COVID Time paused in pictures memories

[Rachie]

Not much to say in this thread. I started thinking about COVID memories today. The time I am sure was extremely difficult in ways for many of us. It had impacts for my life. Time paused and paused.

These are photos that I took myself during it.

I think and a moderator would know better. I think we should focus on the living.

The art with people linking hands I created for a hospital board. Most of us did our best to stand by each other. I stood out for what 7 weeks to clap. I liked the ritual but wish it didn’t have to happen.

I put together my own robot called Mio.

At the beginning I nearly was at the end of my voluntary training for Citizen’s Advice to do social prescribing in my area once a week for about 2 hours. It would have seemingly been ideal. We even a send off Christmas party and I attended for the 1st time in my life. Things was looking much better than in a long time.

The face masks most of them frightened me. Especially the very patterned ones or with words. I need to see someone’s face and too many together just wierded me out. People though were doing what needed to be done for them.

I remember once my local Tesco started stashing eggs behind the counter. You had to ask when you went in. They gave me two packets. I had no use for them. I saw one woman go in looking for eggs. She got none. I went outside and I gave her a packet. In one supermarket a woman said she just came out of recovery. She didn't seem to be somehow right and I feared for myself. I only went in there for a cheap packet of fish fingers probably as well. Stashed up on drinks with a home delivery slot.

That is all I want to say.

 

[Jonn]

Not much to say in this thread. I started thinking about COVID memories today. The time I am sure was extremely difficult in ways for many of us. It had impacts for my life. Time paused and paused.

Spoiler

That couldn't possibly have been the COVID times.
There is toilet paper on the shelf!!!

 

[Rachie]

Spoiler

That couldn't possibly have been the COVID times.
There is toilet paper on the shelf!!!

wink, that was definetly COVID. On the high street I got the word that there had been a delivery in Waitrose of toilet paper. I went straight in rushing to find some still on the shelf.

Some photos of much better times of our Christmas send of for volunteers at Citiens Advice 2019 before the world took another turn. Hopefully never again.

 

[Outdated]

In South Australia we had a very different covid experience compared to much of the rest of the world, and drastically different to the eastern states of Australia.

We had a hard border closure, and our government refused to make exemptions for politicians and wealthy business people. Western Australia did exactly the same. Because we maintained that strict quarantine at our borders we barely suffered at all from covid cases in those first couple of years.

We only had 3 weeks of lockdown in mid 2020 and the wearing of masks was only compulsory for about 6 months, after that masks were only required in some specific environments such as health care clinics. We had one more lockdown in 2021 because of an old man that came back from India with covid but they only locked down the suburb that he lived in and only until they'd completed their contact tracing, that lockdown only lasted 3 days.

It was very much a holiday atmosphere in Adelaide during those times, with tourists locked out we had all our favourite places to ourselves and prices came tumbling down. Our supermarket duopoly of Coles and Woolworths also struggled with supply chains through that period and this brought about a massive boom for our local produce suppliers. We were getting fresher food and cheaper because of those two being partially locked out.

South Australia's economy boomed during that period. When a variant of covid evolved that was considered to be less dangerous we opened up our borders deliberately to let that variant in - herd immunity. We restricted where visitors were allowed to come from though because we only wanted the new strain of covid and we did not want the more dangerous strains, so we opened up to visitors from some specific countries but our borders still remained closed to Victoria and New South Wales for a while because they managed quarantine very poorly and were riddled with cases of more deadly strains.

 

[NDR2]

I remember there were a lot of songs about the pandemic on YouTube. This particular one expressed exactly the way I felt (keep the volume low if you have sensory issues).

 

[Ronald Zeeman]

To me covid was just learning to walk around block people walking by giving wide berth masks while outside which I thought was stupid, As I knew ignorance is fear when they no nothing about air flow and thermodynamics. or even that this virus was airborne and would only be an issue inside.

 

[Rachie]

Thank you for those of you who shared. I think I have my own work to do around this area for sure.
I certainly had a habit of snapping to record things. I went through my phone and this will suffice. If I posted the clap for NHS we had in the UK I would be insane to show where I live. There was just one of me outside my door neck down, but I am of shy posting myself. Unless requested to post it I won't for sure yet.

I couldn't pick and choose. I got a real shock when I went to Sainsbury's and the freezer section empty like that pretty much. I went to look for fish fingers and left with none. If you click the photo in hospital with the board you will see the holding hands photo I made. The water influence is from me also with the print. That was inside an eating disorder unit. I had a few admissions over COVID to this ward.

The Robot that I made Mio I will post below.

Nothing more to say.

 

[Rachie]

The robot

 

[FilterFreq]

Being a fan of liminal spaces, I really appreciate these pictures.

If I didn't know any better, it would seem like they were liquidating or getting ready to remodel in some of these

 

[Rachie]

Thank you FilterFreq.

I was thinking about this thread today, it was a difficult time for many of us.

In 2019 I was close to getting a voluntary job even though still on a community treatment order. I posted that in picture number 3. I was going to be working about 5 minutes from my home in a citizens advice office once a week for about two hours giving advice given the training on practical affairs like problems with housing and shopping etc. I needed that once a week human contact. Then COVID came and it all switched to online and I was so close to qualifying with the previous scheme and they all changed to online training and said to us we now have a fantastic amount of online training to to do which was too much for me to qualify and they also said as well now you will no longer be able to meet once a week in person but just be emailing people the advice online which is not what I wanted or needed then at all.

I bought a few magazines through that time as well, and will share one copy from one which I found quite inspiring at the time and still do today as well and many of the things hold true just the same.

Thankfully I have done some voluntary things past that, but that was close to my first real employment as such and first time of ever experiencing a Christmas party at work as well. In some areas I think the world has not recovered quite yet as voluntary jobs I was tracking are no longer available as well in the NHS voluntary post COVID.

Hope they can be enjoyed as well.

 

[tlc]

My life didn't change much during that time. My company was essential because we built parts and equipment for food production, power plants, infrastructure, etc. The most difficult part here was the waves of supply chain disruption that continued years later. Most people around here refused to mask or vax when it was available. Not me, I still mask at indoor and crowded outdoor places, and keep the boosters up. Our hospitals were strugging, but we don't have the population to do the damage like what happened in the large cities.

The most interesting thing to me was the explosion of the TV personalities working from home. All of a sudden, you got a window into these people's real home lives, away from the slick studio presentations. Then trying to make it all work together, like SNL. To me it was super groundbreaking stuff. Like making something work when life gives you scraps.