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?

"We did the right thing" - you have no evidence.
"Death toll would have been higher " - you have no evidence.
"Swamping of the NHS by COVID" - you have no evidence.

You clearly don't know what evidence I know you don't know that you do know that you don't have regarding the above.

Important to separate direct, health-related, life-saving actions many of us took, from more tangential COVID social behaviours and reactions.

Isolating, social distancing, and some of the lockdowns, did save lives.

And the UK still had the highest excess mortality during the COVID pandemic than almost all other western European countries.

We didn't do the clapping thing, nor did anyone else I know. We did go on lots of lovely long bike rides on really quiet roads, it felt like cycling in France or Spain. The DCs really enjoyed going mountain biking in the woods for their PE lessons too, much more fun than what they would have been doing in school.

I'll never forget being chased and screamed at around tesco by a giant unit of a man, for not having my mask on (my asthma was flaring, my GP said it was ok, and I was wearing my sunflower lanyard!)

He broke social distance rules to grab me, get in my face and aggressively chase me around the shop, he clearly didnt give a toss about masks or covid he just enjoyed the opportunity to bully a woman (he didnt say a word to a maskless man also in the shop!), and all the tesco staff just stood there gormlessly watching and nodding at him, like he was in the right for chasing grabbing and verbally abusing women in their store

(FTR I threw a loaf of bread at him and gave as good as I got; Nobody bullies me 🤣)

I never did any of those things and I harshly judge anyone who did, for being completely stupid, unable to risk assess, read and understand pretty simple stats and data, and also work out what was clearly helpful and what wasn’t (banging on fucking saucepans)
I also judge anyone who changed their Facebook profile pic to either ‘stay at home, save lives’ and/or ‘I’ve had my covid vaccination’ as being a bit thick, and also a virtue signaller of the highest order.

This a million times. I was shocked at the descent into madness on MN completely blew MNs reputation as a site full of intelligent individuals.

Yes, this sums up what I wanted to say in better words than I did.

Lots of my neighbours pulled together to support each other in lockdowns and some of that has continued to this day. My brother and sister-in-law (NHS nursing staff) were frequently insulted and assaulted on their way to and from shifts. Thankfully that has not continued to this day.

It's a difficult balance.

Because some people were arseholes. Some people liked the opportunity to bully others. Not everyone was equally vulnerable to this. Whenever I read on here about anyone giving evils to someone who didn't have a mask on or whatever, it was always very obvious they didn't think the person they were giving evils to was going to smack them. Easy targets. It's not a surprise that there was a racial disparity in fines for rule breaking either.

Equally though, there was a policy environment that deliberately tried to scare the population, to make them more likely to adhere to restrictions. Of course that's going to have an impact on behaviour. No care was given to what this would do to those with pre-existing conditions like anxiety either.

I shudder to think, I washed the gorceries, quarantined my mail, stripped near naked in the hall if I'd been out careful not to flail said contamination through my house.

And, I pride myself on being a sane, logical and grounded person. Shame doesn't even come close.

The clapping I saw mainly as a social exercise. It got everyone out and all the neighbours had a good natter. Several neighbours worked tirelessly through the lockdowns for the NHS. It was good to thank them.

We followed every.single.fucking.rule. because it was something we could actively do, to do our part.

As someone said up thread. Don't forget the national fear - global fear. It was so new,
Information filtering through to the public was fast changing, contradictory and as a nation we were gaslit by our politicians and the media.

If it were to happen again, will we follow the rules? Yes, 100%. I'd rather follow sensible guidelines and rules, then be wrong. I don't want to die or have long lasting consequences from an illness. And, I don't want my family and friends to either. Giving up some freedoms for a short period of time to wait out a pandemic seems like a no-brainer to me.

I don't see the lockdowns as lost opportunities but as new experiences gained and time with my family, that I wouldn't have had otherwise. Home schooling can get fucked though. Horrible, horrible bastarding experience there. But, new!!!

We can either choose to view it negatively or positively and hopefully learn from it.

I am deeply sorry to anyone who lost family through that time. I can't even begin to imagine how difficult that must have been.

I didn’t like the clapping and the ‘protect the NHS’ messaging but the actual doctors and nurses did perform heroically.

They had to work massive hours with minimal personal protection amongst infected people. They genuinely risked their lives.

Ah ok, yeah.

That was a tricky one. Hospitals needed to massively restrict access to prevent transmission to patients, who were of course much more vulnerable than the population in general.

I remember women on here fuming about it, but my dad was terminally ill so I was reading it fuming that people were only concerned about restrictions in maternity wards which must have the healthiest (physically and mentally) and least vulnerable patients in the hospital.

By all means discuss restrictions on patients (inpatient and outpatient) but I was indeed incensed at the notion that pregnant women were somehow deserving of more support than the elderly or the dying.

Quite scary how brainwashed so many people became,including me ! Interesting social experiment!

The initial lockdown rules weren't put in for fun - and Boris and co actively fought against doing them for as long as they could. You know what he's like, liberty and being able to do whatever you like is his number one ethos. It was literally a case of the stats say there are going to be so many critically ill people the hospitals won't be able to cope and you'll have thousands of people dying every day in waiting rooms or corridors unable to be seen or treated. If you want to stop that, you need to dramatically reduce the average number of contacts the population have - which means anything non essential stops and people aren't allowed to go and mingle together without very good reason.

Agree with the previous posters that I also got super annoyed if anyone tried to say "it's the rule, you can only go out for exercise once a day, for no more than an hour!" - no that was guidance not the law. But a lot of people interpreted it as law, which probably benefited everyone in the long run as it kept those peoples' contacts even lower.

I have never used Facebook so I missed quite a lot of the madness. I can't think of anything I did that I cringe about now.

Posted above in response to @fatshamedbyfamily

I got a letter through my door from 2 doors down asking if we were ok as they couldn't help but notice that we hadn't been on our doorstep clapping/banging pans/ doing the Macarena or whatever nonsense someone in the village Facebook group had come up with that week.
I still took the dog out twice a day because a German shepherd that's not getting enough exercise would have destroyed the house.
Thankfully no one accosted my midwife.

Which is exactly why the rules were in place because people had no idea what to do. Including the government. I say again, people were SCARED. Well done to you for not getting caught up in it, if that makes you happy, but the majority of people did, and the mockery is unpleasant.

I freely admit that during a worldwide event that may have resulted in the loss of my loved ones, that DID result in the loss of many many lives, I wasn't calmly "risk assessing" and deciding what "made sense" and what didn't. And if I HAD, I definitely wouldn't be dripping my superiority all over the internet years after.

People doing this - do you go onto bereavement threads where people have lost a loved one to say a car accident, and post "well I simply wouldn't have been in that situation because I'm cleverer than most people"? Do you think your sneering is welcome to people who didn't see their loved ones before they passed away, because they were following the rules? "Well soz you lost your Grandad but I had dinner with mine every week because I'm not a sheep like the rest of you".

So many of the rules defied logic and reason, and pointing that out at the time resulted in abuse, being called "granny killer" and lumped in with conspiracy theories. It was near impossible to have sensible discussion about the issues.

The DCs and I never saw MiL again. By the time that travel and hospital/ care home restrictions eased, she was in her final months and was no longer able to recognise us anyway. At least she existed long enough to have a proper funeral unlike many. Descriptions of households forced to sit apart while in great distress and prevented from comforting each other were as inhumane in 2020 as they are in 2024.

There has been so much damage caused by the restrictions (and additional interpretations of), the length of time they were in place and constant shifting standards (tiers!) but we were only permitted to care about the actual illness and shouted down for trying to flag up wider issues.

The doorstep clapping was cringe.
It was a weird time no doubt. The whole covid situation, I think it's like a scar on society now that hasn't healed yet and might be infected so to speak.

We lived in a tiny flat with no direct sunlight for lockdown. During one of the May bank holidays the weather was absolutely gorgeous, and so we found a secluded area of our local park and dared to sit on our picnic blanket.

Someone had a go at us, telling us "Doctors are working all hours of the day saving people’s lives so you can just break lockdown rules and sit in the park. Well done for killing people".

But a lot of people interpreted it as law, which probably benefited everyone in the long run as it kept those peoples' contacts even lower.

I dunno, the population as a whole gained weight and increased alcohol consumption during the lockdown period. Alcohol related deaths increased, in fact. Lots of us were heavier and in poorer shape when we finally got covid than we were in February 2020, and we know those things make poorer outcomes more likely. It's far from clear that people staying indoors more was the healthiest way to manage a lockdown.

Yes it is cringe all those people died while you all whine about being in the house? Seriously

That's a very apt way to phrase it.

I did the clapping and banging of pots with a wooden spoon. I tried to make as much noise as I possibly could, purely to piss off my neighbour.

Throughout lockdown he had multiple parties over the weekends, 19 kids screaming and shouting on the full sized bouncy castle he purchased and was in the garden on a permanent basis, or the trampoline, or the hot tub or the swimming pool. That coupled with erecting speakers around the garden and playing music non stop all day really began to get on my nerves. It was deafening so I thoroughly enjoyed Thursday evenings when they had put their kids to bed going outside and making as much racket as I could.