National acknowledgement of how rubbish the initial phase was

[avocadoandchill]

Is there some kind of national acknowledgement of just how rubbish the pandemic was back in 2020? The deaths, the lockdowns, the effect on mental health. I'm wondering if there's an inquiry or something or a museum. Something that marks what was for many a truly awful tim.

[AdamRyan]

@SirMingeALot

Action to stop customer services using "we are experiencing an unprecedented crisis due to covid 19," as a reason not to answer the phone or speak to customers. The pandemic started almost 3 years ago and we have no restrictions so it shouldn't be acceptable for customer service to be limited.

Well, a lot of that part is the labour shortage. So all the government could really do there us legislate to prevent those words being used. They couldn't make customer service not limited.

Is it bollocks. Its because they sacked all their staff during covid and see no need to return to previous staffing levels cos they can hide behind "unprecedented crisis"

[Oblomov22]

I completely disagree. Wholeheartedly. Investigation for what?
Domenic Cummings and Nick Hancock later, broke rules. But way back in the beginning no one knew what covid was. None of the government had any comprehension of what they were dealing with. They did ok.

We as a family coped ok. I don't know anyone in my close circle of friends whose MH has been damaged. Mine hadn't been. Yes some fared worse. What do you hope to achieve by investigating. Move on.

[SirMingeALot]

@AdamRyan

Is it bollocks. Its because they sacked all their staff during covid and see no need to return to previous staffing levels cos they can hide behind "unprecedented crisis"

That has certainly happened, but its also a fact that there are fewer workers available than there were this time 3 years ago. The labour shortage is a reality. With that in mind, governments aren't going to be able to end limited customer service because they can't simply opt sectors out of it.

[SirMingeALot]

Although I suppose there are the more radical options like preventing raising the age that people can access private pensions, though that would be more of a future thing, or expanding visa access for what have previously been seen as unskilled roles. Things to increase the supply of workers. Though I'm not sure if that's what OP was getting at.

[onlythreenow]

I keep seeing people say we need to move on and whilst I'm not sure it's possible to move on completely if we are meant to be "in the new normal"

Of course it's possible to move on completely, just stop wallowing and try. I'm not in the UK, but we have the same issues here at the moment, and everyone I know is continuing with life just as they did before. As I said in an earlier post people all around the world are dealing with war, natural disasters etc. on top of covid - you really need to get a grip.

[LynetteScavo]

Covid still exists, we're still dealing with it.

Lockdown wasn't awful for everyone. I feel like I'm not allowed to say how much I enjoyed it. I was given precious days with my teen DC. Several times DH has said that lockdown saved DD. Every day is comment how lucky we were. We didn't know anyone who became seriously I'll or died from covid.

The long term effects are ongoing though- the loss of income, overlooked cancer etc. A book about lockdown would be appropriate, but not a museum.

[SaffronQuoda]

@avocadoandchill

No idea I'm not in any other country

Oh I thought you would be appraised of the global situation somehow as it did happen everywhere else and has hit them all similarly.

[Buzzinwithbez]

• I want to see acknowledgment of how the approach has affected people's mental health
• I want to see a plan for improving mh services
• I don't want a costly concert or a minutes silence. Oh yeah kid, I know the two fun years of teen development were heavily affected and now the pressure of GCSEs is exacerbatibg how much I it's been a struggle, but here's a concert full of old fogeys you're not interested in to make you feel better.

There is a covid inquiry. My submission will cover the inappropriate policing, the fact that most healthy coping mechanisms were removed or made incredibly difficult, the abandoning of the pandemic plan that had been developed over years - there are disaster planners who are furious about this, the fact there was no health messaging (vitamin D was pooh pooh'd and Hancock lied that it had no effect - also how many people gained weight or became reliant on alcohol? I'm not blaming them, I'm blaming the circumstances.
Once I get started, there's probably a lot more.

-Then I want to know what lessons have been learnt from it.

[Buzzinwithbez]

• I would also quite like an amnesty for teenagers who lost out on dental care and now face costly bills as they've aged out of free treatment

[MissAmbrosia]

Ah the dentist. My dd's dentist left at the end of covid and then we were going to look for a new one and never quite got round to it. She's started at Uni and found one and now needs several fillings. And has impacted widsom teeth, but we can't blame covid for that I guess.