Have people forgotten about covid and what's really important?

[Beautifulweeds]

Just this really.

Covid...working or non working parents had to have online teaching at home (for working so much more difficult). Teachers had to do these lessons online while supervising their own kids being taught online.
It showed how many parents found it difficult teaching their own and so sad some suicides of single parents having no escape.

Supermarkets...
In fear of covid but worked through, online delivery went through the roof, all working. A close relative with parent on chemo hadn't got the official document through so had to keep working and go home to a highly vulnerable person. Took several weeks to sort, otherwise woukd have lost job if refused to go in.

NHS, I remember the days just before it was announced and A and E staff having a more than full waiting room of coughing before mandatory mask wearing.

The impact...stay at home, if you could. Celebrities showing off, non essential things like false eyelashes, fake nails, any form of plastic surgery etc stopped.

The world realised what was important. Now it has too easily gone back to the superficiality it was before and people complaining about everything.

Thank you for reading my long post, just needed to put it out there.

I, for one, as a frontline worker and human being, am so disappointed at how so many people have gone back to being so rude and entitled, when they were relying on us at thay time to help them live. X

This thread really does me remind me of the good old Pandemic days on MN. Everyone at each other's throats. Seething resentment towards key workers. People going on about sheep.

@GoodVibesHere This is so true. While it is important to recognise that some people faced a difficult job by being on the frontline, this does not mean that everyone else was at home making banana bread.

There are millions of others who had to pick up a laptop and learn how to WFH while educating their kids. Without them vital services and companies would not have kept running and the country and economy would have collapsed.

Nhs workers did die, but not “many,many”. If you take a look at the ONS figures for specific occupations you will see that more supermarket cashiers died than nurses.
https://www.ons.gov.uk/file?uri=/peoplepopulationandcommunity/healthandsocialcare/causesofdeath/datasets/coronaviruscovid19relateddeathsbyoccupationenglandandwales/current/reftablesfinal.xlsx
So much rubbish was printed and broadcast, the actual figures make interesting reading in view of the perceived risks people had.
Hospital workers face less risk that care workers because they had greater access to PPE but also because their infection control training was far better. It had nothing to do with masks but so much more to do with basic handwashing.
In hospitals there are handwashing sinks galore, care homes and peoples homes not so many. Washing your hand when you enter a room and washing them before you leave ensures you don’t take bugs in and you don’t take them out. People relied too heavily on the “magic” masks. You are far more likely to contract Covid by touch transfer. Although the virus can be airborne the droplets containing it quickly fall on to surfaces, any surface. Our hands are by far the quickest way to transfer infection both to others and ourselves.

The figures in the table are for 2020 because by December the vaccine was introduced and healthcare workers were prioritised.

It’s easy to believe the media, but I think those that stayed at home were totally unaware just how many people were still working so that the could stay/work from home.

The world took a few steps backwards before COVID.... around 2016.

@Mademetoxic This is just my experience, I have friends and family members who are very OCD about germs and their DC have picked up on this which is now becoming an issue. Of course there are those who did not

Exactly.

Schools/ universities are important
Families and friends are important
Playgrounds and social activities are important
A diverse economy is important
General healthcare is important

Lots of important things were swept aside, often for far longer than they needed to be and you couldn't even discuss the obvious incoming impacts of that without being called selfish, a granny killer or a covid denier. Virtue signalling became more important than reality and thank fuck the "new normal" didn't stick around.

Yeah. It was never the same since Harambe

I don't really pay much attention to the media, and quite happily exist in my own bubble.

But I'll tell you what does do my head in is "key workers" still constantly banging on about how important they are. Everyone's important. Everyone's job serves a purpose in society, and unless you're proposing to continue restricting economic activity then all the superficial crap is quite important too.

People have always been rude. Some just are and others are having a bad day for a whole myriad of reasons and I personally choose not to let a momentary encounter impact any of my day.

Covid, pack of lies to control us all.

i was polite to shop workers and nhs workers before covid, during and still am

there's always knobs about - just less of them during lockdown

but stop the sanctimonious saving lives as if there's a moral superiority

I wish our teachers had been teaching our children! During the first lockdown we were told they were too busy teaching their own children so couldn’t do, you know, the job they were qualified for and were being paid for and set up a single Zoom session or email us some work. Not even a welfare/safeguarding call.

Ah, ok then, so hubby and I as non qualified teachers will just have to juggle our full time jobs - which our employers are continuing to pay and quite reasonably expect us to do full time - with trying to teach our own kids then, ditto the other parents in the school!

Fond memories of attempting to “lesson plan” at midnight night after night though.

🙄

I worked on the wards as an NHS doctor. The talk of heroes and the clapping made me cringe so much. We were just doing our job during a difficult time. No adoration needed.

I think the pandemic brought out the worst in people. At one end, the small-minded people who reported neighbours and lectured everyone, and at the other end, the conspiracy theorists thinking that their musings on Telegram were intelligent and revolutionary.

I am just glad it’s over.

Can you help us understand what point you’re trying to make? What is really important ? Covid was an awful awful time, loneliness, isolation, and it feels like you’re holding it up as the poster child for life. Entitlement and rudeness was worse during this period. People judging and attacking each other. Reporting their friends and neighbours for an extra walk.

I understand you’ve maybe written this badly. So what is it you’re trying to say?

If you ever go into public toilets, you will see how many people waltz out of the doors without even going near the sinks.

Or, just do a quick rinse for like 2 seconds under a tap. If that will do anything!

There are also quite a lot of threads about this as well, with many people admitting they don't wash their hands.

People are grim.

I think going out to work with a bunch of potentially sick people not knowing whether it was a deadly virus or not (mainly at the beginning) was somewhat noble don’t you think?

We could have locked down earlier like NZ and closed the borders I think.

This is not a practical idea. NZ was able to do that because they're geographically isolated, have a very small population and produce enough to feed themselves if necessary.

None of this applies to the UK. We have a politically delicate land border that doesn't actually have infrastructure to be fully policed these days, and that we couldn't unilaterally have closed. The English Channel is the busiest shipping lane in the world and we're incredibly reliant on fast imports to feed the population and keep everything functioning.

It was years ago … distant memory. Why do people keep raking it up on here. Nobody in real life even mentions the word.

I had two very vulnerable loved ones and lockdown did them more harm than you could possibly imagine.

I kind of hoped that Covid would change the way we live and work. That we might realise what’s important and easy it is to make accommodations to people’s situations.
for a little while teachers seemed to be appreciated a little bit more and nurses and medical staff were given the praise and respect they are due. Sadly I agree, we are back to where we were, maybe even a more harsh less forgiving version.
I feel now having to close the gap in education, nhs backlog etc is all causing so much more stress on individuals than pre covid.

What was pretty amazing is that most people did as they were told for the greater good.
Yes, that was amazing - ok mention Boris but they were the minority.

Yep, because you're not controlled by the folk feeding you that untruth. 🫣

I do wonder if these demands and blackmails were made by real NHS workers though.
I'm not disbelieving what you say - I've no doubt people were trying to get free meals off of you. But I wonder if they were people who were very convincingly pretending to be key workers.
I'm an NHS worker, a ward Sister. In my local Tesco, during lockdown, they made a rule that any NHS workers didn't have to queue at the till - they were allowed to bypass the queue and go straight to the front to pay and leave ahead of everyone else. It was based on honesty and all you had to do was say you were an NHS worker.
I never took advantage of this because I used to stand in the queue with my trolley and think I'm no more important than any other person in this queue. But on different occasions I saw other mums from our DC school and village who I know full well did not work in the NHS (I know their occupations) lie and say they were NHS staff so that they could bypass the queue. I literally stood and watched them. One of them saw me looking at her when she lied, and she knows that I know she's not an NHS worker. She looked awkward for a nanosecond when she caught my eye but then went ahead and did it anyway.
My point is, it made me wonder at the time how many other people were lying about being NHS workers, as in for example calling for a takeaway and claiming to be an NHS worker in need of free food like you've explained!

I am fascinated how people use masks and gloves ineffectively. They just don’t get it that touching a surface with gloves on then touching your face is no different to not wearing gloves.
I’ve worked in a healthcare environment for30+ years where we use gloves all the time. I may get through several pairs of gloves with just one patient. I suppose because I deal with the mouth I’m hyper aware of the risk of touching anything with dirty gloved hands.

As for masks, they stop the blood and gore landing on my face but viruses sail straight through. We also, pre covid, would remove our masks before leaving a surgery because they are usually covered in crap from people’s mouths and can transfer that crap to surfaces outside of the surgery. Through Covid we had to keep them on or, if using respirators leave the room and go to a designated room to remove the mask and disinfect it. It was a relief when we could go back to the simpler masks.
I have had Covid every year. I haven’t contracted at work though, it has always been via social interaction. This year I had it early October after dropping DS at uni. He had caught it ( unknowingly) a few days before, so a few hours in a car ensure he shared it. I wouldn’t have known but the speed with which it affected DH an I made me suspicious so I tested with the early symptoms.

Maybe in your ‘real life’, but sometimes it does come up for people because they’re still affected by it. Four years ago is no time at all for people to be talking about something which has had a long term impact.