Page 23 | Mumsnet during the beginning of the Pandemic - please tell me your stories of the maddest comments you saw

mumofoneAlonebutokay · 2025-04-23T16:49:36+00:00

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. 💕

EasternStandard · 24/04/2025 10:19

Crikeyalmighty · 24/04/2025 10:16

@EasternStandard says a lot really though about certain sections of the population- in Denmark (2nd lockdown) we had daily figures and cases on a website and only had 1 conference when rules changed ( every few weeks) I certainly don’t remember the scaremongering stuff , it was all very matter of fact and didn’t have all these ludicrous tiers or multiple conflicting rules etc

@Crikeyalmightyonly on a website, they didn’t lead the news with daily cases and deaths?

Mumoftwo52 · 24/04/2025 10:19

DoubleShotEspresso · 24/04/2025 10:11

@Mumoftwo52 Respectfully, I think you need some perspective here. I was clear that some consequences (inevitable) were far from ideal. However, this does not negate the fact that lockdown also brought about some positives. Regardless, it was a necessary response, which helped keep the virus from spreading, this has all been clearly evidenced.
I feel that for many, families got opportunities spend time together they would never have been afforded prior to the pandemic. Even these days, I see a far higher percentage of father's participating in school drop offs, attending activities, which was not typical before. I think this is a great positive. WFH for some meant that professional opportunities that did not exist before for many women have been opened up, offering them vital independence and income, around home/family responsibilities. Schools prior to the pandemic were not the safe haven for a great number of SEND child. My DC thrived at home, learning way more than they had at school and were calmer than they had ever been. This says far more about the state of mainstream education, but nevertheless, was I cannot begin to tell you a most welcome change.
As a society, lockdown really shone a light on the public services we rely upon, not just those who had the luxury of working from home, able to get most things delivered. Our health workers, education support services, medical teams, retail staff, rubbish teams etc were all suddenly afforded the credit they deserve. This I think was a very positive change.
Was all perfect? Absolutely not. My own mother went through lengthy cancer treatment from the very early days of lockdown, it was stressful and the limitations of how we were able to "bubble" and support her through this was stressful. But we understood why.
In the first few weeks, we lost a local headteacher to Covid which was very sobering, then followed a great number of relatives, friends and acquaintances. This was of course horrific.
When it comes to mental health, I think we could and should have responded, had better volumes of support available as we came out of lockdown. The word "unprecedented" still haunts and irritates me, but like all services for the vulnerable, there just is not funding where it needs to be. The same applies to DV and the increase we saw there. Piece and social services are again still woefully oovrsubscribed and underfunded, what's your solution here? IIt's not as if these issues did not exist before the pandemic, if we were to learn any lessons on this, you would hope and pray that specialist teams not only better predicted the increases, but also prepared for them. These are areas I do think we could have delivered better, but again, none of us knew the extent or duration lockdown was going to take. Remember when they talked about it being three weeks only?
My experience informed me clearly that Covid was as lethal as we were told, the fearmongering was I believe a wholly wrong method applied to make people comply when it mattered. But only the benefit of hindsight informs us of this now. At the time, the information coming through all led to this being the only way to protect as many as possible. I am not saying it was easy for indeed that consequences were insignificant, not at all. We had a number of deeply stressful challenges, losses and the daily grind of having a SEND child to navigate through this unknown was a hellish 24/7 job.
Therefore for your to cite, with no knowledge of me, the circumstances and challenges I faced with: It was mass hysteria, and it sounds like you bought into every word of it. is as offensive as it is inaccurate. We did the same as anybody did. Read the info and guidance, did the very best we could and muddled through, trying to help all we could along the way. You clearly resent lockdown, this is your right, though I disliked much of it, I disagree it was not needed. What you do not have the right to do here though is abuse me or jump to assumptions you have zero ability to judge properly. What I "brought into" was the best option available for all at the time, with an unknown, growing problem looming across the globe.

Show quote history

Luckily we have the case study of Sweden which proves lockdowns weren’t necessary.

snughugs · 24/04/2025 10:23

ZoggyStirdust · 24/04/2025 10:00

If it was intentional, why? What was the motivation? What was to be gained?

Show quote history

Pretty obvious government control. It was ludicrous the lock down and they didn’t expect to have so many compliant people, even the government were
shocked. Noticed how many government advisors, high up journalists. Drs etc all broke the rules? They knew it was an over reaction. In the meantime we paid about billions to small business to close, our economy really suffered, CAMHS are full and old people still die of various ailments. The lockdown was completely unnecessary. Remember it also became popular and the left winged “right on” thing to do so Sturgeon and Stammer pushed for more and firmer lockdowns. People were demanding it and it was like the trans argument many felt they couldn’t speak out. I ignored the rules and worked during lockdown and had plenty clients. I also had many leave as I decided not to get vaccinated or get my son vaccinated, they demanded to know and was honest. I told them the truth. Their choice but it’s my body and as I’ve never had covid (or have never bothered with a test either). I actually took zero notice of the whole thing. Governments do get things wrong and debating the issue shouldn’t have been taboo.

Thistimearound · 24/04/2025 10:28

Mumsnet classics were:
you shouldn’t walk on empty fields if you could have Covid etc as you could fall into a ditch and endanger anyone who needed to rescue you.
being in your own garden or having your windows open with Covid was selfish and dangerous.

I think what I noticed was that people loved to add on to the rules or attach mad reasoning onto guidelines or rules that’s didn’t exist… so they seemed to get worse and worse. Like the washing shopping thing. No one was ever told to do this but people swore blind we were “supposed to”.

I also saw - not on Mumsnet - a relative who really tested the limit of the guidelines themselves anyway by going on frequent bike rides over long distances when they were supposed to be vulnerable and isolating - taking photos of shops that were (legally!) open and plastering them over Facebook and asking what the point of these shops (pet shop, hardware shop etc) being open was. It felt like they wanted to see businesses fail and people to lose everything.

Also the many social media posts from almost empty and abandoned city centres (“FINALLY people are staying at home! Good to see London so empty!” Etc.) Who and what were these people - the self appointed lockdown police who were allowed out themselves but not others? I barely saw empty London because I was actually at home for the most part, but the ones out documenting it had the moral high ground.

Yes I agree it was all new and scary and people and the government were doing their best in “unprecedented” times but it really brought out the worst in a lot of people.

Topseyt123 · 24/04/2025 10:29

There were signs up along some of the main trunk roads near where I live saying simply "Beware, COVID 19" as if it was likely to jump out of the hedge in front of your car at point blank range! I was out driving with my DD and we began noticing them.

Utterly ridiculous. There was a lot of ridiculousness around. The Pingdemic caused by the stupid app was another example. I deleted the app pretty sharpish. Only had it on my phone for maybe a couple of weeks.

RosesAndHellebores · 24/04/2025 10:31

DoubleShotEspresso · 24/04/2025 10:11

@Mumoftwo52 Respectfully, I think you need some perspective here. I was clear that some consequences (inevitable) were far from ideal. However, this does not negate the fact that lockdown also brought about some positives. Regardless, it was a necessary response, which helped keep the virus from spreading, this has all been clearly evidenced.
I feel that for many, families got opportunities spend time together they would never have been afforded prior to the pandemic. Even these days, I see a far higher percentage of father's participating in school drop offs, attending activities, which was not typical before. I think this is a great positive. WFH for some meant that professional opportunities that did not exist before for many women have been opened up, offering them vital independence and income, around home/family responsibilities. Schools prior to the pandemic were not the safe haven for a great number of SEND child. My DC thrived at home, learning way more than they had at school and were calmer than they had ever been. This says far more about the state of mainstream education, but nevertheless, was I cannot begin to tell you a most welcome change.
As a society, lockdown really shone a light on the public services we rely upon, not just those who had the luxury of working from home, able to get most things delivered. Our health workers, education support services, medical teams, retail staff, rubbish teams etc were all suddenly afforded the credit they deserve. This I think was a very positive change.
Was all perfect? Absolutely not. My own mother went through lengthy cancer treatment from the very early days of lockdown, it was stressful and the limitations of how we were able to "bubble" and support her through this was stressful. But we understood why.
In the first few weeks, we lost a local headteacher to Covid which was very sobering, then followed a great number of relatives, friends and acquaintances. This was of course horrific.
When it comes to mental health, I think we could and should have responded, had better volumes of support available as we came out of lockdown. The word "unprecedented" still haunts and irritates me, but like all services for the vulnerable, there just is not funding where it needs to be. The same applies to DV and the increase we saw there. Piece and social services are again still woefully oovrsubscribed and underfunded, what's your solution here? IIt's not as if these issues did not exist before the pandemic, if we were to learn any lessons on this, you would hope and pray that specialist teams not only better predicted the increases, but also prepared for them. These are areas I do think we could have delivered better, but again, none of us knew the extent or duration lockdown was going to take. Remember when they talked about it being three weeks only?
My experience informed me clearly that Covid was as lethal as we were told, the fearmongering was I believe a wholly wrong method applied to make people comply when it mattered. But only the benefit of hindsight informs us of this now. At the time, the information coming through all led to this being the only way to protect as many as possible. I am not saying it was easy for indeed that consequences were insignificant, not at all. We had a number of deeply stressful challenges, losses and the daily grind of having a SEND child to navigate through this unknown was a hellish 24/7 job.
Therefore for your to cite, with no knowledge of me, the circumstances and challenges I faced with: It was mass hysteria, and it sounds like you bought into every word of it. is as offensive as it is inaccurate. We did the same as anybody did. Read the info and guidance, did the very best we could and muddled through, trying to help all we could along the way. You clearly resent lockdown, this is your right, though I disliked much of it, I disagree it was not needed. What you do not have the right to do here though is abuse me or jump to assumptions you have zero ability to judge properly. What I "brought into" was the best option available for all at the time, with an unknown, growing problem looming across the globe.

Show quote history

What I still fail to understand and could get no answers about at the time. DD has some MH issues and is under the ADHD service and medicated. She has had a dalliance with self harm: cutting, overdosing and anorexia. Pre covid it was essential that she was checked every six months for weight and BP. During Covid monitoring went on-line and she was advised to be weighed and have bp checked at the pharmacy. I never got a satisfactory response as to why it was safe for the pharmacist to interface with her but not for the nurse/MH service itself. The service has still not opened up BTW.

The above illustrates everything that was wrong about the NHS response imo.

sally037 · 24/04/2025 10:34

Does anyone remember the poster called @NannyAndJohn

Wonder what happened to that poster? If remember rightly they wanted to live the rest of their lives in a permanent lockdown.

Rewis · 24/04/2025 10:36

I remember in MN people talking about being allowed outdoors only an hour a day, but I don't remember that ever really being a rule?

Also I remember a t thread where people were wondering of you're covid positive, is it OK to go to your own garden.

DoubleShotEspresso · 24/04/2025 10:37

Mumoftwo52 · 24/04/2025 10:19

Luckily we have the case study of Sweden which proves lockdowns weren’t necessary.

Show quote history

I think that's pure twaddle and the infrastructure & population of Sweden versus the UK is so different, this does not fly sorry.

MistressoftheDarkSide · 24/04/2025 10:39

I also particularly hated the WW2 analogies. It was a blatant attempt in my opinion to encourage blind populism and nationalism.

DoubleShotEspresso · 24/04/2025 10:39

RosesAndHellebores · 24/04/2025 10:31

What I still fail to understand and could get no answers about at the time. DD has some MH issues and is under the ADHD service and medicated. She has had a dalliance with self harm: cutting, overdosing and anorexia. Pre covid it was essential that she was checked every six months for weight and BP. During Covid monitoring went on-line and she was advised to be weighed and have bp checked at the pharmacy. I never got a satisfactory response as to why it was safe for the pharmacist to interface with her but not for the nurse/MH service itself. The service has still not opened up BTW.

The above illustrates everything that was wrong about the NHS response imo.

Show quote history

We had some very similar experiences @RosesAndHellebores and continue to do so to this day. Nightmare stuff to contend with honestly, but as we see from the current government, SEND and MH are never a priority as they just expect us to cooperate, ass we always do. Maddening!

DoubleShotEspresso · 24/04/2025 10:40

MistressoftheDarkSide · 24/04/2025 10:39

I also particularly hated the WW2 analogies. It was a blatant attempt in my opinion to encourage blind populism and nationalism.

Fully agree with this and Boris and his Poundland Churchill caricature was as painful then as it is now.

EasternStandard · 24/04/2025 10:47

DoubleShotEspresso · 24/04/2025 10:40

Fully agree with this and Boris and his Poundland Churchill caricature was as painful then as it is now.

Show quote history

Mind you Starmer had had a go lately with the boots and planes nonsense.

EasternStandard · 24/04/2025 10:49

DoubleShotEspresso · 24/04/2025 10:11

@Mumoftwo52 Respectfully, I think you need some perspective here. I was clear that some consequences (inevitable) were far from ideal. However, this does not negate the fact that lockdown also brought about some positives. Regardless, it was a necessary response, which helped keep the virus from spreading, this has all been clearly evidenced.
I feel that for many, families got opportunities spend time together they would never have been afforded prior to the pandemic. Even these days, I see a far higher percentage of father's participating in school drop offs, attending activities, which was not typical before. I think this is a great positive. WFH for some meant that professional opportunities that did not exist before for many women have been opened up, offering them vital independence and income, around home/family responsibilities. Schools prior to the pandemic were not the safe haven for a great number of SEND child. My DC thrived at home, learning way more than they had at school and were calmer than they had ever been. This says far more about the state of mainstream education, but nevertheless, was I cannot begin to tell you a most welcome change.
As a society, lockdown really shone a light on the public services we rely upon, not just those who had the luxury of working from home, able to get most things delivered. Our health workers, education support services, medical teams, retail staff, rubbish teams etc were all suddenly afforded the credit they deserve. This I think was a very positive change.
Was all perfect? Absolutely not. My own mother went through lengthy cancer treatment from the very early days of lockdown, it was stressful and the limitations of how we were able to "bubble" and support her through this was stressful. But we understood why.
In the first few weeks, we lost a local headteacher to Covid which was very sobering, then followed a great number of relatives, friends and acquaintances. This was of course horrific.
When it comes to mental health, I think we could and should have responded, had better volumes of support available as we came out of lockdown. The word "unprecedented" still haunts and irritates me, but like all services for the vulnerable, there just is not funding where it needs to be. The same applies to DV and the increase we saw there. Piece and social services are again still woefully oovrsubscribed and underfunded, what's your solution here? IIt's not as if these issues did not exist before the pandemic, if we were to learn any lessons on this, you would hope and pray that specialist teams not only better predicted the increases, but also prepared for them. These are areas I do think we could have delivered better, but again, none of us knew the extent or duration lockdown was going to take. Remember when they talked about it being three weeks only?
My experience informed me clearly that Covid was as lethal as we were told, the fearmongering was I believe a wholly wrong method applied to make people comply when it mattered. But only the benefit of hindsight informs us of this now. At the time, the information coming through all led to this being the only way to protect as many as possible. I am not saying it was easy for indeed that consequences were insignificant, not at all. We had a number of deeply stressful challenges, losses and the daily grind of having a SEND child to navigate through this unknown was a hellish 24/7 job.
Therefore for your to cite, with no knowledge of me, the circumstances and challenges I faced with: It was mass hysteria, and it sounds like you bought into every word of it. is as offensive as it is inaccurate. We did the same as anybody did. Read the info and guidance, did the very best we could and muddled through, trying to help all we could along the way. You clearly resent lockdown, this is your right, though I disliked much of it, I disagree it was not needed. What you do not have the right to do here though is abuse me or jump to assumptions you have zero ability to judge properly. What I "brought into" was the best option available for all at the time, with an unknown, growing problem looming across the globe.

Show quote history

It’s not only the benefit of hindsight. People were saying it at the time.

StClabberts · 24/04/2025 10:52

Rewis · 24/04/2025 10:36

I remember in MN people talking about being allowed outdoors only an hour a day, but I don't remember that ever really being a rule?

Also I remember a t thread where people were wondering of you're covid positive, is it OK to go to your own garden.

It never was in England, not sure about elsewhere. Seemed to come from Gove being asked in an interview and saying he thought around an hour would be sufficient. That was never in the regs or even the guidance, but took on a life of its own. There was a poster on here at the time who believed, or claimed to, that the view of a minister overrode statute (it absolutely does not).

I also remember a thread with someone complaining about covid positive neighbours sitting in their own garden. The entitlement was off the scale.

Arraminta · 24/04/2025 10:59

It was terrifying that, hitherto, we'd not known how so many small minded, vicious people lived among us.

I still look at various neighbours and acquaintances (with a slight shudder) because their true natures were revealed during COVID.

AnAlpacaForChristmasPleaseSanta · 24/04/2025 11:05

I remember posts about how all the hairdressers and nail technicians in the country were going to have to retrain as brickies because it would never, ever be safe enough for anyone to get their haircut or nails done in a salon ever again.

I remember texting my friend, who also happens to be my hairdresser asking if I could book her in advance to build me an extension. She hasn't got round to that yet but she did cut my hair last week so I'll let her off.

AnAlpacaForChristmasPleaseSanta · 24/04/2025 11:08

sally037 · 24/04/2025 10:34

Does anyone remember the poster called @NannyAndJohn

Wonder what happened to that poster? If remember rightly they wanted to live the rest of their lives in a permanent lockdown.

I was just going to post this. I bloody loved N&Js wibd ups posts. In the end they went beyond parody.

DoubleShotEspresso · 24/04/2025 11:09

EasternStandard · 24/04/2025 10:49

It’s not only the benefit of hindsight. People were saying it at the time.

Show quote history

If by "people" you mean unqualified FB and MN commenters I think I still maintain we followed the right path at the time. ;-)

Neemie · 24/04/2025 11:09

It was frightening to see how people could be so manipulated by fools like Matt Hancock. We lapped it up though, so I guess we deserved to be treated like idiots.

FedupofArsenalgame · 24/04/2025 11:11

Lol I was told I shouldn't be out and should stay at home. By the person I was making a delivery to ( I'm a delivery driver) Not sure how they planned to get their stuff if all the drivers stayed at home
Another stupid thing I heard was when son was at college. He could spend time with classmates all day but was against the rules to meet up with the same bloody people out of college hours I mean how does that even work?
Edited

Crikeyalmighty · 24/04/2025 11:11

@EasternStandard no they didn’t - if there were any rule changes , that was on or I remember 1 instance where Copenhagen was reaching peak capacity for hospital beds and that was on - and occasionally a bit of ‘world stuff’ or stuff related to the vaccines or travel , but on the whole there was little scaremongering stuff - it was all very factual.

we actually went to Majorca in june 2021 when people in UK were still restricted as Denmark was on the ‘ok’ list -

it isa different kind of population though - less overcrowding , more natural adherence to restrictions in my opinion- but I do think their messaging was less confusing, less anxiety provoking and simpler to follow - it helps that they were only at the point of overload once or twice and although you do see people who clearly haven’t looked after their health as well as they should, that is less common too - and clearly helped with less-seriously unwell people - someone described it as a giant Waitrose - and I knew what they meant . They also prioritised children and children’s well being very quickly. Most people for instance were back working in the shared business centre near us by very beginning of March 21 - and the school near us certainly had kids back very early - way before UK

Crikeyalmighty · 24/04/2025 11:15

@AnAlpacaForChristmasPleaseSanta do you remember all the adverts for things like Anna is a ballerina- she doesn’t know it but her next job is in a warehouse ‘ etc . At that point I realised the government had totally lost the plot.

EasternStandard · 24/04/2025 11:18

DoubleShotEspresso · 24/04/2025 11:09

If by "people" you mean unqualified FB and MN commenters I think I still maintain we followed the right path at the time. ;-)

Show quote history

Didn’t you just say you are only learning now with the benefit of hindsight?

So those people were better able to assess the you were.

TigerRag · 24/04/2025 11:23

Rewis · 24/04/2025 10:36

I remember in MN people talking about being allowed outdoors only an hour a day, but I don't remember that ever really being a rule?

Also I remember a t thread where people were wondering of you're covid positive, is it OK to go to your own garden.

This "rule" was touted in a lot of FB groups despite as you say it not being a proper rule.

I think it was because a politician suggested one hour

I know the advice in at least one group was just about being sensible. Ie, no going in your car and driving somewhere remote