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. 💕

whaaaaat

PMSL #essential

I too suspect we had it in November 2019. DP and I were absolutely floored by a flu type virus for about a fortnight which was totally not like us at all. When the first mentions came up of Covid were were quite 🧐🤔😳

But what were you meant to do? There weren't any online slots. Both DH and I had a cough going into the first lockdown. No testing at the time. We had to get food in.

I have to say though, having been on mumsnet since 2006, I stopped during the early pandemic days. It was both nuts and panic inducing

I drove home from my nursing job through clapping streets a few times , felt like royalty 😂

If you weren’t on MN during the pandemic I fear you’ll never experience the madness that was in some areas.

people were being shouted at because whilst doing their shop they picked up cake or chocolate - “ARE THEY NECESSARY?!”

o swear some people thought Covid didn’t exist in the bread aisle of if you went in the sweet isle you became a superspreader 😂🤷‍♀️

There was definitely a split between those who stayed at home (WFH/furlough/SAHP) and those of us who went to work daily as key workers etc.

my favourite was coming home from school everyday and reading about how teachers were doing nothing. I wish I hadn’t been in everyday and then maybe I wouldn’t have got covid - twice. The first time I was extremely unwell.

DH had it just before Christmas 2019 I am sure
Never seen him so ill and it took him ages to recover

I agree. And what if this WAS actually a test. If that’s the case they know now how different countries will react, and how fast. We have no idea. Either way, we have to live now and not worry about it.

I remember it being discussed on a thread whether it was ok to strap your toddler into a buggy or high chair in front of the TV for a few hours while you did a work call in another room. I think a toddler had already drowned due to a parent being distracted wfh (though I can't remember the details) so this was viewed as potentially being a safer option.

There was lots of talk about men wfh, commandeering the home office, demanding silence and refusing to help with homeschooling, while women were working from the kitchen table, looking after a toddler, homeschooling older kids and doing most of the chores. There's been research done since on how gendered the Covid lockdown experience was in many respects. Female employment took quite a hit.

We heard it on MN first! 😅

Great idea for a thread!

Cheese in coffee was a classic.

Someone once asked “Are these essential items?” and included milk, washing powder and meat. Someone said no - I think they expected OP to beat her clothes on a rock

Calling those of us who questioned if lockdown was a good idea for vulnerable people such as children on the at risk register and women experiencing DV, “granny killers”.

A thread moaning that they saw a woman leaving the supermarket with just 2 cucumbers. Someone pointed out it’s probably for a guinea pig.

I also think even in the context of “we don’t know how bad this could be” people were massively OTT. It wasn’t a zombie apocalypse, people weren’t dropping down dead in the street, some of us we’ve v against lockdown from the beginning and we were proven right given the mess it produced particularly around children’s MH and the ongoing absence rates

When all us preppers got our arses handed to us repeatedly for causing the cleared out shelves. The fact we had everything in, because we're yanno prepared for shit like that and rarely needed to go to the supermarket during COVID at all didn't register.

The video of Priyanka Chopra just clapping into the camera is the funniest thing 😄😄

Right! People seem to think it was just 2020..

My sister died in January 2022, and due to the stupid covid rules I missed seeing her as we could only visit one at a time by appointment and only one person per day. There was 7 of us who wanted to see her.

My appt was Friday 22nd January at 10am, my sister died at just gone midnight that day. And then, when we rushed to the hospital when being told she was taking her last breath they wouldn't let us through the door until we had scrubbed and put on masks etc and so missed her passing by 2 minutes. Me, and her children could have held her hands, instead she died alone.

Meanwhile, folk were lamenting the loss of furlough!

A 'next time' will be a totally different situation though.

Covid was fortuitous (in a very odd way) in that mortality was not very high for the healthy, working age population. And that was clear from the data from the very start, despite the scary news reporting. So it was reasonable enough to expect essential workers to get out and work to keep the country functioning.

But imagine a disease with a 20% chance of mortality. That's a totally different situation. People are not trotting out everyday to maintain your internet or deliver your shopping. So we'd be coping with societal breakdown on top of a pandemic.

The maddest one I remember was a cafe worker who was in a minimum wage job with no savings, being told by another poster to take out a bank loan so she could quarantine at home for two weeks (with no income) as cafe worker had received an alert from the app that told people if they'd been in the vicinity of someone who had tested positive for covid.

Absolute hysteria when you look back on it all.

Ah mate, I'm so sorry x That's heartbreaking x sending a hug x

We’d started stockpiling in January
so didn’t actually need much but did do the odd click and collect from Aldi

All of which we cleaned before putting away with watered down disinfectant / bleach type mix

We also didn’t touch our post for a while either as the postman could have been contaminated

Dh and I never got Covid so no long covid to worry about…… 🤓
Unfortunately the kids did from school though

I think a lot of people did wierd stuff during Covid, they just don’t admit it now 😉…

My DH caught the swine flu way back. He was travelling for work shaking a lot of hands and flying. He got ill on the long flight home. Noone else here had it. He was SO ill, for so long. It was a bit like covid, felt good for a while then ill again. I remember he tried to go to our local GP (through the back door) and they had their full hazmat suits on. And they had no proper tests and were very confused how to handle it.

The thing that stood out most for me was the number of doom-merchants proclaiming that this was 'The New Normal' and that we'd never again live in the kind of world that we had Pre Covid and everyone just had to Accept That.

The implication was definitely that we'd spend the rest of our lives not being able to fly anywhere, or amble in haphazard fashion around a supermarket, or have parties and so on.

Strange times (and, dare I say it, even stranger people.)

The app was mad. I never installed it.
I knew someone who was being constantly told to self isolate because the people at the bus stop outside his flat were testing positive.

The clapping was the most stupid thing I've ever seen. People banging saucepans together on their doorsteps, miles away from any NHS worker or hospital? I lost it at one point as someone close to me was treated very very badly by the NHS (not to do with COVID) and shouted out 'Fuck the NHS!'

I can't believe I yelled it on my own doorstep while my neighbours clapped and looked at me in horror...

Weird times.

I remember it being discussed on a thread whether it was ok to strap your toddler into a buggy or high chair in front of the TV for a few hours while you did a work call in another room. I think a toddler had already drowned due to a parent being distracted wfh (though I can't remember the details) so this was viewed as potentially being a safer option.

One poor woman on here had to strap her toddler twins into their double buggy while she dealt with a highly sensitive client call (I think she was a social worker). The poor children cried their eyes out on and off for 90 mins.

The very people who were most pro lockdown told her they didn't know why she posted that because it was 'nothing to be proud of' 🤯

Remember NannyandJohn?