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. 💕

@Crikeyalmighty it could have been worse. One of my friends lost two siblings to covid within a week. I'm still here and wheezing!

I got the first vaccine, and have never been so poorly afterwards. Covid multiple time but the vaccine nearly finished me off!

Never had it again! DH and my 2 younger kids never had it. My eldest had it, because school insisted she had to to be able to attend.

Not really about MN comments, although there could have been a thread about it that I missed, but I would love an explanation for all the 'people dropping like flies' videos that allegedly came out of China.
What the hell was all that about and who made them? It was even reported on the BBC.

Yes I thought it at the time but impossible to talk about without people on the attack.

Not a thread on here but I feel a bit embarrassed about how little common sense I had. Only being in my garden for an hour etc. Went to local park on way to shop, sat on a bench, no one was around but I was convinced I would get in trouble. I was barmy!

I do think though hindsight is a wondrous thing- at the time we were being fed all the pictures constantly in Italy and Spain and there were naturally a lot of very frightened people about -a lot of people did die who hadn’t previously been unwell . One thing I feel that fed into the anxiety was having the daily TV conferences. I don’t think this was a good thing - a lot of older people in particular got hooked on it and more and more anxious. For the second one when we were in Denmark they didn’t have these, they posted figures daily but only did TV conferences when any rules were being changed- so around every 3 weeks

Some astonishing number of people apparently believed that 10% of the UK population had died of it.

Which proved that a) there was SO much inaccurate reporting and scaremongering and b) that incredibly large numbers of people don't even understand what the phrase "per cent" means.

Regarding the pictures and early footage, do you remember seeing video from China of people suddenly dropping dead in the street , and fitting on the ground and being carried away. This was very early on but then covid presented very differently. I often wonder what that footage was

@MinkyWales that’s so awful - very glad you are still with us !

For many on threads here at the time, this most certainly was the sentiment, I do remember gulping reading some comments here.
My personal view is that we largely coped very well as a country, though still believe had we acted in a more prompt manner instead of just gawping at the footage from Italy, lockdown and it's impacts could have been far less severe. As with all these things though, the benefit of hindsight is a marvellous thing.
Whilst I am aware that there were some consequences which have been horrid for many, we still in the circumstances we found ourselves in, with the minimal information we had, were best having the lockdown as we did. I also think that over time, it brought about a great many positives for us as a society. That's not to say I would ever want to go through it again, but I don't think all results were bad ones at all. We sadly lost a number of family, friends and acquaintances to Covid, there were points where it felt far greater than 1%, but thankfully this improved as time went on.

Turning up to my ex’s house to pick my child up wearing blue surgical gloves. The poor kids everyone was a basket case and still are really.

I don’t remember the dates, or months at all, but I do recall the difference between the ‘first wave’ and the second. I was a frontline NHS worker; first time around as we witnessed its arrival, Italy, London- it was scary. What is this thing? I was pretty much pulled out of a corridor into emergency don and doff PPE training, to cascade. The training box said ‘Ebola’ on it. The frantic mask fitting, the 2 (distanced) staff meetings a day, as ‘the situation’ changed hourly. The fear of your first ICU patient encounter, sweating away in full PPE, praying it’d hold up (it did).

BUT with the second wave, we knew So Much More. The difference at work was huge. We now had an understanding of what this thing is. We See You.

BUT the political situation was more rules, more constraint, more control by fear. People becoming nastier to each other, the hysteria on here, kids locked in halls of residence, months of kids at home, not in school, because, obviously, a day at school murdered grandma. Whereas us more in the frontline were seeing our patient being less ill, recovering more quickly. And none of my team of 20 caught it (several claimed to have, but that was back when it gave you 10 days off for free, before easy testing was available…, most of that group ‘caught it’ multiple times).

So it was an odd disconnect, but it did mean I could help my family to look like they were complying, but without the fear.
.

Mooseandsquirrel My mum died of cancer in a hospice in May 2022. She’d been hospital a good proportion of April.

Covid restrictions still existed whereby 2 visitors max and face masks.

I remember in the hospice when we had to wear face masks and thinking she was dying getting covid wouldn’t matter but of course it was about not giving it to staff who could pass it around vulnerable patients.

both my parents had cancer and were on Chemo in March 2020. I remember everyone going on about baiting people and thinking I see my parents a few times a week when I deliver their shopping to their doorway and talk to them form the end of their driveway.

Ig was horrid for people who were ill and vulnerable and the restrictions did make people’s last moments even worse.

I send you all the hugs in the world experiencing it

It was horrible how people were forced, shamed and guilted into taking a vaccine.

Yes, my office had that in January, We were all so ill (mind you, there were only 7 in my office). But although we had heard about the illness in China, we had been told it was not in our area yet.

I remember just before we all went into lockdown two of my colleagues had a screaming match about covid. They were both worried and saying the same thing but were so angry with each other that they did not understand they were in agreement. I recall one of them screaming at the other; 'YOU DON'T BELIEVE ANYTHING. YOU DON'T BELIEVE THE GOVERNMENT. YOU DON'T BELIEVE THE MEDICS. YOU DON'T BELIEVE THE QUEEN' . It was so bizarre.

Then one of them slapped the other one across the face and we all went back to our desks only to be told about half an hour later to pack everything up because we were going to WFH for a bit. I managed to snaffle the office spider plant and took it home with me.

I also think that over time, it brought about a great many positives for us as a society.

That's interesting - what do you think have been all the positives? I think the opposite - that it was an opportunity for a bit of a reset, and it was absolutely squandered and the harms it did were enormous. People have become meaner, more selfish, more impatient, more completely insular in my opinion.

My sons Nana (ex’s mum) told my 6 year old son that she was going to call the police on his step dad (my husband) because he’d had that nhs tracker alert to tell him that he had to isolate for 10 days as he’d been near someone with covid - and god forbid he hadn’t locked himself in a bedroom and stayed away from my son.

I don't think the daily press conference was a good thing either, but suspect it did the job it was intended to do. The anxiety was a feature not a bug.

Yep and the ones screaming "far right" hadnt even read the bloody book that the thread was about.

Someone on my FB said that unvaccinated people should have to wear a badge so people know to avoid them.
It seems that no one really trusted the vaccine to protect them if they were so scared of unvaccinated people.

I am not vaccinated (severe needle phobia). Was called all sorts on here. Including "needle phobia is just something kids have", I need to "grow up", I need to get used to staying at home because only the vaccinated will be allowed out etc.

We laugh about covid now, but in some countries, like Spain, children were banned from going outside under any circumstance. Pets could be walked, but children had to stay indoors. It was barbaric to do that to children. It is no laughing matter.

I remember trying to 'defend' myself against someone telling me I was killing people by not taking the vaccine. This same person was all over social media befor and after the pandemic talking about how childhood vaccines cause autism and how her child hadn't and wouldn't be having them..make that make sense 🙄 🤣

I swear my whole family had it after a trip to Dubai in October 2019 half term. I remember pinching my ds inhaler as I got so out of breath walking the dog, the horrible cough, the sweating. I also remember having a bust up with the head of year as my eldest ds could be right as rain one day and relapse missing school as be literally couldn’t get up saying “I don’t know what the hell my boy has but it’s the queerest virus we have ever had” when he was having a pop about his attendance. None of us ever caught covid during the actual pandemic.

The JV show stirred up a lot of batshittery. Especially that Dr Sarah woman who washed her shopping and cuddled her dad using a clear plastic sheet. And there he was able to work when many others couldn’t.

I had to continue working, front line. I was shit scared, but we had vulnerable people who relied on us daily. Rest of family were furloughed. I did not look at MN during the pandemic.
I did the food shopping.
I ended up in a real mess at the end of 2020, near suicidal. Breaking down in tears, every day.
The government, more so Bozo Fu#%wit, Dominic Cummings et al did not help the situation, and felt the U.K. were being laughed at. Brexit was going on; Ursula Von de Leyen being very brutal, threatening the U.K. as vaccines had been procured before the EU……daily figures of deaths and infections heightened anxiety, but the EU seemed to be managing so much better than UK.
DH got diagnosed with MS in 2021, god the feeling in the pit of my stomach. The neurologist also wrote in the appt letter that I could attend appt which rang alarm bells beforehand.
My poor Aunty (who was more like my mum) was diagnosed with lung cancer. She had no help from Dr’s, just handed morphine meds, she died of Covid caught in hospital 6 weeks later.
Anyone who says they had a nice time on lockdown makes me feel sick.
I feel sick now, tearful, looking back,