lone elderly relative now and then, as that's totally different to, say, having a massive party Boris Johnson ahem ahem.

Meh, we walked a lot. Live in the countryside so no one to care if we over ran our allotted hour, roads were blissfully empty. Adult kids came home, homeschooling was fine DS was happier out of school and away from bullies. I liked not having pressure to visit family. DH went out to work everyday.
Too self conscious to clap, although obviously grateful.
DD painted a rainbow on the window, traces of it can still be seen in the sealant.

The masks and queuing seem surreal now. But everyone seems to have forgotten that the fear was real. There was a positivity that was nice, the hope that things would be different going forward. We'd treat key workers better etc, but no. People are more unpleasant and arrogant than ever.

Oh yeah, the people jumping into roads to avoid walking past you. That was bonkers as well

That makes no sense because you can't get the shingles from chicken pox.

For people who have had the chicken pox it's actually good to be around people who have chicken pox because it acts as a bit of a booster, meaning you're less likely to get the shingles!!

I'll never forget the child who had to die alone and then be buried without his parents there because of covid......and we as a country went along with it. The hospital went along with it instead of applying common sense (( if the child could be cared for by nurses in protective gear I see absolutely no bloody reason why his parents couldn't have worn the same get up so he could die in their arms instead of over zoom ))

They weren't allowed to see him after he'd died. He went straight into a sealed coffin. And that's what's bloody terrifying. How everyone went along with it, how quickly the ridiculous and inhumane became our normal.

I think anyone with any sense would still tear you apart. I loved it when all the numpties thought they were being clever when they were actually being their usual dimwit selves by not understanding the point of the rules. The Dunning Kruger effect at its best. You were my main lockdown entertainment. 😂

As I remember it, the rainbows in windows started - in the very early days of the first lockdown - as a way for kids to feel connected to each other. We enjoyed spotting them on our walks in those first few weeks and it was a nice thing for younger kids. But then they got sort of co-opted by the NHS worshippers and became another virtue signal 🙁

One of the cringiest things I remember is when I was trying to sort out leavers hoodies and one of the companies had a design with 'We stayed at home to save people's lives' written all up and down the sleeves. FFS.

My son had a crappy experience at university started in 2019 six months in he was home and locked up. Ditto his second year.

Welsh trains being searched for inessential travellers daily.

I'll not forget. DH died at home of a heart attack. I let in men in white suits and masks, thinking they were ambulance men.

They were police investigating 'an unexplained death at home'. DH was in his 80s and - amongst other health issues - had had open-heart surgery 11 yrs previously. (We'd been told it would give him 10 yrs.)

My neighbour was prevented from entering the house.

DH's son had been told to shield, so didn't attend the funeral. The daughter told me she couldn't attend because of her adult onset asthma and she thought it would be too triggering for her adult daughter.

I had to organise a webcast for a funeral attended by 20. I sat in the funeral car on my own. I had to thank the attendees in the crematorium car park. I'll not forget.

We're still here though 😉