Most pointless covid restrictions you’ve seen by an organisation or workplace?

[Lucidas]

Cordoning off every other toilet and sink in an attempt to enforce social distancing...meaning people are clustered tightly in a queue, chatting for longer

@TruelyStruttingHotpants

Government ban on visitors to care homes. Which was fair enough. However local care home went on community Facebook site and posted this:

Due to the new government ban family and friend visiting our residents they are getting lonely. So we are asking if people want to volunteer to come and sit with some of the residents to keep them company.

Apparently the reason for the visiting ban was lost on the care home management

Is that not just the Care Home trying to work their way around the rules. What was stoping family or friends volunteering?

At our swimming pool, as well as all the tables and chairs in the waiting area being taken away, black bags have now been taped up over the glass between the waiting area and the pool.

@Thisisus909

Schools who closed the playground (where parents can socially distance) and instead have staggered times with parents crowed on a tiny paved street cheek by jowl (siblings make staggering mostly just inconvenient rather than helpful!). If they’d let everyone socially distance on the very large space, it would be so much safer. I asssume this is a government edict by someone who hasn’t been into a school, rather than the headteacher who I’m sure would know better.

Our school does this! It is so dangerous, children and parents have to either go really close to each other or stand in the road on a very busy main road, and when someone walks past either they or you have to go in the road!! And there was a very bad accident on that road outside school last year. Makes my blood boil every day but at ours it's the headmaster who has come up with the plan so he won't go back on it no matter what anyone says! The playground is huge too and there'd be way more room to social distance!

@Lockdownbear

I would agree with you if the message was sent out to family and friends. However this was a post on the local community Facebook page. Plus we are in London. Cases were high at the time and the rule was put in place to protect residents. It just seemed then and know rather a potty thing to do. Especially as we didn't know the pandemic would go on this long at the time.

Someone has probably said this already but taping up park benches

@ThisIsMeOrIsIt

Two swings for babies next to each other. One was removed completely. Yet at a different play park in the same council area, the swings were all left intact.

Having to have my temperature taken for an outdoor shopping place. All I wanted was a coffee.

Are you in North Leeds @ThisIsMeOrIsIt because if not another council has done the same thing. Totally bonkers. I found myself at the park where the adjacent swings were removed on each frame.. with my 2 children.. who both wanted to swing..looked a right sight running between the two separate swing frames trying to push them both on the different frames.

Oh yes removing the adjacent swings really made me angry.

The best one is a town in Hertfordshire who some may know.... the council completely shut the high street off in one direction to traffic so they could widen the paths for pedestrians. It's just a small town high street, not Oxford bloody circus. People can quite easily pass one another.... but no close the road in one way, nice build up of traffic and the cars using the little roads behind the town as a rat run instead. Try walking your kids to school on the Victorian residential streets with cars roaring at you. I guess no one caught Covid on the high street though!

Can't get my head round DM's care home rules.

Only 2 people to meet her in the garden, socially distanced in full PPE (but can hold hands with gloves on - at 2 metres apart ??)

OR

We can take her off site to the local pub where we can sit round an indoor table without masks.

Another one that's really annoyed me. Plenty of Estate agents have said its fine to go and see houses with our 11w old breast fed baby. Leaving our elder child with grandparents understandably as no one wants toddlers touching things etc and stressful for all. However, Manning Stainton.... nope! Our baby clearly will give them covid despite her never having left my side and sitting in her infant carrier for the duration. Makes looking at houses really awkward as DH and I have to go in separately and that's a hard way to decide if you want to spend a shit load of money. Totally bonkers.

Shutting fitting rooms in shops. It is beyond pointless. All you are doing is increasing visits to shopping centres. One visit to buy the clothes and another visit to return them when they invariably do not fit.

The chances of contrating covid from a few particles that might be on an item of clothing is minimal. Unless somebody with covid has spat all over it and the next person decides they needed to lick the item all over.

The restaurant rules, only x number of households can sit together but you can be in the same restaurant as however many other households.

I was a tad uneasy about this but only 2 households 6 people, were meant to dine together. ILs booked a function suite had 3 tables sat in a triangle, with a total of 14 people

My work taped up all the cupboards in the kitchen and has been ordering bottled water, plastic spoons and paper cups - it's so wasteful! Oh and we can't use the microwave 🤷🏻‍♀️ how is putting your own container of food into the microwave going to spread COVID? I also don't understand why we can't all choose a cup/glass/mug and use the same one all day then they all get put in the dishwasher at the end of the day to be properly cleaned so only you have that cup without it being "cross contaminated" I've been using my own thermos which I keep in my drawer as I can't stand those disposable paper cups for tea and I can't stand seeing those plastic tea spoons being used once and then thrown away - so bad for the environment!

In order to enter our pilates studio, we have to walk along the short corridor between outside and the studio. Only one of us is allowed in the corridor at a time, and no-one else is using the building at the time, so why do we have to wear masks to do so??

Not being able to try children shoes on in supermarket. I got told off during first lockdown when my daughter was desperate for a new pair of shoes for letting her try some on. Not quite sure how it is a risk to put something on a foot with a sock covering the skin anyway. People are touching other products with their hands anyway and putting it back. The idea of buying a pair, driving ten miles home to try it on and then driving ten miles back if they don’t fit and selecting another pair to do exactly the same is crazy. And no, I couldn’t have afforded to buy several pairs at once and wait for a refund on those I didn’t want. I was tempted to buy a pair, take out into the foyer to try on, take back and repeat just to annoy the staff though on that occasion due to the rude staff member.

TKMaxx stopping anyone sniffing the soaps - they quite literally had a person on duty to jump in every time anyone looked like they were about to sniff anything the first time they reopened.

@supermum87

At my work there are signs in the kitchen and a supply of ani antibacterial wipes saying we must disinfect the kettle every time we use it (possibly fair enough)

However we do not need to disinfect the fridge when we open/close it, the bin when we put waste in it, the taps when we turn them on...apparently only the kettle spreads Covid

Same here. When we leave the break room we have to sanitize the table, fair enough, but also the chair we sit on. Covid bum germs, anyone? I understand doing the back of the seat as you've touched it with bare hands but the seat?

Alternating toilet stalls closed, I think forcing people into half the available toilets than normal, significantly increasing their use over the day so increasing the risk of cross contamination was worse than the risk of coronavirus somehow slipping over the top or bottom of the stall and infecting the person taking a dump next to you.

At dd's gymnastic lessons you must sanitise your chair in the waiting room before and after sitting on it, even though the only bit of you that touches the chair is your bum and back but everyone has to touch the handle of the disinfectant bottle.

At work - most people working from home so mostly empty offices but certain stairwells have been designated 'up only' and some 'down only'. Except the loo's are on mezzanine levels to the offices so on the top floor the only stairwell in our bit is for 'down' but the ladies are ½ a flight up and if the men go ½ a flight down to the gents they can't come back up again. They want us to walk 2 floors down, through 2 other offices and back across another office each time we use the loo even though you're much more likely to pass someone than you are in the little dash up the stairs.

Small pub toilets - sign on the door says only one household at a time, 2 cubicles in side and 2 sinks but one sink closed for social distancing

@MsFogi

TKMaxx stopping anyone sniffing the soaps - they quite literally had a person on duty to jump in every time anyone looked like they were about to sniff anything the first time they reopened.

😂😂😂

who both wanted to swing..looked a right sight running between the two separate swing frames trying to push them both on the different frames

Perhaps it's a new health initiative to get parents more active - lol

@CrimsonImp

who both wanted to swing..looked a right sight running between the two separate swing frames trying to push them both on the different frames

Perhaps it's a new health initiative to get parents more active - lol

@CrimsonImp I did congratulate myself for exercising that day yes Probably should do it more often!

the council completely shut the high street off in one direction to traffic so they could widen the paths for pedestrians

A town in Hampshire did the same. With the same results. There were quite a few people who said "well why not just do this on Saturdays when there are more people around" but the council got stroppy and said it was all or nothing, so after a few weeks of rat-running and probably no infections avoided, they reopened the high street to cars.

Having a car-free day each Saturday would still be a good idea in my view, covid or not, but the council actually has form for this sort of thing. A few years ago they installed a new zebra crossing on a busy road that had been asked for for years, but decided to put it close to a roundabout. People said, but it would be better and safer and was actually wanted a bit further up the road - but no, people who live here are stupid and the council knows better.

@waltzingparrot

Can't get my head round DM's care home rules.

Only 2 people to meet her in the garden, socially distanced in full PPE (but can hold hands with gloves on - at 2 metres apart ??)

OR

We can take her off site to the local pub where we can sit round an indoor table without masks.

Ah well that's because if she catches it in the pub you can't sue them.

@looptheloopinahulahoop

the council completely shut the high street off in one direction to traffic so they could widen the paths for pedestrians

A town in Hampshire did the same. With the same results. There were quite a few people who said "well why not just do this on Saturdays when there are more people around" but the council got stroppy and said it was all or nothing, so after a few weeks of rat-running and probably no infections avoided, they reopened the high street to cars.

Having a car-free day each Saturday would still be a good idea in my view, covid or not, but the council actually has form for this sort of thing. A few years ago they installed a new zebra crossing on a busy road that had been asked for for years, but decided to put it close to a roundabout. People said, but it would be better and safer and was actually wanted a bit further up the road - but no, people who live here are stupid and the council knows better.

Eastleigh!?

The whole fucking thing! How is it ok for me to go to shops, garden centres, physio, hairdressers and now pubs, but I cant stop working from home and go back to my office? Fully covid compliant in terms of space, all staff double vaccinated. Am in Scotland