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. 💕

Ha. DH and I were also accused of murdering old people by his ‘best friend’ because we went to a pub the night before lockdown (sitting in a corner on our own not interacting with anyone). Goes without saying they are no longer friends.

I think MN was the first place I read opinions on an online forum, which basically led to “If the elderly die so be it” type of sentiment, and again later justifying the daft tiers and eat out to help out. Of course, far later we learned of the “let the bodies pile high” from Boris. It was such a crazy time, so many bonkers threads at the time.
I often wonder how the world would seriously respond if we were to face another pandemic.

Anybody travelling anywhere would definitely get into a terrible accident, thus taking up valuable emergency services resources.

Bonkers

In film, a virus such as COVID would have caused societal collapse.
I thought people managed brilliantly, bar a few who went bat-shit crazy.

Ah man, I always go back to the "State of Fear" threads, where some of us were just trying to while away the hours talking about all aspects of virus origins, transmission, lockdown, etc etc. There were about 7 when it all got taken down as there was an absolute pile on from someone who screamed "far right" about anything that wasn't from the government hymn sheet, and there were fears we were plotting civil unrest because of a flippant, frustrated comment about not being opposed to a revolution if they changed the goal posts one more flipping time.

Yes, there were some tin foil hatters who popped up, but you couldn't even say WEF without screeches of "conspiracy theorist". Alot of us were convinced the 77th Brigade were involved, and I still wonder. ...

Also had a long debate about the definition of airborne - ie was it "in the air" all the time, or just when someone coughed / sneezed. Fascinating.

To be honest, I kind of miss social distancing. I like my personal space, 2m was a nice distance.

It wasn’t a case of ‘if old people die so be it’, it was a case of - let’s not lock down entire society for a virus that has a fatality rate of less than 1%. The damage lockdown did is immeasurable.

I do confess to wiping over door knobs and the letter box every day with anti bacterial wipes - the 2nd lockdown for us was really hard as we had moved to Copenhagen only 5 weeks before - so no chance to get into our stride - however they didn’t do queuing outside supermarkets or if they did I never hit any queues - however once vaccines kicked in they had Covid passports so hospitality kicked back in much quicker but you had to show either vaccination or testing x 2 a week on your app to go in anywhere

Omg thats awful! I hope she remembers that and treats her mum with the same care and attention when she ages.

When people were ordering food in Wether spoons that they never eat because they could only go to the pub if having a meal. People were saying why would they let it go to waste? They could give it to the homeless. After it's been sat on the table for a few hours with people breathing over it.🤔🙄

Tbh that is peak teen selfishness but also delightfully thoughtless 😂 that you could of added more to the basket and still got the hair dye.

I can remember when people were posting about 'the virus in China' before it reached here and they were getting piled on because they were overreacting and scaremongering. The virus would never reach here. Stockpiling is ridiculous. I would never go along with a lockdown. Stop all these posts about something that will never happen.

To be fair it was very unclear in the first iteration rules whether driving / travelling to get to the yard to look after your horse or other animal was allowed, it very much wasn't one of the stated exceptions (nor was walking your dog either IIRC but you could usually cover that off in the 30 mins allowed exercise). I have a horse and all us owners on the yard were genuinely really concerned we were going to get pulled over by the police and made to explain ourselves for being outside our houses not for work or an emergency, we carried scrappy little handwritten letters from the yard owner around in our cars saying our horse's welfare meant we had to feed them etc (did we really think that would have cut it if we did encounter an over-zealous policeman 😂) but what about riding, was that a for fun leisure activity or necessary exercise, it seems mad now but looking back it really did feel like a minefield. As it happens I decided to give mine an extended field holiday and not ride until the summer of 20 (more so because I didn't want to fall and break a leg or a collar bone and clog up A&E and by lockdown 2 it became much clearer that so long as you were being sensible you weren't going to get into trouble but it did all feel very confusing and scary in those early days!

The mass hysteria was understandable. It was a direct consequence of the government making a deeply cynical decision to deliberately weaponise fear in order to control the population.

While this may have worked at the time, the problem with lying to people is that they have long memories and if there is another, possibly worse, pandemic in our lifetimes they won’t swallow the lies next time.

Various threads of "I've just been to the park and there were loads of people there. Why won't people stay home"

And stock responses to "I need to go out to do x y or z" of "the virus doesn't care".

I had to do a Mumsnet hiatus when someone started arguing bread and milk weren’t essentials.

I also remember starting a thread because my DP needed to post a parcel and our nearest PO was closed, but the one in town was open, so he tried to get a bus. We were both frazzled as my DM was dying from cancer in our front room, so when the bus driver interrogated DP as to whether his journey was "essential" enough - it was, it was a business parcel because I was trying to keep my shop afloat with online sales via eBay so I was somewhat obligated to send the damn thing in a timely manner - DP, after a prolonged debate with said driver, got a taxi instead because, in his words, when he rang me apoplectic, he wasn't going to be held responsible for his actions otherwise.

Boy, did I get a pasting for that one. It didn't happen, apparently. Of course it wasn't an essential journey. I don't think it went as far as LTB but it came close as I recall. It was very 😳

The maddest thing I read on here was no one should have a BBQ as COVID affected the lungs and the fumes from said BBQ would kill someone.

This made me laugh because it's something my younger brother (estranged) would do 😄😄

You were completely justified 😄, I bet it's made for a funny family story though

The woman who had an air filter unit attached to her toddlers pushchair.

I worked in retail and we got reported to head office for sitting next to each other on break, photos and all. It obviously didn’t occur to whoever reported us that we were spending more time with colleagues than family and working in close proximity to each other. Also had people shout at us for not making customers follow the arrows on the shop floor, MN also liked said arrows and agreed we should enforce it but for what we got paid we couldn’t care less. Made a note to self to get into an industry that was furloughed for the next pandemic.

The “I went out and saw other people out aren’t they awful” brigade were rife, here and on all the school whatsapp chats. My favourite was someone complaining that they’d seen lots of other people at the park, then when someone called them out they said they had to go out because “they’d caught a mouse in a trap at home and had to release it” which was so oddly bizarre and specific it must’ve been true but ultimately everyone obviously thought their reason for being outside was fine even if no one else’s was!

I worked for the NHS at the time, and the main bus company put on a free bus just for NHS staff.
I used to catch the bus at 6.30am, and I was the only one on the bus for a couple of months, until the bus company realised this well meaning gesture wasn't working and stopped it.
I am not fond of peopling, and that 10 minute early morning bus journey was bliss!

Referring to people as covidiots for being... normal.