Mumsnet during the beginning of the Pandemic - please tell me your stories of the maddest comments you saw

[mumofoneAlonebutokay]

Inspired by chat on another thread - one woman was told not to pop to the shop for milk but to put butter in her coffee instead 😄

I wasn't on mumsnet then but would love to know the maddest comments you saw?

I myself went mad during the pandemic 🙈 and refused to leave the house and judged anybody that did, I'll admit 😬😄 - I wish I'd been calmer

Please share 🥰

Edit - I know how awful the pandemic was for those who lost loved ones, and how serious those losses are - this is just about the unnecessary hysteria and comments stemming from that, not to poke fun at those who lost someone or became ill. 💕

I'm sorry 😞❤️

The thread where a primary school teacher - I think she was Reception/Year 1 - had ordered the parents of her pupils (age 4-6 years) who had tested positive to be isolated in their bedrooms for 10 days. She was adamant that they had to be isolated from the rest of their family and their age was irrelevant.

The woman who was in a hotel and had tested positive. Her boyfriend was sick and couldn’t drive to get her, so her only option was to get the train (think the journey was an hour or two, can’t quite recall). She was told to isolate at the hotel for 10 days, despite saying she simply had no money to do so, otherwise she was spreading disease everywhere on the train and to think of all the people she might kill with her selfishness. No idea what she did in the end as she stopped replying.

We knew how it was spread etc but we still had a decimated nhs workforce, teachers and Essential workers shielding and we didn’t know how we would get out of it as we were still waiting on vaccines.

hindsight is a wonderful thing

I was told bread and milk were not essentials. There was an innocent thread asking about how many times a week we were shopping. I did one big shop on a Friday (no online slots) then topped up during the week with bread, milk, wine etc. I was told to have cereal for breakfast instead of toast. Hard to do that without milk and I haven't eaten cereal for about 25 years!

I missed the whole start of lock down, schools closing etc as I was in bed feeling horrificly ill with some mystery illness which had been lingering for ages then finally struck me down. When I came to a few days later it seemed like the world had changed!

I’m so sorry you went through a traumatic time and I can see how it happened with the messaging coming out.

There was quite a bit of evidence about the risk of catching it at any given time and also the risk of serious and illness or death depending on various factors.

I also had a baby and did not isolate myself more than I absolutely had to. Nowhere in England was forced to be 6months alone, that was a choice made from anxiety rather than facts. Again, I totally understand how that happened. But many of us did point out it’s wasn’t going to do people a lot of good with their mental health and we were ignored.

I took all reasonable precautions and was vaccinated as soon as I could, but the level of lockdown was totally unnecessary and in many cases did more harm than good.

I had a security guard in a local shop tell me off for buying wine... said it was not essential. It was not the only thing I was buying, and at the time, it was very essential!
If it was on sale, then it was fine. Well, should have been fine. It was mad that Wales shut off clothing aisles in supermarkets.

We moved from the UK to Ireland the day before the start of lockdown. Our furniture and belongings followed in a moving truck a while later. I had bought industrial gallon bottles of antiviral liquid and everything was put in the garage, sprayed with antiviral and then left for a week before we let it into the house. I also did the sanitising of the shopping for months.

I do find it interesting that all the most hysterical pro-lockdown posters (NannyandJohn, Hooves, PrincessNutNuts et al) have since vanished entirely. Although NandJ did briefly show up again during the Monkeypox panic.

We did know pretty early though who was at high risk and which settings were particularly dangerous.

There was also very little attempt to balance tackling Covid with the very obvious harms of the measures themselves.

E.g. it was clear very early that outdoors was very low risk but still things like outdoor sports and hospitality were closed for months.

We also knew that young people were at very low risk, but again many received no education for months.

I remember some incredibly smug and ignorant posts complaining about continued availability of alcohol and off licences. Also B and M!

The people concerned clearly had no idea that quick alcohol detox can be life threatening and that some people's only shop in walking distance is an offy that sells basic groceries too. Or that B and M sells a looooot of cheap food.

Not MN, but i will never forgot the irony of a colleague complaining about all the people 'gathered at X beach during a global pandemic', accompanied by a selfie of her and her DH. AT SAID BEACH...

The main thing I remember from lockdown was how pissed everyone was, me included. I posted my espresso martini recipe, with iirc, the suggestion to drink it lying on the lounge floor as that where you will end up anyway.

Seemed that the crazy got crazier the more alcohol had been consumed. Wine oclock got earlier and earlier and the words "Fuck it, got the wine out, nothing else to do" seemed to be common. It also increased the sneering about people who cant cope without a drink or suggesting that someone who had a glass of wine at 5pm was a problem drinker.

My local big Tesco would force people to queue to get in, and queue again inside... starting in the alcohol aisle.

@StClabberts I confess that we took to actually having an every 2 week delivery from majestic

I remember the thread about the poor mother whose adult daughter was having a breakdown in London. The father wanted to drive up and bring her home—this was just before lockdown was formally introduced. She was told that it was selfish because they might need to stop and use motorway service station loos and infect them.

I hope she followed her instinct.

I thought the vast majority of it was absolutely mental at the time. I could have worked from home but chose not to and I quietly broke lots of rules. Reading some of these is making me cross all over again.

Thing is, we DIDN’T know

We did know a lot fairly early on, though. We knew who was at most risk and who wasn’t. We also knew that outdoor spread was very limited. In light of that, it’s indefensible that children’s lives were restricted so severely and for so long.

Ha, I do remember the people whose husbands either worked or knew someone who worked very high up in government and had some kind of scaremongering insider.

N&J was either a complete lunatic or a Troll.

The uproar around nurseries remaining open in January 2021 was also bonkers. The media were breathlessly salivating that under 5s mixing was going to result in millions of deaths.

Starmer campaigned to get them closed.

It was completely and utterly ridiculous. The pounding of chests and the tearing of hair.

Covid was new and unknown. It killed a very small number of people who were particularly vulnerable to it at the beginning. The numbers did not stack up to make it a plague which would kill a high proportion of any society. Most died with not from Covid. The percentage of those who died even with covid was infinitesimal.

The scientists who questioned the propaganda were silenced. Whitty and Vallance, imo, shoukd have been stripped of all honours. The fabric of society, particularly the abused, the poor, the ill housed was ripped up and the act of doing so was reprehensible.

The cashiers at the supermarket did not disappear. They carried on despite seeing vast numbers of members of the public. The evidence was before our eyes. I know three people who died with covid: a gentleman who was terminally ill, a very elderly gentleman who caught it in hospital having been admitted afyer his third stroke and a neighbour who was on end of life care. They all would have been dead within weeks if they hadn't caught covid. I do appreciate that a tiny number of fit and well people died and some got long covid. It was not, however, equivalent to a plague.

Every time I pointed out the statistics I was told I was a murderer and wholly wrong. Time will prove that the lockdowns and propaganda did more harm than good.

We kept to the rules but didn't agree with them. I still don't.

The hysteria on a site that values its intellect was absurd.

I was reading feeling awkward, I did this too 😅

There was something very unsettling about that poster, as if she knew exactly what she was doing to people's state of mind - and was really enjoying it.

Oh i remember that one. It was awful.