Sad that the pandemic didn't make us better

[Pennyforyourthoughtsplease]

Those first few weeks were terrifying, but we made it through. Many worse off. Isn't it sad that coming through a global pandemic, we didn't become kinder, more appreciative and less materialistic; realising what really matters. If anything, I've noticed a significant shift these last few years where people have become more selfish and entitled. What happened?!

They've been in power for a year, and are currently trying to shaft the disabled.

Most local authorities have had their budgets completely ransacked so they can't afford to fund anything other than statutory services and even then they aren't even able to fund those properly.

Everyone knows how much money in the long term is saved by having good non-statutory preventative services running but it takes money local authorities just don't have to make it happen.

That's not true though. Health care professionals put themselves at risk to save others, people volunteered to check on older people in their neighbourhoods and get shopping for them to protect them. Millions of people obeyed the rules to protect the most vulnerable. How is that not caring?

Right. You know what I meant. I am a PIP assessor and I am also disabled, so I’m quite aware of what is apparently going on. Still willing to give them a chance, and don’t agree they are the reason for everything wrong in this country.

This is sad to hear. I wonder if there is an element that people feel a bit duped about lockdown. It's clear now that many of the measures were ineffective and OTT. I think maybe now suspect this is true of anyone that relies on an element of shielding to keep themselves safe. Such a shame!

I agree. I actually thought we might emerge to a gentler society. There was definitely a spirit of camaraderie during the pandemic but I'm pretty sure things are even worse now than before. There seems to be more violent crime, more rudeness, more pushing and shoving than I ever remember. But then, I wonder how things were after the Black Death (which killed three quarters of the European population). Did they emerge with a greater sense of kindness and kinship, or did the previous horrors and their own seeming immortality make them quicker to elbow others out the way.

Thailand. Will provide further information if it’s likely to cause some weird kind of debate.

Yeah. I don’t think we’re in a particularly “kind” time in society. Often reflected on this site.

No weird debate, I was just curious.

I agree, and that's what I assumed, but just wanted to check in case I had misunderstood

Apologies, I find this a strange place at times.

I wonder if there is an element that people feel a bit duped about lockdown. It's clear now that many of the measures were ineffective and OTT

IMO this is precisely the point, @Bumpitybumper, though I wouldn't quite say the measures were ineffective from the POV of those driving them

Not when you consider how much so many made on the deal ...

Edited to add no probs, @BlueJuniper94; as said I was at fault for not clarifying what I wrote

Interesting @ginasevern I'd love to know this too. Perhaps it was because it was followed by CoL that has made poppe just give up. I agree with @cookingfatcat That being nice to others actually makes you feel nice and how have people forgotten that. I feel like I'm on a totally different planet now

This is sad to hear. I wonder if there is an element that people feel a bit duped about lockdown. It's clear now that many of the measures were ineffective and OTT. I think maybe now suspect this is true of anyone that relies on an element of shielding to keep themselves safe. Such a shame!

I think people do feel duped.

I also think the fact that employers are so shit about illness also impacts it.

DD goes to a specialist school with lots of vulnerable children. One of the pupils died from Covid during the pandemic and one died relatively recently from flu. Yet the HT gets grief from the LA (and some parents) when she keeps staff who test positive for Covid, or have another obvious illness, away from the kids. Even though in their setting it is perfectly logical to do so!

Policy is that life goes on as normal, and people follow that, which totally minimises the impacts on people and makes you seem OTT if you do anything other than that.

You see it on here all the time if anyone mentions testing positive for Covid - the instant responses are "why did you test?"

I have a an ex friend who became an ex friend over knowingly exposing DD to Covid so as not to cancel a night out (I was babysitting her DD). Her attitude was "well it's never killed her so can't be that bad". She did look shame faced when I explained the exact details of her ICU stints, but I'd never trust her again.

There might have been lasting changes had the response to covid been honest and proportionate. It was not and helped bankrupt the country.

I think that has had an impact. Started with Dominic Cummings 'testing his eyesight', and then when the Downing Street parties came to light. Then there was the dubious PPE purchasing, the expensive waste of a Test and Trace system, and no doubt many things.

With a vaguely competent government or indeed any other of the then possible Tory leaders, the impacts would have been much less.

My lifetime opposition to the death penalty is the only reason not to hang Boris Johnson.

That's not true though. Health care professionals put themselves at risk to save others, people volunteered to check on older people in their neighbourhoods and get shopping for them to protect them. Millions of people obeyed the rules to protect the most vulnerable. How is that not caring?

I actually think that's why the government parties and dodgy contracts have had such a response.

People did care. They cared and so many people worked hard to keep things going during it.

And they feel like they were used and conned. And feel a bit stupid for trusting the government to do the right thing and the reaction to that is "well fuck it, I'll look out for myself now".

That so many things didn't reopen post pandemic also meant the community feeling didn't rebuild in so any places.

I think may of us were prepared to change how we lived long term. There was a move to distance working which would help people with disabilities, and also give people more freedom about where they lived.

We followed strict rules, because we cared, only to find the government had been having parties, the health secretary had been shagging his mistress on cctv, MPs had been travelling from their homes to their second homes, and all sorts of other rules for us were plainly not rules for them.

So, ultimately, vast numbers of people concluded, fuck you, and have been living fuck you lives ever since.

Not very helpful, not very useful for a cohesive society, but the obvious outcome really.

I feel sad that it's not made people more aware of the need for fresh air and covering up when coughing or sneezing

Whenever I've a cold and have to go grocery shopping I wear a mask so I don't give my cold to anyone else. I really suffer with viruses so don't want others to.

If I sneeze I call it a government sanctioned sneeze because I do it into my elbow not my hand, or freely into the air. LOL

Occasionally I might see someone wearing a mask, but it was one thing that I hoped might stick instead of us all wandering about giving colds, flu and covid to each other every year, particularly in winter when it really affects the country's productivity (you'd think the government would encourage it for that reason alone...).

I don't think this is a government or a UK thing as this 'shift' of people being more shitty applies to other countries as well. Even the flaky behaviour of friends cancelling last minute. This is what baffles me, what changed?

We're human. One pandemic isn't going to stop us being that.

We are a massively altruistic, co-operative race, who are also massively individualistic, and so can be incredibly selfish. Hundreds of thousands of years of evolution have made us that way. A year or so of pandemic is barely a blip.

Exactly, LlynTegid, and speaking of "Test and Trace" some of us remember all too well Hancock's facile remark about "putting the cherry on Dido's cake" when shovelling £37billion her way

We even remember loved ones dying alone while certain mass funerals were ignored, watching retail businesses on which owners had worked so hard go to the wall while entire groups of shops in some areas carried on unchecked, or seeing such as 40,000 at the UEFA game in early July 2021 when restrictions were supposedly still in place

And worst of all, it was so utterly predictable

This is an interesting point too, as Asian cultures have always been heavy mask wearers before and after the pandemic. It seemed so smart and considerate, why did this not catch on? I did wear a mask the other day when I had a bad cough and had to have a test in a confined space, the person was appreciative of this. I said I doubt I was contagious but all the coughing was gross.

@JustASmallBear that's very noble to wear a mask.