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And getting spat at and threatened with all levels of physical violence after telling folk they couldn't fill their trolley with a years worth of pasta and bog rolls. Crazy times.

 

I never got stopped driving to or from work, but I remember being shocked at being classed as a key worker. I was even given a letter to give to them, which explained where I was going and what I was doing etc.
I'm sure we've all got stories as to what a horrible time that was for everybody, in '20.

 

I remember when it was practically impossible to get a food delivery that my sister managed to secure one so ordered food for her family and extra food for me too as I'm was struggling to get any deliveries.

She put the shopping bags in the car and set off to my house with the plan being to put them on my drive where I'd collect them from.

Unfortunately the police road block at the end of her street refused to let her leave her village so she had to turn back and basically threw a load of frozen food away

 

I never got stopped going to work but we had letters from the authority to say we were key workers. We worked in huns where children and staff from different schools were all mixed together - didn't make sense at the time and still doesn't

 

Saving lives.

 

It was scary to those who lost their loved ones to a new unknown virus, it was scary for the staff at the hospitals dealing with all the admissions. There was no vaccine at the time, no magic bullets.

 

Yeah I remember us being bombarded with that advert on the radio, ".. stay at home, save lives!."

 

I still firmly believe the costs were not worth the supposed gains. The first lockdown I understood, we didn't have any idea what we were dealing with. Everything after that made no sense. Indeed I recall the peak of infections was before the first lockdown was enacted.
We needed some measures but what was done was inexcusable and caused untold misery.

 

I don’t think we (as a country) had any good options on the table. We didn’t really know how bad the virus was at the start and the vaccines have played a huge role in lessening the impact.

Working while all my mates/family were on furlough was a pain but became clear afterwards that the first month or so was alright for them, but I definitely had it better in leaving the house and having some semblance of normality. Amount of people I know with mental health problems is staggering. Might be anecdotal as we’re all getting older and dealing with the natural stresses that come with that (careers, Kids etc) but part of me believes some of it is caused by that horrible 12-18 months

 

Absolutely. It's been really clear that there's been a significant uptick of BBS board members having a really tough time of it with various mental health challenges in the last 3 years.

 

Yeah I must admit it brought about some envious feelings towards those who got to stay at home, on 'furlough' (and until then I'd never heard that word before). While the rest of us had to carry on as normal, the show must go on for goodness sake!!.
BUT having said that, keeping a sense of normality and going about the daily routine and getting normal wages etc, maybe was very important in the long run.

 

It was mixed for me, I did enjoy going to work as normal and mixing with people. However my wife was stuck at home with no support and two disabled kids with no schooling for either.

 

Yeah horrible difficult times, and it nearly tore families apart didn't it.
There were also stories of people having serious panic attacks and breathing problems, because none of us were used to wearing those face masks.

 

https://amzn.to/3Ne6GcD

This book goes into how the gov used the nudge unit to weaponise fear to gain compliance and open them up to new ideas but they did it too well and left a lot of people in a really bad place. A lot of us said it at the time and were hammered for it. Must not be allowed to happen again.

 

It was an awful time and obviously the effects of it are going to be felt for a long time. Mental health, national debt, ruined businesses.

But I thiink it's simplistic to say that it wasn't worth it. The hospitals were packed out - if we'd not locked down there's have been awful scenes. What was the solution to that, without the lockdown?

I wasn't convinced the last lockdown was necessary, and the local lockdowns era was a joke, but in 2020 I'm not convinced there was any other option.

It was a rock and a hard place situation. Both options were terrible and nobody liked either. There's no "I told you so" to be had here - unless we're talking about PPE contracts or the money spent on track and trace, which is mind blowing

 

I don't think so mate, why else is Rishi so scared to hand over information?

 

And we still don't have a plan in place for the next one, just wing it again because it went so well last time.

 

Horrible times for sure and looking back lots of mistakes were made , but there’s a lot of after the fact comments being floated here.
Yes some people based on their personal experiences would have preferred to wing it , but put yourselves in the position of the powers that be , the whole world had to face the problem and different choices were made.
BUT if you had, had to make that decision at the time and the outcome had possibly been different ( nobody knew for sure) would you have been prepared to have thousands of deaths on your conscience if it went wrong!
Especially if the reason was ( the daftest most selfish ) I can remember, because it put a crimp in their social life!)

 

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-65888152

 

I could not care less.
I filled my trolley up and even went back for more, pushing others out of the way as I headed to the drink aisle.
Pub wasn’t open so tins of Tennent’s was my saviour.