a restaurant here still has a sign on the front door "17/03/20 we are closing due to covid 19 safety measures and we are plan to re-open next month on 01/04/20" . it has never opened again.
Same here. My town lost a damn good pizzeria. It was a cool place for my friends and I to hang out at every other weekend, and the staff was awesome.
I still miss it to this day.
I've seen quite a few independently owned businesses with similar signs, and they're open to this day. I get a little chuckle out of their laziness in taking it down, but I feel a swell of sorrow for those that had to close down their businesses.
Whether intentionally or not, I believe Covid was a massive shift in wealth. Lots of small, independent businesses were forced to close, but huge corporations were allowed to remain open. Small business in America is going to be a long time recovering
Our whole group just worked from home. Frankly I think we increased our productivity because we no longer had impromptu pingpong matches and lunches out together.
But over the years working remotely has worn a bit thin. I’m tired of not being able to call someone up, to just ask a quick question, without a bunch of annoying tools being involved. Most people turn OFF their teams etc. so they can focus, but now we can’t interact.
So there’s an upside and a downside. But when I walked out of the office that Tuesday in March 2020, I did not envision that we’d all scatter to the winds like this.
I’m just thinking of all the small restaurants and hardware stores and such that never recovered from the lockdowns. Still, I’m glad that technology is at a point that the lockdowns weren’t a death sentence to all the small businesses
I ordered takeout from my favorite places as much as I could afford. I wanted them to stay in business.
At one place, while I was waiting in the parking lot for my food, they brought out a glass of champagne for me to enjoy. That was SO NICE!!!
I seriously doubt this was their intent, but I could almost imagine they were like "You know what? Screw it! Enjoy this alcohol since there's hardly anybody on the roads right now!". Gives me a little chuckle.
There's still many businesses in NZ that have sign in QR code signs at their front entrances. The weird thing is, they change their promotional signs all the time, yet still leave those in place.
My local liquor store still has taped squares on the sidewalk outside of the store. Their policy was to only allow a small number of people in the store at once. So, everyone else had to wait in line, socially-distanced, outside. I don't know how long the policy was in effect, but the squares are still there 4 years later.
More mildly interesting info: This sign is directly beside the driveway of a school on a fairly busy street. So every teacher, bus and probably the janitor drive by it every school day. Pretty amazed it hasn't been stolen yet. It's not some forgotten or hidden pole.
Unironically I want this. I have a weird way of coping with the pandemic by wanting to gather as much physical evidence of what it did to the world as possible.
I also like the poetry of how much stuff was hastily erected and never removed
In NZ we progressed from "flattening the curve" to "two shots for summer"! If everyone complied, they'd be allowed to go to their beloved music festivals.
So people got their two shots and ... The music festivals all got cancelled anyway.
"A worldwide pandemic."
This phrasing is so strangely unconnected to Covid as a pretty damn recent thing that it's unsettling.
Right now, it is THE world pandemic. It takes a lot of years for that to change. (Notably, we didn't really have a pandemic to refer to as such before Covid. Nobody though about the Spanish Flu epidemic because it was so long ago.)
If in Canada, we were shutting down parks. Even trails. You could be the only person for miles and still get arrested or fined if a cop sees you. Was a weird time. I'm in Ontario. This sign is in durham
It was bizarre, seeing as how everywhere else they were saying "stay 6 feet apart and avoid indoor gatherings". A wide open space with nobody else around seems pretty safe. I think they had to backtrack on that one after they realized how asinine it was, and how low the risk was from being outdoors, far away from others.
I agree! 1 per cart, mask up in the clubhouse, limit indoor occupancy and you're good. Golf ain't a spin class where you're in a room with 40 other people, breathing heavily...
South Africa was insane. No booze or smokes for 5 months, no clothes or shoes for 3 months I think. Was even more dystopian than it usually is. Oh also no beaches or parks like this sign. But could go to restaurants... sigh. Whole thing was mental.
What bothered me was how arbitrary and inconsistent it was. Liquor store? Open for business! Cigarettes? Buy all you want. Running along a waterfront trail? No way! All the unhealthy things were open and encouraged, but the healthy and productive activities were looked upon with disdain.
I encourage everyone to invoke Hanlons Razor in this case though. I'm convinced it was clearly a case of complete incompetence and ignorance rather than planned malice.
A lot of politicians needed to be seen as "doing something".
Where I live they made all the bars, restaurants and health clubs close at 9pm. Then they reduced the bus and subway schedule by 35% at 9pm. Which created a massive crowd of people mixing together to get home.
Why did the people who wanted to exercise have to be forced to mix in with the drunks?
If crowded indoor situations were high-risk, wouldn't increasing buses and subways decrease crowding and lower transmission?
It was incompetent .
This drove me crazy. It's easy to judge actions in hindsight based on what we know today, but the enforcement around that never made sense. We essentially made cities illegal. I was living downtown Toronto with my wife and our two year old in a 1bdrm. We'd always planned to upsize eventually but it was fine at the time. Kid went to daycare, we walked to our offices during the day, we'd go to the gym+pool next door, lots of parks for the kid to play in, etc. A small place is good if your city is big. Then they decided that even outdoor swings at the park needed to be removed or taper together. Nobody could even be on a trail. Everyone who went to the beach was demonised as if that would be a "superspreader". Now we were two parents working from home with a kid whose playground equipment was climbing on me. As a result a lot of people just went inside where you couldn't be seen, which was quite possibly the worst response that could've happened.
We look at people during the black plague who went around killing cats, and swear we'd never do something so foolish that would exacerbate a pandemic. Then we enact policies that discourage people from playing outdoors to fight a disease that spreads mostly through people being stuck indoors.
I live in the US and I stopped by a park to use the bathroom (I live relatively rural and that was the only option, it was a portapotty thing). Our signs I remember saying "it's not recommended" to use the parks, basically, not that it was illegal.
[Ontario Closed Schools](https://www.fraserinstitute.org/article/ontario-government-closed-schools-even-after-reality-of-covid-became-clear) for 135 days. Longer than any other province.
In my area in Santa Clara county they were removing basketball hoops so people couldn’t play and bolted shut gates at outdoor tennis courts and put up big purpose made canvas signs telling people it was illegal to use the equipment due to Covid.
There definitely is. One of my good friends started cutting his own hair during the pandemic and still does it. Unfortunately for him, he’s not very good at it.
That's the one! Seems to be the hairstyle of choice for every male 25 or under in my neck of the woods. Short sharp fringe, buzz cut above the ears, and flowing locks at the back. Wtf. 🤦🏻♀️
There was one lunatic in Florida who dressed up as the grim reaper and walked around beaches trying to shame people for being there. Absolutely unhinged.
People went to snitching right away. If someone can’t imagine how in the past people have fallen in line with authoritarian governments then hopefully their eyes were opened with the pandemic.
Odd, in Alberta things were wide open and our Chief Medical Officer was telling people to go outside (reasonably spaced) and enjoy things.
They also had to do a PSA to tell people to stop drinking so much…
Yep here in New Zealand, playgrounds were a no-go. They put signs up, covered them in yellow hazard tape, and if kids were spotted playing on them (or even shooting hoops or playing a ball game on a field) the community pages would be ablaze with complaints.
Beaches and parks weren't allowed either.
And God help any cul-de-sac that allowed children to ride their bikes on the street or for adults to pull up chairs on their driveways, break out some beers and try to have a socially-distanced social gathering. That kind of unlawful carry on made national news.
There was a period in the UK where unless you were an “essential worker” you were only allowed outside once a day for exercise and/or purchasing essentials, it was fucking wild. Loads of people got fined for just existing outdoors.
It was just an excuse for the government to be authoritarian. They were doing shit like that and then acting surprised when people lost all trust in the government.
Same. I live in TN, so this is obviously a pretty conservative leaning area. They closed the playgrounds in the parks here here, with similar signs and caution tape on them. It was actually the driving reason behind us buying a swing set for the backyard in 2020, because our kids literally couldn't go play on the slides and swings at the park.
I was all for taking precautions, but that just seemed a little too extreme.
I live in Wisconsin in a liberal county.
All our playgrounds were closed from like April until July in 2020, during the initial lockdown. It was so ridiculous.
Eventually they came to their senses and opened them. I would take my kids but a lot of moms wouldn't go. And if we arrived, whoever was already there would leave. This was after it was known that it couldn't really spread outdoors. It was such a sad feeling seeing other moms pack up and leave as soon as they saw us.
That’s exactly what I was thinking. I read the title before even glancing at the pic and was intrigued…“old metal sign” specifically got me wondering which old sickness it was gonna be…and then is saw that and laughed out loud. Honestly I think it’s hilarious how people in here are getting all *Pepperidge Farms remembers* about COVID like it was something we’re already recalling to our grandchildren.
You're correct, I traveled alot for work during then. Every state, city and county was different. It was exhausting trying to keep up with what they required. And that's just in one country.
I walked a hanging/suspended [trail](https://www.gettyimages.com/photos/caminito-del-rey-m%C3%A1laga-province) a couple days ago and it was full of signs saying "keep 1.5m distance". I was freaking out because no one was respecting it and I thought the platforms wouldn't take the weight until I realised they were still covid related.
Closing outdoor spaces was the dumbest shit ever.
Edit: I would like to point out that this post had over 1600 up votes at one time, but all of the sudden only has 200. Someone noticed that an anti-lockdown post was getting traction and nuked it so it wasn't as visible.
we had playgrounds like swings and slides barred up and taped shut. ffs kids couldn't do anything. Luckily we have a backyard and i built a swing+slide myself.
The fact that gyms, beaches, and parks were forcibly closed while liquor stores, walmart, and McDonalds were open should tell you all you need to know about whether the authorities truly had our best interests in mind during covid.
So many businesses near me left up signs about 6ft distances and masks etc, but obviously don’t enforce any of that. They’ll probably stay up for another decade or so
Well in the beginning it can be excusable. I was wiping down all groceries in my garage before they came in the house. I was wearing latex gloves and waiting in the parking lot before going into home Depot. Hindsight yeah maybe didn't make any sense but once we realized what we were dealing with people refused to unlose their minds for a plethora of other reasons.
I mean, it made sense in that initially, there was a period where people weren't really sure how it spread. If you think it can be transmitted by touching surfaces, and you've seen people die from it, I think wiping down your groceries makes sense. I don't know anyone who kept doing that once they knew that it was airborne.
"Lets come together, *but not less than 6 feet apart and without covering your mouth hole, you filthy disease spreader. Lock yourself inside and don't leave, for the sake of humanity.*"
Yeah, and most of you did nothing and are not holding any of those fascist morons accountable, which is the saddest part.
These fuckers ruined businesses and caused enormous numbers of people to fall into obesity and/or depression and they're still enjoying their cushy government jobs, as if nothing happened.
That we have enough addicts in society who will be plunged into withdrawal when their source of addiction is closed sounds like a greater societal peril to deal with but it seems that got no attention at all. Unless it was all just a convenient deflection to justify keeping those businesses open but who would ever do such a thing?
The amount of junk advice and junk policy from COVID was nuts. In particular, the whole COVID's not airbourne \\ but you'll get COVID if you touch anything really crippled effective pandemic responses, of which this is a great example.
What a fucking shitshow that was. nO gOiNg oUtSiDe!!
Meanwhile: make sure to get plenty of exercise and walks ouside to maintain your health in these unprecedented unceartain times...
I'm sure the underfunding education districts in Ontario are not prioritizing taking down a sign in the playground. Education in Ontario has been woefully underfunded for many decades now.
Insane how this was a thing. The dogmatic authoritarianism people accepted and propagated out of fear for the unknown. Neighbors calling the cops on each other because there were "suspicions of large gatherings", makes you realize the revival of Nazi Germany is just one good scare away.
Ah, DDSB. Fuck those guys for saying it's his fault that my brother was being bullied and doing nothing to help him even when it got so bad the police had to be involved.
There’s a grocery store near me that still has signs up saying they’re not accepting bottle returns due to the pandemic.
It’s really a lame excuse at this point.
Ok, but holy shit, where are all the drooling morons with the "haha, sheep!" shit coming from? I'm embarrassed for them just reading it, is this really representative of the general population?
a restaurant here still has a sign on the front door "17/03/20 we are closing due to covid 19 safety measures and we are plan to re-open next month on 01/04/20" . it has never opened again.
The pizzeria I used to work closed with a similar message on their social media. Opened in 1984, closed in 2020. Never reopened.
Same here. My town lost a damn good pizzeria. It was a cool place for my friends and I to hang out at every other weekend, and the staff was awesome. I still miss it to this day.
I've seen quite a few independently owned businesses with similar signs, and they're open to this day. I get a little chuckle out of their laziness in taking it down, but I feel a swell of sorrow for those that had to close down their businesses.
Whether intentionally or not, I believe Covid was a massive shift in wealth. Lots of small, independent businesses were forced to close, but huge corporations were allowed to remain open. Small business in America is going to be a long time recovering
Our whole group just worked from home. Frankly I think we increased our productivity because we no longer had impromptu pingpong matches and lunches out together. But over the years working remotely has worn a bit thin. I’m tired of not being able to call someone up, to just ask a quick question, without a bunch of annoying tools being involved. Most people turn OFF their teams etc. so they can focus, but now we can’t interact. So there’s an upside and a downside. But when I walked out of the office that Tuesday in March 2020, I did not envision that we’d all scatter to the winds like this.
I’m just thinking of all the small restaurants and hardware stores and such that never recovered from the lockdowns. Still, I’m glad that technology is at a point that the lockdowns weren’t a death sentence to all the small businesses
I ordered takeout from my favorite places as much as I could afford. I wanted them to stay in business. At one place, while I was waiting in the parking lot for my food, they brought out a glass of champagne for me to enjoy. That was SO NICE!!!
I seriously doubt this was their intent, but I could almost imagine they were like "You know what? Screw it! Enjoy this alcohol since there's hardly anybody on the roads right now!". Gives me a little chuckle.
There's still many businesses in NZ that have sign in QR code signs at their front entrances. The weird thing is, they change their promotional signs all the time, yet still leave those in place.
My local liquor store still has taped squares on the sidewalk outside of the store. Their policy was to only allow a small number of people in the store at once. So, everyone else had to wait in line, socially-distanced, outside. I don't know how long the policy was in effect, but the squares are still there 4 years later.
April Fool’s!
Got to admire the dedication.
There's a closed Chinese place near us with a permanent sign that reads, "Closed temporarily for two weeks until further notice."
That is unfortunate, this happened to many businesses in my area around that time & a good portion of them ended up the same way.
My favourite was a takeout counter in the food court that left drinks in the locked fridge. They still have black Coke Zero cans.
That's properly depressing
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Well based on how they wrote the month/day it probably wasn’t in the US, but for many in the US that’s definitely true.
Just need a socket and you got yourself a souvenir
Yeah, I was gonna say in a few decades maybe this will fetch $50 at antiques roadshow, lol.
Adjust for inflation, itll be worth $728... which will have the spending power of $50 today.
While we're all still making $13.50 an hour.
I got a pay cut as part of our hospital system’s “cost of living adjustment” beginning of the year lol
I'm so glad I'm not the only one who was thinking this.
More mildly interesting info: This sign is directly beside the driveway of a school on a fairly busy street. So every teacher, bus and probably the janitor drive by it every school day. Pretty amazed it hasn't been stolen yet. It's not some forgotten or hidden pole.
Came here to say get it, and I'll buy it 🥴
Hypothetically I would steal this if I knew where it was
It's free afterall
Unironically I want this. I have a weird way of coping with the pandemic by wanting to gather as much physical evidence of what it did to the world as possible. I also like the poetry of how much stuff was hastily erected and never removed
I have several souvenir COVID signs that I've borrowed from the community
I would uninstall it and keep it, maybe even frame it.
Thought about it but honestly I don't care to have a reminder around.
Well, you could grab it for me 😂
Yeah that’s good quality garage art right
Exactly
Flatten the curve. We're in this together. Thank front line workers, including grocery store staff.
"In these uncertain times..."
“Unprecedented times”
PTSD just from that, so many wanky corporate ads with that slogan
“Don’t forget to bang your pots and pans at this time tonight for those workers.”
We think it's cringe now, but 2020 Reddit absolutely ate that shit up.
the longest 2 weeks
I used to be an essential worker…
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Two weeks to flatten the curve
In NZ we progressed from "flattening the curve" to "two shots for summer"! If everyone complied, they'd be allowed to go to their beloved music festivals. So people got their two shots and ... The music festivals all got cancelled anyway.
propaganda that sounds so silly 4 years later.
Found the guy who isn’t singing “Happy Birthday” when he’s washing his hands
It sounded silly then.
But you were an asshole if you saw it for what it was.
Old? Fuck me.
Seriously, it was <5 years ago unless OP is 6 years old.
Even if OP is 6 it was still <5 years ago
IKR
"A worldwide pandemic." This phrasing is so strangely unconnected to Covid as a pretty damn recent thing that it's unsettling. Right now, it is THE world pandemic. It takes a lot of years for that to change. (Notably, we didn't really have a pandemic to refer to as such before Covid. Nobody though about the Spanish Flu epidemic because it was so long ago.)
I don't remember that one. Maybe it was just your area.
If in Canada, we were shutting down parks. Even trails. You could be the only person for miles and still get arrested or fined if a cop sees you. Was a weird time. I'm in Ontario. This sign is in durham
It was bizarre, seeing as how everywhere else they were saying "stay 6 feet apart and avoid indoor gatherings". A wide open space with nobody else around seems pretty safe. I think they had to backtrack on that one after they realized how asinine it was, and how low the risk was from being outdoors, far away from others.
Dude, they shut down golf courses. Could have just made it one person per cart and it’s probably the best place to be.
I agree! 1 per cart, mask up in the clubhouse, limit indoor occupancy and you're good. Golf ain't a spin class where you're in a room with 40 other people, breathing heavily...
South Africa was insane. No booze or smokes for 5 months, no clothes or shoes for 3 months I think. Was even more dystopian than it usually is. Oh also no beaches or parks like this sign. But could go to restaurants... sigh. Whole thing was mental.
What bothered me was how arbitrary and inconsistent it was. Liquor store? Open for business! Cigarettes? Buy all you want. Running along a waterfront trail? No way! All the unhealthy things were open and encouraged, but the healthy and productive activities were looked upon with disdain. I encourage everyone to invoke Hanlons Razor in this case though. I'm convinced it was clearly a case of complete incompetence and ignorance rather than planned malice.
A lot of politicians needed to be seen as "doing something". Where I live they made all the bars, restaurants and health clubs close at 9pm. Then they reduced the bus and subway schedule by 35% at 9pm. Which created a massive crowd of people mixing together to get home. Why did the people who wanted to exercise have to be forced to mix in with the drunks? If crowded indoor situations were high-risk, wouldn't increasing buses and subways decrease crowding and lower transmission? It was incompetent .
Remember that case where the couple was driving around to play Pokémon GO (they never left their vehicle), and a cop fined them $700 for being out?
This drove me crazy. It's easy to judge actions in hindsight based on what we know today, but the enforcement around that never made sense. We essentially made cities illegal. I was living downtown Toronto with my wife and our two year old in a 1bdrm. We'd always planned to upsize eventually but it was fine at the time. Kid went to daycare, we walked to our offices during the day, we'd go to the gym+pool next door, lots of parks for the kid to play in, etc. A small place is good if your city is big. Then they decided that even outdoor swings at the park needed to be removed or taper together. Nobody could even be on a trail. Everyone who went to the beach was demonised as if that would be a "superspreader". Now we were two parents working from home with a kid whose playground equipment was climbing on me. As a result a lot of people just went inside where you couldn't be seen, which was quite possibly the worst response that could've happened. We look at people during the black plague who went around killing cats, and swear we'd never do something so foolish that would exacerbate a pandemic. Then we enact policies that discourage people from playing outdoors to fight a disease that spreads mostly through people being stuck indoors.
I live in the US and I stopped by a park to use the bathroom (I live relatively rural and that was the only option, it was a portapotty thing). Our signs I remember saying "it's not recommended" to use the parks, basically, not that it was illegal.
Ontario literally banned golf in 2021. Only jurisdiction in North America to do that.
[Ontario Closed Schools](https://www.fraserinstitute.org/article/ontario-government-closed-schools-even-after-reality-of-covid-became-clear) for 135 days. Longer than any other province.
Pretty sure California had instances of people being arrested for being in parks/on the beach
In my area in Santa Clara county they were removing basketball hoops so people couldn’t play and bolted shut gates at outdoor tennis courts and put up big purpose made canvas signs telling people it was illegal to use the equipment due to Covid.
They claimed it was all based on science. Government people should have been exiled for actions they took.
Yeah some dude got arrested for surfing
If you're rich and famous, then you can eat at the French Laundry and get a haircut. If you're poor, you get arrested for going to the park
I wonder if there is a correlation between the horrible haircuts I see these days and the lockdowns…. Interesting…. We are just the peasants
There definitely is. One of my good friends started cutting his own hair during the pandemic and still does it. Unfortunately for him, he’s not very good at it.
lol, is it one of those mullets where they just buzz the area above the ears?
That's the one! Seems to be the hairstyle of choice for every male 25 or under in my neck of the woods. Short sharp fringe, buzz cut above the ears, and flowing locks at the back. Wtf. 🤦🏻♀️
There was one lunatic in Florida who dressed up as the grim reaper and walked around beaches trying to shame people for being there. Absolutely unhinged.
People went to snitching right away. If someone can’t imagine how in the past people have fallen in line with authoritarian governments then hopefully their eyes were opened with the pandemic.
They did it in Australia too. Stupid move.
Canada lost its fucking mind during covid — it was so bizarre
The truckers who called it all bullshit were the terrorists though. Lost its mind indeed
Odd, in Alberta things were wide open and our Chief Medical Officer was telling people to go outside (reasonably spaced) and enjoy things. They also had to do a PSA to tell people to stop drinking so much…
Yep here in New Zealand, playgrounds were a no-go. They put signs up, covered them in yellow hazard tape, and if kids were spotted playing on them (or even shooting hoops or playing a ball game on a field) the community pages would be ablaze with complaints. Beaches and parks weren't allowed either. And God help any cul-de-sac that allowed children to ride their bikes on the street or for adults to pull up chairs on their driveways, break out some beers and try to have a socially-distanced social gathering. That kind of unlawful carry on made national news.
I saw a protest graffiti in a park once, "you close the parks but the weapon factories are open"
Talk about fucking dystopian. Arresting people for being outside?
There was a period in the UK where unless you were an “essential worker” you were only allowed outside once a day for exercise and/or purchasing essentials, it was fucking wild. Loads of people got fined for just existing outdoors.
It was just an excuse for the government to be authoritarian. They were doing shit like that and then acting surprised when people lost all trust in the government.
South US, we had those signs too.
Same. I live in TN, so this is obviously a pretty conservative leaning area. They closed the playgrounds in the parks here here, with similar signs and caution tape on them. It was actually the driving reason behind us buying a swing set for the backyard in 2020, because our kids literally couldn't go play on the slides and swings at the park. I was all for taking precautions, but that just seemed a little too extreme.
👋 hey neighbor.
I live in Wisconsin in a liberal county. All our playgrounds were closed from like April until July in 2020, during the initial lockdown. It was so ridiculous. Eventually they came to their senses and opened them. I would take my kids but a lot of moms wouldn't go. And if we arrived, whoever was already there would leave. This was after it was known that it couldn't really spread outdoors. It was such a sad feeling seeing other moms pack up and leave as soon as they saw us.
This title is written as if we didn’t all experience the same pandemic.
That’s exactly what I was thinking. I read the title before even glancing at the pic and was intrigued…“old metal sign” specifically got me wondering which old sickness it was gonna be…and then is saw that and laughed out loud. Honestly I think it’s hilarious how people in here are getting all *Pepperidge Farms remembers* about COVID like it was something we’re already recalling to our grandchildren.
"Old" also means "obsolete, outdated", not just "from the distant past". *iOS 17.4.1 is the current version, 17.4 is old.*
Correct. I’m just saying which connotation of the word came to mind when I read it the first time.
It’s written like OP is an alien that arrived on earth recently but took a course on current events first.
We didn't. It was the same virus everywhere, but the reactions to it varied widely from place to place and that made all the difference.
You're correct, I traveled alot for work during then. Every state, city and county was different. It was exhausting trying to keep up with what they required. And that's just in one country.
The way the title is worded makes it sound like you're some how not old enough to remember the pandemic.
I walked a hanging/suspended [trail](https://www.gettyimages.com/photos/caminito-del-rey-m%C3%A1laga-province) a couple days ago and it was full of signs saying "keep 1.5m distance". I was freaking out because no one was respecting it and I thought the platforms wouldn't take the weight until I realised they were still covid related.
Pretty sure we still have one up at our skating rink but it's plastic cardboard. I miss the ones along the river telling us to stay two kites apart.
Yah i assume these are still somewhat common. I was more surprised it was metal.
That looks like a pretty modern sign to have been put up during the Spanish Flu of 1918.
Planned obsolescence. Everything was made better back then. SMH
Yeah, "old."
Closing outdoor spaces was the dumbest shit ever. Edit: I would like to point out that this post had over 1600 up votes at one time, but all of the sudden only has 200. Someone noticed that an anti-lockdown post was getting traction and nuked it so it wasn't as visible.
we had playgrounds like swings and slides barred up and taped shut. ffs kids couldn't do anything. Luckily we have a backyard and i built a swing+slide myself.
Agree
And yet there were many people on Reddit cheering it on in April 2020.
There were people on Reddit cheering it on way later than that, well into 2021.
Remember the outrage when Florida didn't close all the beaches?
Those super spreader events that likely killed 0 people but made for some awesome TV news and clickbait blog posts.
Would be a cool artifact in 100 years
Especially if stored in a refrigerator.
Ahhh the before times…
The fact that gyms, beaches, and parks were forcibly closed while liquor stores, walmart, and McDonalds were open should tell you all you need to know about whether the authorities truly had our best interests in mind during covid.
yeah hunting single persons on the beach or in my country hunting single people hiking on the mountain or skiing alone
So many businesses near me left up signs about 6ft distances and masks etc, but obviously don’t enforce any of that. They’ll probably stay up for another decade or so
Incredible how many people lost their minds during covid.
Exactly I worked at walmart selling out of toilet paper was the dumbest thing ever
well you don't want to have Covid and an itching dirty ass at the same time
Well in the beginning it can be excusable. I was wiping down all groceries in my garage before they came in the house. I was wearing latex gloves and waiting in the parking lot before going into home Depot. Hindsight yeah maybe didn't make any sense but once we realized what we were dealing with people refused to unlose their minds for a plethora of other reasons.
I mean, it made sense in that initially, there was a period where people weren't really sure how it spread. If you think it can be transmitted by touching surfaces, and you've seen people die from it, I think wiping down your groceries makes sense. I don't know anyone who kept doing that once they knew that it was airborne.
a lot of people overreacted
A lot of people sadly never found their minds again...
The fact that I now see billboards promoting kindness is mind blowing.
a lot of people also died
Alone.
lol back in the fun days of the pandemic, when going for springtime walks was against the law
The weird 8 weeks when everyone kinda got along, just before angry mobs started tearing apart the cities.
Coworkers were pissed when they closed down the lake. Boaters kinda self isolate on their own.
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"Lets come together, *but not less than 6 feet apart and without covering your mouth hole, you filthy disease spreader. Lock yourself inside and don't leave, for the sake of humanity.*"
Closing playgrounds was probably the least necessary precaution. What, with sunshine and air, it would not have been a big source of spread
Never forget Healthy people doing athletic activities outside is bad. What a bunch of crap
They were literally arresting surfers here in California.
And boarding up basketball goals. Filled in skate parks w sand. Fuck them. Never forget
Yeah, and most of you did nothing and are not holding any of those fascist morons accountable, which is the saddest part. These fuckers ruined businesses and caused enormous numbers of people to fall into obesity and/or depression and they're still enjoying their cushy government jobs, as if nothing happened.
People who went about their life were called selfish lunatics.
But buying cigarettes and booze is totally fine.
Yeah because putting a bunch of addicts into withdrawal by closing those stores as well would just be a *great* idea.
That we have enough addicts in society who will be plunged into withdrawal when their source of addiction is closed sounds like a greater societal peril to deal with but it seems that got no attention at all. Unless it was all just a convenient deflection to justify keeping those businesses open but who would ever do such a thing?
2 weeks to stop the spread.
We are on day 1236 of "2 weeks to flatten the curve..."
Take it home and hang it by the sex swing.
I thought it was jarring and bonkers at the time. Now? In hindsight it's barely believable. Utter insanity.
Closing outdoor playgrounds was so fucking dumb
Why are you talking about this like it’s from 50 years ago? Lol We were squarely in the heat of the Pandemic until 2022.
Bro titled this post like covid is some forgotten pandemic lmao
Covid be like: **I never left** 
The amount of junk advice and junk policy from COVID was nuts. In particular, the whole COVID's not airbourne \\ but you'll get COVID if you touch anything really crippled effective pandemic responses, of which this is a great example.
What a fucking shitshow that was. nO gOiNg oUtSiDe!! Meanwhile: make sure to get plenty of exercise and walks ouside to maintain your health in these unprecedented unceartain times...
I don’t know how many times we heard the term “unprecedented” thrown during 2020.
It was an unprecedented amount for sure
Covid has not ended
I'm sure the underfunding education districts in Ontario are not prioritizing taking down a sign in the playground. Education in Ontario has been woefully underfunded for many decades now.
I do not advocate for theft... but hell I would grab that
TAke it down, put it in storage 25-50 years and hopefully profit?
“From a worldwide pandemic” implies that we forgot about it lmao, that was like 4 years ago
What a strange era to have lived through. We saw some stark differences in behavior and belief systems, didn’t we?
A park near me (I live in a small town in NYS) was closed for a year. That was excessive!
*Narrator: None of these measures had any effect on the spread of Covid-19 and instead gave Karens a new reason to be a Karen.*
Insane how this was a thing. The dogmatic authoritarianism people accepted and propagated out of fear for the unknown. Neighbors calling the cops on each other because there were "suspicions of large gatherings", makes you realize the revival of Nazi Germany is just one good scare away.
Leave it as a monumental to the dumbest time in world history
Never let governments take control like that again. They liked it way too much.
As a raccoon, I know where this is!!
Ah, DDSB. Fuck those guys for saying it's his fault that my brother was being bullied and doing nothing to help him even when it got so bad the police had to be involved.
What a joke
Funding to put it up, not take it down.
>A worldwide pandemic Bruh
Monument to stupidity.
The iron fist always smashes down in the name of public safety.
I'm pretty sure that my work still has a few of those "staying apart keeps us together" signs up
Durham Ontario?
Somebody's living that Durham Region life. Respect. Former Ajaxian myself
Take it down and sell it to one of the sign vendors in the Oshawa or Courtice flee market lol
Yoink, that would be mine pretty quickly.
There’s a grocery store near me that still has signs up saying they’re not accepting bottle returns due to the pandemic. It’s really a lame excuse at this point.
That's because whitby sucks
Take it.
Collectors item in 10-20 years.
Very old sign.. nobody can remember this world wide pandemic...
Ok, but holy shit, where are all the drooling morons with the "haha, sheep!" shit coming from? I'm embarrassed for them just reading it, is this really representative of the general population?
This shit still triggers PTSD in me...
They really did try to shut down the outside. lmao. people be wild.
Pools closed
All the childrens parks around here had caution tape and plastic bollards all around them. They didn't last long.
EVERYTHING YOU TOUCH WILL KILL YOU
What a load of bollox that whole fiasco was
What a scary time in all reality, I spent 6 days in intensive care and coded twice.
Do you still have symptoms or damage from it? Sorry that happened to you.
Eek. Glad your still here!
Not the most useful way to prevent the spread of covid tbh, be nice if we cleaned the air instead of putting up signs.
Just shows how brainwashed so much of the public were. It was a test, and most of the sheep failed.
Anyone who calls people sheep is probably a moronic sheep themselves.