To what extent are you still taking C19 precautions and has your lifestyle been permanently changed by the pandemic (April 2023)?

[strung out]

Completely back to normal personally, but work has completely changed and I hate it.

I barely see anyone I work with anymore, constant online meetings are just miserable. People refuse to come in even when they're needed because it's a wfh day for them, there's resentment across our service from those who either have to or want to come in every day, and the changes to people's life life and health situations (moved away from the area, got a dog, anxiety preventing them from coming in more than two days a week) means that there's no prospect of things ever returning to how they were before.

Going to hand in my notice in the next couple of weeks and do something else.

 

[[62]]

Being on public transport is my hobby. I don't wear a mask and I never really think about it. I've gone entirely back to my pre-Covid self. No disrespect to anyone else, but I just don't worry about it. I had Covid a couple of times, and whilst it wasn't fun, it wasn't enough to bother me. Probably helps that I don't know anyone particularly vulnerable either (although on paper I'm classed as vulnerable myself, apparently).

 

[Looby]

It changed my life a lot. I left my job and went to a home based role in 21, although still doing meetings and visits.

I’ve had Covid twice and although I don’t think I still have long Covid, I didn’t feel well for a long time and have had quite severe vertigo at times which might be connected, who knows.

Feels mostly back to normal and have been for a while. Although I went back to London for the first time in March 22 and caught Covid from a colleague.
I’m going to gigs, planning trips, hugging my friends etc

I don’t really use public transport but comfortable when I do.
I have masks in the car and will wear one if asked like in my GP surgery.

I’m far less tolerant of people exposing me to their bugs now. I’ve always found it really selfish but now, if a friend or a client is ill, I rearrange and don’t feel the same pressure to keep going if I’m ill.
I can do a teams meeting and WFH.

 

[Yossarian]

I no longer worry about getting COVID - I'm up to date with vaccinations and while I've never tested positive, everybody I live with has been sick with COVID so I've definitely been exposed to the virus many times and have some level of immunity.

But I still try to remember to carry a mask everywhere I go and I'll put it on whenever I'm on public transport and whatever internal calculus I have going on deems it too crowded and/or coughy.

I'll also put a mask on when I go into a shop where the workers are wearing masks or a taxi with a masked driver - seems rude not to, if you consider your workplace to be somewhere that masks should be worn then I'll respect that.

 

[maomao]

Before covid I was a rush-hour commuter but of my four workplaces since covid two were against-the-tide commutes on mostly empty trains and two were walking distance so I haven't really had to worry about public transport. Also, I'm pretty much guaranteed to pick things up regularly at work anyway.

 

[Steel Icarus]

Luck of the draw in education innit. I look after a cohort of 200 students and while those getting Covid even now are staying off I bet very few bother testing if, say, their mum has it.

 

[BoatieBird]

I've moved to working at home most of the time, I can go into the office if I want to and try to get in once a week.

Still have a strong bond with my team and wider colleagues - we already did a lot of online meetings pre-pandemic.

Pre-pandemic I worked 30 hours a week and in September last year I went full-time, but the extra hours I work now just represent the time I used to spend commuting.

 

[Steel Icarus]

Really amused me when senior management referenced "now we're all back at work" when aside from lockdowns I was on site all along, in fact stood at entrances two mornings a week checking students had masks on.

 

[weepiper]

Pretty much back to pre Covid here. I'll wear a mask in a hospital or at the GP because it's still expected and seems fair enough. I wore a mask on the plane and in the airports when I went to Dublin and Dusseldorf last year. That's about it though. In Germany it's still mandatory to wear a mask on public transport and literally everyone did, no question.

We wore them at work much longer than was happening anywhere else. Now if someone has a cold they'll wear one to try and stop it spreading through all of us, that seems like quite a good development tbh. I had Covid in December and it made me feel pretty dreadful for some time, my youngest son had it in August and really has taken a long time to get over it, he missed quite a bit of school and he's since had a resurgence of asthma that we thought he had grown out of and a chest infection that needed antibiotics. Seems unlikely that this is not connected.

Edit, I test if I've got symptoms and before an event if I'm remotely worried about it (like I tested everyone before we went to my dad's 80th birthday lunch, and I tested myself before going to my friends' civil partnership celebration because they're both diabetic).

 

[bluescreen]

I still worry a bit about Covid as I live with someone older who has a heart condition and don't want to bring it home, even though he is fully jabbed. I carry a mask and wear it in crowded places. We've eaten out a few times in roomy places but still haven't been to theatre, concert or cinema where proximity is much greater and more prolonged. (Irrational I know.) We test when there's a possibility of infection, or before meeting vulnerable people. Have always been a bit fussy about hand hygiene anyway.

 

[Elpenor]

Work from home four days out of five. That wasn’t a thing at my place till covid as far as I understand. There’s a risk the new FD could change that but currently we have more people than desks for our team. No masks at the office but I was going in on Mondays when it was quiet. Now I have to go in Wednesdays which I’m not so happy about.

I rarely take public transport but when I do it’s long distance (national express coaches and intercity trains) I do mask up.

I rarely go out much or even leave the house anymore. This is partly to do with Covid but also to do with a few other things that happened at the same time such as wfh. It can be four or five days of staying in the house at a time. I haven’t really been able to change my mindset on this. I also noticed when I went to London to visit friends I didn’t really want to leave their house either.

 

[Winot]

A week ago I would have blithely said ‘completely back to normal’ but last Tuesday morning I tested positive (3rd time) so am doing the recommended 5 days isolation.

Other than that, have switched to hybrid working (at home maybe 3 days a week) which works well for me. Doesn’t work for some (eg trainees) and that’s something we are having to navigate.

 

[High Voltage]

I'm pretty well back to pre-Covid times

But

18 months of alternating working / furlough in a job that I hated and felt very much on its last legs. Then moving to a job I really hated brought forward my early retirement by about 7 years. So now I pretty much avoid city levels of crowding (Wells isn't and never will be a crowded city). I've gone clubbing twice with another night hoped for at the end of this month. Eat out regularly with Mrs Voltz and friends. With an aging cat who needs twice daily injections which we can't trust a cattery to do correctly any over night stays have stopped so I don't know how I'll feel on a plane, probably OK

 

[May Kasahara]

I WFH from home a lot more and wash my hands a lot more (e.g. when coming in from the outside world - much more conscious of the general everyday dirt of city life). Both of these are good things.

Also, my husband mostly WFH now too which has completely changed my working life and allowed me to supercharge my career in a way that would never have been possible when I was the sole parent in charge of childcare because he was commuting into the office every day. Our family work/life balance is much fairer, which is also a huge positive.

 

[dessiato]

I always carry some masks. I wear them only when it's obligatory.

I try to avoid places with a lot of people, I prefer to stay home as much as possible. This is the opposite of how I used to be. I loved going out and mixing, not now. I do miss long lunches with friends but I think this is also due to living here, not just covid

 

[Winot]

BTW tim I read the thread title as “To what extent are you taking 19th Century precautions” which rather suggests I have mentally moved on from Covid times.

 

[Boris Sprinkler]

I cought in my sleeve now as the public information quite rightly pointed out that coughing in your hands was minging.

 

[RubyToogood]

These threads kind of annoy me because they're all about masks and infection and nobody talks about the enormous upheaval and trauma. I wonder if everybody else lived through a different pandemic than me and end up suspecting that people in couples did actually.

The complete deprivation of human contact was incredibly traumatising for me and has left me very bitter and resentful. A large part of my social life has always been around being in bands and that stopped dead.

I'm in a band now that was started explicitly as a post pandemic recovery and rehab project and it's being incredibly helpful.

On the work front I was previously an outlier working from home for health reasons, whereas now it's the norm and I feel a lot more included, so that's good.

But really, has everyone forgotten the terror, the food insecurity, the distress at not being able to see people they love? Nobody suffered any ill effects at all?

 

[Steel Icarus]

But really, has everyone forgotten the terror, the food insecurity, the distress at not being able to see people they love? Nobody suffered any ill effects at all?

No. But you can't go on like that indefinitely. And I'm speaking as someone who was terrified of getting it; I didn't go in a building that wasn't home for 130 days and working from home was awful. I was lucky in that I was cooped up with loved ones but that too came with enormous challenges and pressures.

 

[sojourner]

I have half a box of masks left that recently I've only worn on demos, and I still use the plastic tray thing from lateral flow tests to skin up on. That's about it tbh.

Those seeds you sent me were also in those long plastic bags in the test kits

 

[iona]

But really, has everyone forgotten the terror, the food insecurity, the distress at not being able to see people they love? Nobody suffered any ill effects at all?

I live alone, work alone, and I genuinely enjoyed the lockdowns. I actually stopped posting on the three positives thread on here for ages because I didn't want to rub it in that other people were resorting to positives like still being alive, while I was having the time of my life.

I'm not sure I actually have the capacity to form those kind of attachments or love or miss people though. I can't imagine what it must've been like to feel alone through all that time.

 

[iona]

Those seeds you sent me were also in those long plastic bags in the test kits

My mum's partner is a teacher so he was doing daily tests for aaages and I got her to keep all their (clean!) plastic bags and desiccant sachets for me to keep seeds in Still got loads!

 

[Winot]

These threads kind of annoy me because they're all about masks and infection and nobody talks about the enormous upheaval and trauma. I wonder if everybody else lived through a different pandemic than me and end up suspecting that people in couples did actually.

The complete deprivation of human contact was incredibly traumatising for me and has left me very bitter and resentful. A large part of my social life has always been around being in bands and that stopped dead.

I'm in a band now that was started explicitly as a post pandemic recovery and rehab project and it's being incredibly helpful.

On the work front I was previously an outlier working from home for health reasons, whereas now it's the norm and I feel a lot more included, so that's good.

But really, has everyone forgotten the terror, the food insecurity, the distress at not being able to see people they love? Nobody suffered any ill effects at all?

Very sorry that you had such an awful time. The fact that I didn’t doesn’t negate your experience.

 

[sojourner]

My mum's partner is a teacher so he was doing daily tests for aaages and I got her to keep all their (clean!) plastic bags and desiccant sachets for me to keep seeds in Still got loads!

I stash dessicant too for my mushrooms, and like most people at festies last couple of years, found the bags very useful for transporting certain items

 

[Aladdin]

My life is still cocooning.
Very vulnerable still even after the jabs. I wear an n95 mask if in medical settings. And every dr and nurse I've encountered is masked.
I dont use public transport.
And I am not back at work. I'm now on critical illness leave.

I went into a grocery shop for the first time in 3 years yesterday. And I was the only person masked.
But they still have the perspex screens protecting staff.

I dont see my life returning to what it was like before. Covid is still around and people are still dying from it in ICUs across the country. Very few people.... maybe 25 a day. My underlying conditions have worsened so its my understanding that I could still become extremely ill with covid.

I do miss cinemas and restaurants a lot and meeting pals at the drop of a hat to go somewhere...

 

[RubyToogood]

I have also had to accept that large swathes of my social networks and many of my former friendships are no longer functional. They are not coming back and I just have to start again with new ones.

Things are picking up now but that was hard to swallow.

 

[RubyToogood]

Very sorry that you had such an awful time. The fact that I didn’t doesn’t negate your experience.

It kind of does though. The system was designed for people like you. People like me can just fuck off, who cares basically.

 

[cupid_stunt]

These threads kind of annoy me because they're all about masks and infection and nobody talks about the enormous upheaval and trauma. I wonder if everybody else lived through a different pandemic than me and end up suspecting that people in couples did actually.

The complete deprivation of human contact was incredibly traumatising for me and has left me very bitter and resentful.

I am also single, and it hit me very hard too, ended-up with depression and needing a course of anti-depressants. but I am not bitter and resentful about it, it was something that had to done in order to save lives and prevent a total collapse of the NHS, and having seen the footage of people suffering and dying outside of hospitals in some other countries, because there was no room to admit them, I am pleased we avoided scenes like that here.

That was a big positive, as was the amazing speed in which the vaccines were developed and rolled out, just imagine the nightmare if that hadn't happened.

It was a fucking nightmare, and something I hope never happens again in my lifetime, but it's basically behind us now, so I try to focus on the positives, and push away the negatives.

 

[RubyToogood]

No. But you can't go on like that indefinitely. And I'm speaking as someone who was terrified of getting it; I didn't go in a building that wasn't home for 130 days and working from home was awful. I was lucky in that I was cooped up with loved ones but that too came with enormous challenges and pressures.

People in education and healthcare definitely had a different experience - equally definitely not better because you were very exposed to risk, but schools went back pretty quickly. I basically had two entire years alone.

 

[A380]

Masks were still in use in Taiwan and Japan on public transport. The law changed whilst I was in Kyoto but people's behaviour didn't. I felt a bit odd on the tube last week not wearing a mask.

I stopped working two years earlier than my plan, COVID was probably 40% of the reason.