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 find this really confusing. The lockdown didn't protect you because the lockdown had to end at some point and then you got it anyway.

Yes in the same way that staph, or herpes, or meningitis, or any number of infections are a threat to people in their 20s who die from those.

I know a couple of people who have told me the same thing.

I think that without lockdowns we would have been in a much worse situation (please can we not forget the thousands of potentially avoidable deaths because of late and ineffective lockdowns and leadership).

Well I think lock down did protect me because i didn't get it until after lockdown by which time I'd had the vaccine, same with the majority of the people I know .

This makes more sense - you believe that without the vaccine the infection would have been worse?

It will never happen again in the same way. The powers that be panicked and over reacted because they didn’t know what else to do. Lessons have been learnt and any future pandemic would be handled very differently.

This is the largest effect of Mr Johnson not acting in early March. If the restrictions had started then, I think some in person schooling for all children could have resumed in June or early July.

Re-opening pubs was deemed more important, or half price junk food eaten in McDonalds.

@Iwasafool

Unfortunately the Govt published age distribution for Covid deaths is 15-24 then 25-45, but from the attached data you can see that there are very very few deaths in the 15-24 age bracket and way less than from other causes such as suicide.

www.ons.gov.uk/visualisations/dvc1470/new_age/deaths/datadownload.xlsx

There was definitely a lot of insanity during that time, but the virus was dangerous and people died a horrible death. Other people have been left with long term health problems due to long covid.
We were right to lockdown but it should have been sooner - I think everyone acknowledges that now, I heard Chris whitty mention at the inquiry, that he got it wrong.

In my hospital we were completely overrun at points in the pandemic, namely April and may 2020 and January and February 2021. My service (oncology) almost stopped completely until we were able to arrange for patients needing chemo and radiotherapy to be treated at a local,private hospital which acted as our green site. Nevertheless I've estimated that we had significant number of excess deaths, although I stop at calculating the exact amount because I don't want to know.

Like other people from cancer services, we spent the pandemic in ICU - a place I hadn't worked in for many years and where I frequently felt out of my depth clinically. Our nurses were the ones who were chosen to give the news of impending death to families because they are cancer nurses and so have those skills. Except they weren't trained, or prepared, to hold an iPad to a barely conscious, dying patient so their family can say goodbye. It's still raw for them. It always will be.

The clapping was ridiculous and the hysteria around disinfecting shopping etc, but fundamentally we did the right thing as a country. I hate the Tories and hate how they behaved with their parties and so on, but we should not let those despicable human beings stop us from believing that we did the right thing. There were too many deaths, but without lockdown, without social distancing etc there would have been more.

Well I don't think it's coincidence that deaths and hospital admissions started to fall once people started being vaccinated , I have no idea if it would have been worse for me personally without the vaccine

I could still pull up the MN threads where I (and some others) were getting absolutely slated for saying this at the time. It's understandable that people are anxious about their health and there were difficult decisions to be made but so much of it was totally irrational and nonsensical. It drove me half mad.

That isn’t true for everyone. In the North West we had some kind of restrictions in place on normal everyday activities constantly from March 2020 until July 2021.

The statistics were interesting. They're no longer being collected though, so perhaps it's low now.

I think people should be ashamed of being nasty to people or hoarding toilet rolls etc as that was shameful and cringey behaviour.

But I personally didn’t do anything I am ashamed of or would cringe about.

I think it’s a bit shitty to try and shame people for being over cautious in a pandemic which affected the entire world and had devastating consequences (of which could have been way worse).

Its like trying to shame/being ashamed of being over cautious when a loved one had a terminal illness or going through a time of war.

People (apart from those who acted like dicks) did what they needed to do to get through and no one should ever feel shame for that.

As for kids painting pictures or clapping for the NHS, these people are heroes and giving them recognition during covid or at any other time shouldn’t be something to cringe or feel shame over either.

We didn’t know for certain what was happening. It was scary.
I don’t want to downplay the severity or be insensitive, but Covid was ‘lite’ as far as pandemics go - although I think we might be shocked in future to hear the long covid statistics. If Covid had been like Spanish Flu, or God forbid Ebola, killing 30% of those who caught it, life would not have been ok now, Or if the virus had affected children primarily - it’s not worth thinking about.
Personally, I think a lot of us have heads in the sand when it comes to pandemics, fossil fuel depletion, global warming and modern warfare .

It was a strange time. I live in Central London, cooped up in a flat with limited communal outside space with my boys, 13, 8 and 6 who were going absolutely stir crazy. My DH was an essential worker so was out of the house all day, I was WFH and trying to get my children to keep up with their school work, particularly hellish with my (then undiagnosed) ADHD child.

I remember trying to burn off some energy with my DC in Kensington Gardens which was always full of police on horseback or in 4x4's with megaphones berating people for sitting on the grass or on benches and bellowing how you had to keep walking, you must not be stationary. It was insane. 1984 come to life.

But we didn't know at the beginning and it was scary and people were dying. The first phase was genuinely awful. A lot of the social interaction in hindsight was cringey but people were desperate for reassurance and community.

Fair enough. Incidentally I haven't been vaccinated and as far as I know have had covid once with no symptoms. Same as you, I can't really draw any conclusions from that.

I would think being a child or in your 20s and losing a parent to covid would be more traumatic for the majority than lockdown was

I boy my son goes to school with mum spent 6 months in hospital away from her very young children, I'd rather my dc go through lockdown than than the trauma of a pelarent being in hospital for all that time or dying

I agree that losing a parent is very traumatic.

Being locked at home with abusers with no school and no adults beyond the home looking out for you is also traumatic.

I don't think isolating every single child in the country was a good choice. There was a time when I would have thought most people would agree with that opinion but hey ho.

I haven’t read the thread but Christ lockdown was a mistake. The entire clap for NHS too. I worked in the NHS, I was frontline and I was treated like shit. Both by my trust and the public. The clapping nonsense drove me potty and the first and only time I met my neighbour, he berated me for not clapping. He got an earful and a half I can say that much. I’d rather have bopped him on the nose but unfortunately social distancing. Something that went out the window in an NHS setting, along with masks as none of it was practical.

Overall, the entire thing was a pain. Not cringe. A pain.

Brazil didn't opt for the vaccine.

It's not a happy thought. I'm not entirely convinced modern civilisation would survive a bad one, actually.

Well, it’s what people do in times of crisis. The door step thing offered a bit of structure and community (and ritual) - it’s simply a human need. don’t think that’s cringe

The scientists hadn’t got much of a clue so they defaulted to stay inside til the threat was assessed and addressed. It’s a primeval response of humans to threat.

The type of people in politics - of any flavour were generally never going to go a long. Keir Starmer disappeared off the face of the earth so he couldn’t be accused of anything after (he offered up a sacrificial woman Angela Raynor to take the wrap) Corbyn was a fan a of dinner parties I recall.

I think fuck ups occurred. I lost the last two years of my Dads life as he slipped into dementia and we couldn’t see him. This caused quite a bit of psychological distress I needed to address. But such shit has happened forever.

We always have a different view of the past., what I think is “cringe” is people, with the 20:20 vision of hindsight flapping over something now done. Similar reactions were happening across the world to a greater or lesser extent. Let’s not forget that Utopian ideal of mumsnetters France required a printed pass to leave your house. The reaction was nothing to do with government- it was a reaction of human nature.

People absolutely do have their heads in the sand or can’t comprehend how dangerous these diseases can be.

It’s funny because we’re all made to learn about the Black Death in school and yet people were questioning why lockdowns and social distancing were needed.

I think it scares people and so they choose to bury their heads in the sand and think if they deny it then it won’t come true.

We are very fortunate in the western world but we aren’t immune to pandemics and there will be more in the future.