When was the moment you realised covid was serious?

My parents went abroad on holiday on 7th March.

By the time they returned on 14th the world had gone fucking mad.

They were sending me pics of the beach and their suntans while I felt like the fucking world was on fire.

On the way home from the airport they stopped for groceries and it was a massive shock to find there were basically none to be had. I found it so hard to articulate the "yes, that's what I've been trying to tell you!" feeling.

On the Wednesday of that week - the 12th? - I'd said to my DH how devastated I was because I thought we'd all been together with our extended family for the last time.

Luckily - very luckily, I take stock every day - I was wrong - we haven't lost anyone. Just missed out on time together.

Weird moment when my super fit and healthy friends started being hospitalised following half term trips skiing in Italy. Realising they had been out and about and presumably this virus was now all around us. Was on the tube, got a text saying friend has been taken in an ambulance, as a woman coughed heavily opposite me. Made me think of the Dettol ad where you see the germs.

When I knew the country was in a pandemic was when my office closed and I walked my commute as it was so dead in central London. I went into several super markets thinking I better get food in and they were stripped bare. The disaster movie felt like it was becoming real.

In Feb 2020 I lived in one of the small towns first hit in Italy. It was announced at lunchtime on the Friday and by the evening Army tanks, trucks and tractors had blocked every entrance and exit to the town, with armed soldiers and helicopters checking none of us left, it was surreal, a mix between a Sci-fi film, Gilead and China. We were too scared to open our windows in case the virus was in the air. Then TV stations world wide started broadcasting from the just outside our tiny town, trying to inform Europe what was coming, but no one took us seriously enough. We heard ambulances non stop every minute of the day. We had no food and lived on rations for a good few months, we didn't see another person outside until mid June when we were finally allowed to leave our town, this block lasted only for a few weeks and was lifted in May this year. The town will never forget and everyone still wears masks, despite no longer being mandatory outdoors. This is what lockdown is really like.

I don't think the seriousness has hit us yet. That will come when it becomes evident the country is bankrupt, interest rates increase, inflation increases, unemployment increases. Then the increased cancer deaths will hit us, increased MH issues, etc., a generation of young people deprived of GCSE, A'Level and university experiences. Time will tell us whether locking down caused more or less damage. Personally I don't think the roller coaster ride is over yet.

I'm still slightly in shock that the three week lock down in March 2020 extended until July, then we locked down again in November for another month, then after Christmas and until 12th April, and that we are all still wearing masks.

Of 1000 employees I am aware of about 20/30 who have had covid; all recovered, although one was ventilated. I know three people who have died: a 97 year old man who had had multiple TIA's and caught it in hospital and died within 28 days at his care home - after another TIA; a young man in his early 40s who had stage 4 cancer, who caught covid, recovered but died within 28 days; a neighbour with complex health issues who caught it from her carers and who was on end of life care.

I think the last 17 months have been surreally dystopian but Covid has killed a tiny, tiny percentage of people overall and who have contracted it and I have grave concerns about how statistics have been disseminated to us and the extent to which our human rights and freedoms have been eroded.

I was very glad of the prepping for brexit threads on here. I managed to keep family and friends in loo roll

That still feels surreal. A fb post came up in March that my froend sent me from a year ago of a picture of Tesco with absolutely no loo roll

Early March. I remember my manager coming in asking us about what we had at home in terms of tech and equipment, in case we had to WFH. I remember telling DH I would feel better if he didn’t go to a work meeting in London (we’re in the north) as many people were WFH then and travel was starting to be advised against. He thought I was being daft but he decided not to go and then the meeting was cancelled anyway.

Then on Friday 13 March (won’t forget that date!) I had a swollen gland in my armpit, a temp, a sore swollen throat and a dry cough. We isolated. I was terrified - no tests or anything at that time. DH, DS and DD got symptoms the following week - DS (he was 5 at the time) was horribly ill, coughing, sweating, roasting hot for a week - and we couldn’t take him to the GP or anywhere as that was the first week of lockdown. Advice on the phone was to ‘give it time.’ Thankfully we all came through it but DH got the weird ‘covid toe’ a few weeks later so I think we did have it.

I was looking through some old photos on my phone from early January 2020, as it started to spread in China. Some pictures were taken on what was a beautiful day; if only we’d known what was to come just 10 weeks later! The DC playing on the beach in the winter sun, all wrapped up against the cold, aged 5 and 2. They’re 7 and 4 now - it’s strange to think that almost half of DD’s life has been spent dealing with lockdowns and restrictions.

When my university closed down and the NMC announced student nurses would be be put into paid roles.

After seeing multiple people be very sick, and also die in ICU

When the pubs shut.
I was listening to the radio and cooking dinner and cried when it was announced. I don’t even drink but it just felt like shit was getting real after hearing and reading about covid for weeks and I was scared.

Reading what the Italians were saying on Twitter (I think in Feb or early March 2020) saying that the hospitals couldn’t cope with the numbers and 30 year olds were dying of it. The U.K. at this point was still in “wash your hands and sing happy birthday” mode.

Pretty early on and I remember being laughed at in the office for being concerned.
Being told it will never be like Italy here and the scaremongering was ridiculous.

When China locked down Wuhan - a city of 11 million, and had people in hazmat suits spraying the streets with disinfectant. It was obviously serious.

When we had started getting dozens of cases here and the situation in Italy started to look really dodgy. It started to concern me that the government did nothing to close our borders; and being a fan of flightradar24.com I was watching thousands of flights coming into the UK from all over the world, including from countries where the virus was already out of control.

That's it, I thought, we're buggered. It's too bloody late now.

[quote NationMcKinley]@ZingDramaQueenOfSheeba just read your post about anxiety. This was very true for a friend of mine who has significant health and generalised anxiety to the point it affects her everyday life. I initially thought she would really spiral when covid hit but actually it was quite the reverse![/quote]
it was like topsy-turvy world.
every time someone said something hysterical I felt like replying "now you get it, welcome to the club"

I didn't go food shopping for over 8m.
the very idea of one way systems and rationing gave me panic attacks (I feel it even now, just writing about it) - we have 7 kids so it was a fucking nightmare.
I pretty much shut down though and DH was a bloody hero: WFH, doing shopping, washing, cleaning, cooking, taking care of everything.
Long Covid affected me very badly on top of everything else so I was pretty useless last year.

Got myself into gear in January though and things are better now. Hope your friend is ok

Hearing how many bodies they were planning for chilled me to the core. Horrific.

Yes to this.

I was fortunate, in that although I caught Covid it made me ill, but not so much that I recognised it for what it was and I thought it was merely a really bad but short-lived cold. I normally ache in my muscles and joints whenever I get a slight sniffle, so the fact it floored me for a few days didn't actually make me twig. That only came in hindsight when I found out about the Wuhan returnee and later had an antibody test.

So at the time I'm hearing all about this killer virus, not realising I'd actually had it, and the figures about infection rates and deaths start coming out of China and Italy. I do some basic arithmetic, and realising that Brits are essentially in no way less vulnerable than Chinese people or Italians, wonder why my government is taking an approach to this that will see 45-50 million UK citizens infected and 400,000-500,000 deaths.

Why it took a university study to point out the exact same thing to the government is beyond me.

I honestly don't think I ever had that moment. I'm quite fortunate in that covid hasn't really touched my life - I don't know anybody who has been ill, I've always worked from home, got my shopping delivered, etc and my kids are young adults now so no homeschooling.

Like a previous poster, I've suffered with anxiety for most of my adult life but have been on sertraline for the last 6 years so I think that's dulled any panic I may have otherwise had.

If this had happened when my kids were small I know I would've cracked up with anxiety. 9/11 really messed with my head for months afterwards so I'm thankful I'm medicated and didn't feel it.

When they closed schools..I'm a teacher and my dad picked me up (was looking after my children with my mam) and he said to me "I've never known anything like this in my lifetime-it's scary" and that scared me.

It was just so surreal-I still can't quite believe it even now!

13th March when dd phoned to say her uni was sending them home a week early, was the first really serious change.

Then on 16th March when I was introduced at work to the people that were coming in to turn our work into a local support hub. Things jumped about 10 gears at that point.

And again about a week later when we were told to get a night guard for the food bank (now being run at work) due to a credible threat. The police came round to check we were okay and they had tasers. Never noticed that before.

Speaking to people needing help on the phone and hearing how scared they were. Lots of tears. Lots of brilliant people offering help too. And one lovely gentleman who told me his wife had died the last year, but there was one good thing-he had no one to fall out with. I often wonder how he got on. And the lady (in her 90s with a heart condition and high blood pressure, but she was otherwise "perfectly healthy and feeling a fraud asking for help") who told me she needed a little bit of food, but not to worry yet because she had plenty for today-2 slices of bread. This was at 10am. We got a food package to her urgently.

When the first person I knew died. She was in her 60s and would have counted as vulnerable, but would have expected another 10-20 years of life. I saw her on the 15th. She told me that she was going home and was going to totally isolate. She must have either caught covid on that day or had it when I saw her. She was always busy, always smiling, and the first we knew of her having covid was when we heard she'd died. I don't think she even made it to hospital because there wasn't an ambulance available. We didn't really have time to mourn her because things were so manic. It's only really hitting in now the people we've lost.

Trying to get it across to my parents (via phone) who didn't think they were vulnerable because "we're really healthy for nearly 80yo". Eventually asked them why they thought I was risking my life to help people like them stay safe when they wouldn't stay safe. Thankfully they listened.

I kept a diary over the first lockdown. It's interesting reading, knowing what we now know. Some things changed dramatically. Other things we were working unsure and have been proved right.

When Boris announced the lockdown - I had a mini panic attack and I'm normally quite level headed (I was newly preggers so it could've been that)

By that point we were already wfh, and people were already dying, however this seemed to consolidate the seriousness for some reason.. I just remember feeling so stupid, helpless and scared, my attitude before that was basically 'fuck it'

@TimeIhadaNameChange I had a baby too around this time and ended up back in hospital until the day before lockdown.
Nurses and doctors at our hospital were taking the piss about Covid, refusing to wear masks and use hand sanitiser before touching the babies. They said it was a common cold and people should stop being so ridiculous about it.
Surprise surprise my hospital had serious outbreaks and were on the news numerous times about how shit they were at preventing further outbreaks.

My stepdad caught it in that hospital after being forced to go in for an unnecessary procedure which they didn't even end up doing. He's never recovered and he's in a nursing home now that no one can afford to pay for which could end up making my mum bankrupt .

When my otherwise healthy uncle died

Sunday 15/3 went on my daily visit to see my disabled dad in his care home. While we were in with him the manager came snd said we had to leave as head office had just called her to say they needed to lockdown immediately. That was the last time I saw my father properly - he died six weeks later.
Probably the scariest moment was my dh coming home and telling me that he had just been at an emergency planning meeting for a temporary mortuary to be set up. Hearing how many bodies they were planning for chilled me to the core. Horrific.

@EspressoDoubleShot thank you

@CheddarToldMeTo it was people like you that made all the difference. We had so many people come and help us / get redeployed and it was SO appreciated. Thank you

Towards the end of February. I also decided, about six months before the government that I was cev.

I had been nervous about it since maybe Feb 2020, but it was not until the NBA "postponed" their season on March 11, 2020 that the incredible seriousness of it all hit me (I am in the USA).