When was the moment you realised covid was serious?

The first threads in late Jan are interesting to see again

A few very insightful posters, who talked about overwhelming healthcare here

I knew as soon as I heard China had locked down multiple cities

When McDonald's closed

Oh and the first time I went to do a big shop and seeing the queues outside the supermarket and everyone standing with their masks on waiting to go in. I sat in the car and cried. It was like something out of a film.

When Boris announced the first lockdown...I watched it on TV feeling sick. My DD was at her dads for the week and I was terrified she'd have to stay there for lockdown and not come back. Such a surreal feeling.

Not when it hit Brighton because I remember staying at a hotel and not talking about it much at all on around same date

Maybe when Italy started showing scenes

Definitely when Spain got hit and 500k figure came out

I suppose end Feb/beg Mar 2020 when things started to get a bit out of hand with infections and deaths. Until that point I believed it would be a bit like the swine flu and bird flu epidemics.

We run our own business and decided to move everything from the office to our living room the week before lockdown was announced. Staff work remotely anyway so it was a case of business as usual, just us working from the living room. We rent offices at an innovation centre - the manager just about laughed in our face when we said we were moving the servers out and wouldn't be back for a while. Told us we were being silly and the Government wouldn't lock down

It was around late February, when things were just happening in China. I was very tipsy and had that ‘enlightenment’ moment, when you’ve had a few and suddenly you get those amazing ideas in your head like ‘I could start my own business and be a millionaire’ type of thing, but also you sometimes realise things that are obvious and right in front of you but you haven’t noticed them before.
I just thought shiiit, people are dropping like flies there, something’s amiss.

@Ticksallboxes oh yes! It was a specific time every day wasn't it, and everyone got twitchy if it was late!

I also remember checking the Worldometer stats religiously every day throughout April 2020 after they were linked to on Mumsnet.

For a good while the worldwide ratio of deaths per cases was increasing rapidly. I had to stop reading it eventually as it was so scary.

I was following the news in Wuhan from January. I'm not normally a worrier in the slightest, so when I was texting my friends saying it was coming here, they pretty much ignored me.

The week in March that culminated in schools closing. DD had already been sent home to isolate and we didn't have much food in, and couldn't get a shopping delivery. Then all the talk about mass cremations, mass burials, ventilators and PPE - it started to feel like the end of civilisation...and this is far far from my personality to believe in those kinds of things.

Ironically, while I sourced hospital grade masks in January in preparation for Covid, we all were sick with some viral illness in early December - including protracted cough and loss of smell/taste...
I had to have an X-Ray - I had pneumonia and a broken rib from the cough.
I believe it was likely Covid, given the rates in March it was certainly in the UK in November. Interestingly no one talks about it officially.

It was the Friday before my birthday weekend in March 2020. Until then it had all been speculation.

First a restaurant I'd booked to celebrate with friends in another county called to say they were having to close. Then our back up plan called to say the same. By the end of that day the schools had announced closure and our local food shops were decimated.

I went for a walk with family on my birthday and had a massive panic attack (never had one before) on the drive back and my DH had to pull over and call an ambulance. I was completely overwhelmed and convinced we'd all be dead by the end of the year.

Luckily after a week I'd got things into perspective and just got on with it like everyone else. I'll never forget that weekend though - it was just too much.

emwmber = remember

I remember spending two hours on the phone to PHE in late February 2020 trying to get permission to test a traveller returned from an area not on the ‘high risk’ list who had transited through several airport hubs. They needed admission with COVID symptoms and had negative standard viral swabs. Nobody from PHE would give me permission.

Our A&E department was the local COVID testing centre at the time.

I’d been following the threads on here and had quietly stocked up with the odd tin, jar, packet etc every time I was in a shop. DP thought I was nuts.

The weekend before lockdown I was at the hairdresser and as I was getting ready to leave she said to me, “I hope we see one another again soon, stay well” and we both sort of laughed hysterically. DP met me for coffee afterwards and we noted how quiet everywhere was. When I got home I ordered some expensive pro hairdressing scissors from Sally’s because I had a feeling I might need to trim my own fringe…

I emwmber the furore on here with posters saying others were scaremongering.

Admitted to hospital to be induced and me and DH had to wear PPE as they suspected I might have Covid. I couldn’t leave the room, the staff would be wearing more PPE every day. The rules were changing daily - they didn’t know if I could use gas and air because of the airborne transmission risk.
After giving birth and having a negative Covid test, the only person who could visit me was DH. At home I didn’t see a midwife or health visitor in person (except for the heel prick test at 5 days). There were no support services available.
I couldn’t register DD’s birth for 3 months.

Watching news reports in Jan 2020 of the speed that China, not typically known for its citizens welfare, was erecting hospitals.

Honestly I only realised how serious it was when McDonald closed down

When it delayed the start of my husbands (cancer) drug trial and they stopped me attending his appointments with him. He died three months later.