Five years on, what did COVID teach you?

One thing I absolutely loved during the lockdowns was that shopping for essentials was so easy. I made a list of needs for a week, grabbed what I needed, no kids in the shops, no coin fumblers etc… My local was an Aldi and I knew where everything was stocked, so I'd go early with my list and be out with 10 days shopping in around 20 minutes, less if it was quiet.

It's a habit I've stuck with although an elderly we care for always wants to go the shops at the busiest times for the "buzz". Insane considering she's terrified of catching the latest strain of whatever is going around. BTW, this is the same vulnerable lady with a lung condition who'll give out yards about other people coughing and spluttering and then still forget to use mask for self protection in such situations.

We did make major changes to our lives based on the experience, we got out of Dublin, now have a lovely garden in an area with lots of nice walks and nature. Thankfully we're not car dependent but it's the kinda of slower paced lifestyle we weren't ready before the pandemic, but now I couldn't have it any other way.

Our income did take a hit but overall our improved quality of life more than made up for the changes the pandemic inspired.

You don't have to anti alcohol (which I am not) to know that the "meaningful Xmas" would lead to a massive spike again, yet Micheal Martin and the vintners got their way.

The issue wasn't opening up for the "meaningful Xmas " , it was keeping the strict lockdown in place all through the summer of 2020 when covid numbers were in the low digits. That was the time to release the pressure. However in summer 2020 there were some in nphet especially tony holohan that were trying to achieve zero covid like new Zealand and Australia (which turned out to a huge mistake). They were manipulating the covid daily cases by bunching several days numbers over the weekend into one day making it appear that covid was rising again. That gave Tony holohan the ammunition to maintain strict lockdowns through 2020. Then by Christmas 2020 the lockdown had been in place too long and the pressure for opening up was too great so politicians had to relieve the pressure because, several false dawns had been scuppered beforehand . They would have lost the public buy in at that stage if they hadn't relented.

I also think there was an anti alcohol puritan ism about holohan and others in nphet, the whole "wet pub" and "substantial meal" malarkey pointed to that. It was ridiculous and also classist, people who went to fancy restaurants could be trusted to obey the rules but the hoy poloi that frequented "wet pubs" could not.

I guarantee that if the smoking ban or asbestos ban were to come in now there's be anti ban zealots insisting that neither are hazardous and that such bans were big government trampling on choice etc....

I think there's a lot of people who never recovered from self radicalizing on social media during the shutdowns.

I learned (to my cost) that getting COVID 19 can lead to you developing Mast Cell Activation Syndrome which is a life limiting disease that Irish GPs know nothing about and don’t know how to treat.

if a vaccine causes zero symptoms it hasn’t done anything. All you describe is an immune response and you want an immune response. What was being implied by the previous poster is that vaccines had produced significant symptoms in lots of cases. Which was bullshit

Isn't it interesting the various psychological changes we've all undergone due to covid & lockdown. Firstly, I think there was a kind of mass stress response in many ways, in that lockdown itself was traumatic for so many in so many different ways (e.g. rises in domestic abuse, marriage & relationship breakdowns, etc), and this coupled with the impending risks of contracting covid & getting very ill, as well as having to listening to fear mongering news reports & case numbers being broadcast daily/hourly, while being mandated to stay couped up in our homes, literally hiding away from the outside world.

Then when lockdown measures became semi permanent, there was a kind of a Stockholm syndrome at play imho. In this phase we all became someway resigned to having our NPHET captors dictate the terms of our engagement with the outside world, & how many of our civil liberties we could retain.

And then eventually there was/is a sort of mass cognitive dissonance & PTSD response to the whole covid experience imho. It is curious in many ways how quickly most people got back to our lives , and also how we seemed to so quickly forget how bad (aspects of ) lockdown actually were. This also shows how human resilience & the ability to get over emergencies such as covid lockdowns seems to involve a kind of amnesia about the whole thing, that kicks in quite quickly once it's all over imho.

P.s. of course there sadly was & are a small minority of people who will really never recover from the effects of lockdown e.g. there was a cohort of mostly older people who were so terrorised by the fearful & ubiquitous public health messaging by the government & the overall lockdown experience that they will never fully regain their confidence to go back out & fully engage with the outside world again. That is a sad fact imho, that I hope our public health officials will learn from for the next pandemic response I.e. do not scare the living daylights out of people continuously in a pandemic , as you will affect their mental health & quality of life irretrievably thereafter, sadly.

Meanwhile, over in italy, what we were being told was ground-zero for Covid in Europe, all the shops, restaurants, waterparks and attractions were all open and busy. People taking sensible precautions but getting on with their lives.

I wouldn't be using Italy as an example of what success looks like during the pandemic.

After that summer they went into one of the harshest lockdowns in Europe and overwhelmed their hospitals.

It taught me not to listen to the masses. To use my own 'cop on'.

During the 5km lockdown… myself and my wife set off with our 2 dogs in our small VW camper up the coast (Headed towards Galway, back the scenic route). I'd a few false documents (I'm a designer) for a hospital appointment for my wife, who I was driving to said "procedure". We never had to use them.

A glorious few days along the Wild Atlantic Way… with all our own food on board. Toilet, etc. Kinvarra, Ballyvaughan, Doolin, etc… We'd be meeting no-one, so what was the harm in being out n about? It really was MADNESS!

Highlight of the few days away? Arriving at the Cliffs of Moher towards the end of a beautiful day. Parked in the bus bay, out of sight from the main road. Had the entire place to ourselves on a glorious evening…

I'll never forget it!

I was in Italy at about the same time with family. My experience was the polar opposite.

I was in the North - so perhaps my proximity to Bergamo and all that happened there lead to a completely different experience - but I witnessed a palpable sense of trauma. It was understandable. The initial lockdown was extremely hard with most barely getting outside their front door for weeks/months (can't remember) and of course the horror of the initial European outbreak and subsequent hospitalisations and death scared the bejaysus out of everyone.
They of course have a much older population and the subsequent threat to people's loved ones and families made for a generally sombre time. People wore masks everywhere. Even outside.

I suspect what your man experienced was tourists, who like him, underestimated the virus.

Maybe don't use "we all" when speaking from your own perspective and your own opinion.

What you describe is nothing in the slightest that I or the people around me experienced or felt during COVID and lockdowns. I met my partner, my family as a whole became closer, a greater shift towards life in the never ending work/life balance see-saw.

Not everyone had the dread, fear and traumatic psychological battles you're describing.

And it assumes that it was should be blamed on the 'lockdown' and not 'the virus', and doesn't stop to consider for a moment what the mental health effects would have been from more deaths, hospitals overrun… and people having to venture out into what would have been higher risk environments. You can't have a mental health issue if you're dead.