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?

That was just one example. There are loads of others. A medic specialising in alcohol abuse would've had another perspective again- you probably know alcohol related deaths increased a lot during the restrictions period. A social scientist who knows inequality robs years off lives just as sure as covid would give another.

We need all of them.

Saying things like "there is/never was anything to worry about" is as much of a fear reaction in the context of covid as washing your shopping.

How much power the government and police suddenly had, rushing through emergency powers. That was frightening, and makes me very cynical now when they pretend they can't manage things like contentious marches and illegal entry to the UK.

Some of the people on here insisting it was all a fuss about nothing sound as bonkers as the people who were washing their shopping

I think about the lockdown and literally gives me panic and anxiety.
My whole life has changed for the worse.
Wish I could wake up from this nightmare and be back to 2019.

No it isn't. An elderly close member of my family was admitted to hospital in the final stages of his body giving up due to Parkinson's. He died from that.

He had Covid on the death certificate.

You're quite right. Covid made me realise those who would have happily shopped Otto Frank and his family to the authorities.

I always thought the clapping and whatnot was completely batshit, I got reported at the end of tbe last lockdown for having a "party" because I had 2 friends over for drinks having spent the majority of lockdown alone with toddler DD. Police came to my door and gave us a letter 🙃 i still look back and can't believe anyone could be pathetic enough to report it

It wasn't an equal opportunity virus, those close to power knew they were at lower risk (typically younger, healthier, genetically less at risk) and took advantage of that knowledge.
Catherine Calderwood was Chief Medical Officer for Scotland until she was caught breaching rules that she had implemented was typical of the arrogance of those in power.
I can't believe that there will be another lockdown before 2050, if ever, there is literally nobody with the public credibility to order it.

It was very scary for a lot of people at the beginning. All the more reason to not be a twat to people who were doing their best in difficult circumstances. I was very fortunate in the first lockdown. We could wfh, we have a large garden and live rurally. Many people weren’t so fortunate so it would have been pretty shitty to criticise (or even worse report) them for using public transport to get to work, or taking their kids to the playground or for buying a bar of chocolate as it wasn’t essential. Fear shouldn’t be an excuse for nastiness.

Fwiw I think the same about the anti-vaxxers who refuse to respect the choices of others too.

One of my most vivid memories is watching a neighbour antibac wipe every single item of food shopping that has just been delivered to her before taking it inside.

No judgement towards her but I remember thinking at the time, this is madness.

Agree, and scarily it was quite a lot of people! The absolute glee of some of the locals around here when they "caught" someone doing something they deemed wrong was quite disturbing. Made me look at the village in a very different way, and I've never felt the same about it since.

I know 3 people who died during the first lock down and none of them had covid on the death certificate so it is rubbish that no one died of anything else

I apologise I haven’t read the full thread, but I hope the person who wrote on a thread like this sometime ago has posted about how they “illegally” drive to their parents house to get their gun incase she needed protection from looters!

I think of that post often, it makes me laugh so much.

There are still businesses closing down who managed to limp on despite not getting any grants/support etc., and being dragged down by having the repay the loans they had no choice but to take on to survive at the time. Mostly the smallest of businesses who have tried to limp on in the hope that things would get better, only to suffer the cost of living crisis, high inflation etc.

I cleaned every item of shopping when I came in , cleaned everything I touched , my clothes straight in the wash and then me straight in the shower !

Kept my son away from his dad ( which at the time , made sense , his dad was working in a job where he dealt with lots of the public every day ) and then would have visits where he stood at the end of the drive to talk to our son !

And it's likewise rubbish that Covid wasn't on the death certificate of people that didn't die from it. So, the Covid death numbers were inflated.

They're now rewriting the excess death methodology, so we won't need to worry about the consequences of delays in diagnosis and treatment:

https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/excess-mortality-within-england-post-pandemic-method/excess-mortality-within-england-2023-data-statistical-commentary

The police during it were power crazy. Using drones to spot people walking in countryside, stopping cars asking where you were going, even trying police people in their own gardens.

The police behaved disgustingly, some people said well the law keeps changing so they can't keep up, but they expected others to.

It showed what happens when you give people a little bit of power.

I remember those threads well. People would come on to them to tell everyone off for making jokes and not taking things seriously enough ... despite us keeping to the actual rules (but not the mad ones that people had just made up). There was one guy who was really persistent so we carried on chatting about bits of gardening etc we had done and ignored him. He started getting abusive so his posts got deleted.

It really angered some people that this group of (largely) women were chatting amongst themselves.

My neighbours got really angry with me for still seeing my mum and brother. They live in the same village and I am a single parent. I was also a key worker so still mixing to a degree anyway. To my mind it was just an extended bubble - this was before the bubble thing started though. We had quite an argument but they did apologise a few months later after things calmed down and opened up.

I complied with none of it.
It was clear when we were being fed videos of people falling dead in the street in China, a bit like Del Boy falling through the bar, that this was all very unlikely.

@Calliopespa

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

At least she didn't recommend drinking the bleach as Donald Trump did.

Yes, be grateful that the rules accounted for dimwits not following them 😂

Yes. I was against it at the time and people were vile to me. It was a dark time