The Lockdown Years

[Alert Mongoose]

8 minutes ago, virginton said:

We ran a government by that principle, that locked up the largest urban centre in the country for any other activity for about nine months - and that was after the first wave emergency. 

We also 'listened' to similar, nonsense claims that churches filled with old biddies could be opened again on a basis of risk, but big, bad, football fans couldn't watch a game outdoors. 

The response to Covid in Scotland was as much about enacting class snobbery and white collar privilege as it was 'following the science'. 

But isn't the whole point that most people just ignored that anyway? 

[vikingTON]

17 minutes ago, Alert Mongoose said:

But isn't the whole point that most people just ignored that anyway? 

How did they ignore the closure of the hospitality sector, or nonsense rules like 'no standing drinks' or maximum group sizes? To take a relatively trivial handful of examples.

The restrictions were imposed in a way that gave the vast majority of the population little practical option but to comply, the vast majority of the time. 

[welshbairn]

31 minutes ago, Honest_Man#1 said:

 

 

Interesting you’re now saying this after your scathing criticism at the time of the people on here in that age bracket who openly criticised the rules.

My main criticism was of people whose heads were absolutely gone about being asked to wear a mask and wash their hands, and those who took the rules way too seriously and thought that Granny was a monster for driving his wife to the supermarket. 

[Gaz]

On 10/02/2023 at 07:15, Alert Mongoose said:

That would be annoying as you say. I don't recall anyone telling me to do that though?  Unless this is an attempt to have a go at lockdowns which is surely a different argument.

There were loads of folk making exactly these arguments. Including old people, who vote Tory, and thus influence Government policy. You'll probably even find plenty of them on the Covid thread. Do you not remember that at one point we couldn't sit at an outdoor football game, but old farts - *the very folk we were being locked up to protect* - could go to Church?

As I said earlier, a bit easier to understand that mentality right at the start of the pandemic, when a hitherto unknown virus was causing absolute carnage, but made absolutely no sense once we started getting vaccines rolled out and understood more about what it was like.

Edited February 11, 2023 by Gaz

[Gaz]

2 hours ago, Honest_Man#1 said:

Interesting you’re now saying this after your scathing criticism at the time of the people on here in that age bracket who openly criticised the rules.

I alluded to this earlier in the thread.

I followed the rules to the letter at the start. I have a daughter with a history of lung and breathing problems. I was terrified she'd catch it.

With hindsight, it's now easy to look back and think that vast majority of the rules were a load of shite.

[Honest_Man#1]

14 minutes ago, Gaz said:

I alluded to this earlier in the thread.

I followed the rules to the letter at the start. I have a daughter with a history of lung and breathing problems. I was terrified she'd catch it.

With hindsight, it's now easy to look back and think that vast majority of the rules were a load of shite.

I think vast majority will have followed them closely at the start, or at least the main ones. Once vaccines were available and it became clear that the main threat was severely reduced, but over the top restrictions remained, you still had people like Welshbairn criticising the people who were openly critical of the rules. Well, until It affected his travel plans, then the rules were fair game to critique.

[anotherchance]

It was shite, I almost lost my marriage and my work is now a shambles because it’s not suited to the WFH they continue to implement.

It exposed some absolute frauds, particularly among the middle classes who purported to be left wing, who know have the brass neck to shout “solidarity” now when they spent years advocating the complete opposite because virtue signalling.

[doulikefish]

The mad nurse telling folk that anybody who took the vaccination would be dead in a year and Piers Corbyn singing on the tube

Both probably sharing folk shaking tweets just now 

[highlandcowden]

On 06/02/2023 at 17:27, Cosmic Joe said:

What will be your abiding memories? 

Working from home, watching every episode of Minder at 3.20pm twice over. 

Watching fitba, sitting in empty stadiums 

Watching the unravelling of the Covid thread

Going to work as normal,being totally taken for granted&being treated like shite

[Melanius Mullarkey]

On 10/02/2023 at 09:55, topcat(The most tip top) said:

Coldplay thread for this 

There’s a Coldplay thread?

I would imagine it’s the chill out room for the Main Players.

[Glennie]

the masses going along wi all sorts of idiocy and evil almost everyone here included

those in charge getting away wi it

[Musketeer Gripweed]

I got a tattoo on Friday 13th March 2020. I was in the studio from around 10am until 7pm. I have so many bad memories of that day.

On my way there I passed Boots and saw everyone serving in the shop with masks, gloves and aprons on. Bit OTT I remembered thinking. Got in to the studio and the owner was stomping about, complaining that they were running out supplies of sterilising fluid and the costs had rocketed recently. Yeah, I had saw that on the news along with the toilet roll shortage, but it still wasn't a thing, as such.

During the day I kept getting notifications on my phone about rugby getting cancelled, then football and horse racing as well. Basically it was obvious we were going in to lockdown pretty soon. What I didn't think was, everyone working in the tattoo parlour would be basically out of a job for around 9 months by the end of the following week.

For the next 8 weeks the highlight of my week was standing outside my local chemist queuing for an hour to pick up my dad's blister pack prescription from 8am every Tuesday.

Truly bizarre times, and I honestly wish I had kept a diary of some of the things that were going on and how I was feeling at the time because I can't even remember half of the things I was thinking at the time now.

Oh, and I am sure most under 25's would have had forearms like Popeye by the end of April 2020.

[Cosmic Joe]

27 minutes ago, Musketeer Gripweed said:

 

Oh, and I am sure most under 25's would have had forearms like Popeye by the end of April 2020.

Plural? 

[Satoshi]

I remembered seeing a poll that said something like 20% of people were in favour of permanent restrictions which is absolutely wild.

By all means live your life how you want, but the pandemic did expose an undercurrent who welcome and thrive on extreme government control of themselves and others.

I hope that, if I am lucky enough to live to be old and don't want to go out as much, I sure as hell don't try to stop others from doing so.

[HeWhoWalksBehindTheRows]

I mind going to buy a washing up tub in Tesco. Denied as it wasn't deemed essential. I just papped all my shopping into it and walked out with it, f**k doing the dishes in the sink like some sort of 1950s housewife. 

[hk blues]

18 hours ago, Cosmic Joe said:

Plural? 

No fun sticking to just one partner

[vikingTON]

8 hours ago, Satoshi said:

I remembered seeing a poll that said something like 20% of people were in favour of permanent restrictions which is absolutely wild.

By all means live your life how you want, but the pandemic did expose an undercurrent who welcome and thrive on extreme government control of themselves and others.

I hope that, if I am lucky enough to live to be old and don't want to go out as much, I sure as hell don't try to stop others from doing so.

The American liberals are still completely unhinged over masks in a way that UK society moved quickly away from as soon as government compulsion was binned. 

[effeffsee_the2nd]

33 minutes ago, virginton said:

The American liberals are still completely unhinged over masks in a way that UK society moved quickly away from as soon as government compulsion was binned. 

I often wondered if we'd have had a labour government at the time (same with the USA and the democrats), but one who took the exact same approach as what the torries did in our timeline, would the right wing have been absolutely frothing about " wishy washy liberals putting so called freedoms ahead of safety? and calling for " a proper lockdown" with a warden and a curfew - like during the blitz was an all.

 

I'm glad we haven't adopted the mass politicization of masks in the UK. it's very old firm esqu in the states

[scottsdad]

Tesco in Wales screening off all the non-food aisles because it was unfair on toy shops who had shut.

No wonder Amazon absolutely cleaned up during the pandemic. 

[ICTChris]

3 hours ago, effeffsee_the2nd said:

I often wondered if we'd have had a labour government at the time (same with the USA and the democrats), but one who took the exact same approach as what the torries did in our timeline, would the right wing have been absolutely frothing about " wishy washy liberals putting so called freedoms ahead of safety? and calling for " a proper lockdown" with a warden and a curfew - like during the blitz was an all.

 

I'm glad we haven't adopted the mass politicization of masks in the UK. it's very old firm esqu in the states

The big 'what if' is what would've happened if Trump had been President right through the full course of things - the US has seen far, far more vaccine hesitancy than comparable countries and a lot of it has come due to political affiliation.  Trump was (and is) very pro-vaccine, mainly as he could take some credit for it.  If he'd been pushing it then I think a lot more Americans would have taken the vaccine and subsequently fewer would have died.

In the UK, I think that Tory voters had a higher vaccine take up rate than Labour voters, due to the Tory vote having a much higher level of pensioners.