When was the moment you realised covid was serious?

Watching the Chinese authorities sealing covid positive people into their homes and watching how it devastated Italy.

In early March 2020. I ordered a chest freezer and we did a £600 food shop to fill it. I also kept dd off school a week before they closed.

Quite late. The day I saw Jacinda Ardern announce that NZ would be going into lockdown. I was in Greymouth on the West Coast of the South Island of New Zealand, and the next day I got the last train back to Christchurch. A day after that I stood at Christchurch airport in NZ trying to work out if I was going to be able to get to the UK. They told me that my flight was only going as far as Sydney, and that I could only get on if I was Australian (I'm not). The last flight to the UK had left hours ago. The next one didn't leave for several weeks (and not via Sydney).

I suddenly realised just how far away the other side of the world really is.

When I was arranging my brothers funeral and was wondering if we could even attend and couldn’t book anywhere for the wake

When my contacts in foreign governments started asking if we could help them source ventilator parts and PPE. It was such an unusual request on those channels that it made very clear the situation in some countries was desperate. And then further rammed home when, when we tried to help, we realised that we all had the same supply chains and it was pretty much every man (or state) for himself. That was an oh fuck moment.

Then, for the UK, when at work we were told to prepare for redeployment to any area of government we were required - basically on a war footing.

I'm in Italy in one of the first regions to go into lockdown. I asked my colleague to bring home some of my books from our shared office and when I popped round to her flat to collect them, there were police roadblocks stopping everyone and loudspeakers telling everyone to stay indoors. We didn't go out again for weeks.

Still waiting..

I remember doing a party at an indoor play centre for DC's birthday at the beginning of March and making the kids wash their hands carefully but otherwise didn't think much of it. A week later we changed her birthday trip to a safari park rather than a theme park as we thought it would be safer to stay inside our car rather than mix with people so obviously level of concern had risen quite quickly. By the end of that same week I was frantically photocopying home learning packs for my class and telling parents I didn't know when I would see the children again. It seemed to be something that moved from being far-removed to close at home very quickly. Shows our complete lack of preparedness. Personally I had assumed it would be more like SARS or avian flu and be very regionally contained.

February before first lockdown, I watched a documentary on wuhan. I knew there and then it was coming and it was bad. I wore a makeshift mask the very next day. Work told me I was being ridiculous, didnt care.

Talking to a client in Turin late February. I started reviewing and updating our business contingency plans then and tried unsuccessfully to get my business partners to introduce restrictions on meetings and travel straight away, and encourage home working. One of my partners says now that I had unusual foresight - like I’m a witch - and I’m like, no, I just talked to the same guy every week that you did but actually listened when he described what was going on over there. Did you not imagine we’d end up in the same place?

When the holiday we were due to start on 19 March 2020 was cancelled as Cyprus was no longer letting travelers from Germany in

Also I visited Brussels in mid-March last year, for a holiday - personally I would have cancelled but my DD was taking me for a birthday treat. We were on the last Eurostar out of Brussels, though we did not know it at the time. Nobody then was wearing masks at all.

I also realised it was serious when i saw what was happening in Italy. Even now, just before the end of last term, a young woman who looks after the babies in GS's nursery died of Covid, leaving 2 young children

I’m in France. Just as it was getting scary on the news in Italy, mid Feb, a 40ish year old teacher from a nearby school died and post-mortem revealed Covid. All the schools, unis and leisure facilities in the county were closed “for 2 weeks” and all the hand sanitizer was suddenly sold out. My boss emailed me on the Sunday evening to say the college I work in was closing.
The next day, I was having coffee with a friend and our DDs when an ambulance pulled up and paramedics in full PPE got out and ran into a house over the road and that was my OMG-this-is-real moment.
I was really worried for my family in the UK as it took a few more weeks for any measures to be put in place!

When I was told to keep copies of my work ID and passport and some overnight clothes in the car. Lockdown was introduced a week later and driving to work was surreal as roads so quiet.

Also DH sent a pic of a temporary morgue being set up in central London.

The day when part way through the morning we got told to change the way we did lunch with the children. Our numbers had been dropping daily and we had 56 but only about 25 turning up.

When they closed the schools in two regions of Italy late Feb, both I have heavy work involvement with. I still think I thought we had more time here and therefore more chance to sort it out before it got to that kind of crazy point.

I now think it went round dd1s school end Jan in a complete volte face .

The first time I saw someone Caucasian (rather than Asian) wearing a face mask in the UK. It was on the London Underground, probably in early March 2020.

Sometime in Feb I read an article about how masks had sold out in China and people were using all sorts of things instead. So I went online to have a look at what masks were available here and realised that they were already selling out in the UK too.
Travelling on the tube to UCL where I was working and seeing many students wearing masks and realising that they expected Covid to be circulating already in late February.
Seeing the senior exec coming out of a meeting in early March all looking grey and as if they’d been given a death sentence- a week before lockdown.
Hearing that all my team would be redeployed to frontline roles as they have DBS clearance and work with people in a support role.

Weirdly it was the moment when a server in a Costa refused to put my hot chocolate into my reusable mug.
I was on my way to say goodbye to my step mum (she died in the May) and stopped for a drink. I remember it was a total lightbulb moment. I also remember the rest of the journey being filled with worry that I would have to go home without seeing her. I didn't dare hug her or my dad.
I tend to exist in a sort of bubble disconnected from the world so hadn't been too worried up until then.

When it felt really serious was on the day the schools closed-
The announcement before felt like it might only be for 4 weeks-
But the day they closed I had popped go the shops to get supplies and it was eerily quiet- with little to be bought in certain aisles.

That weekend was the worst for me-

Thankfully my colleague and I had discussed doing an extra delivery a few weeks earlier of non perishables was a good idea.
It was- thankfully we never ran out of food. What struck me about this was telling DH I thought he would say I was worrying over nothing- he said it was a good idea. I knew then that my worries weren't irrational.

I'll never forget that feeling of fear.

Towards the end of January 2020. No cases reported in the UK (or anywhere else other than Wuhan from what I remember), the "mystery illness" was yet to even be given a name. I was very sceptical about how everything was reported in the media and was convinced that really shit times were on the way. I was convinced that the UK would be heading towards an economic crisis because of it. My friends and family thought I was neurotic, making a big deal of nothing, arsehole colleagues mocked and laughed at me. I felt like i spent 3 months "waiting" to be either proved right or wrong as to whether any of this would happen.

I'm glad i don't feel like that anymore. I also genuinely believed it would all "blow over" in 3 months. What an idiot i am

I spent the build up to the first lockdown reading contradicting news reports "its just flu/no it's not/1000s dead from covid/no they're not" and found it really crap for my mental health. No longer follow any news/media regarding covid. I always have a general understanding of what any current rule/guidance are (thanks to people who don't bloody shut up about it) and I've pretty much always followed that, other than that i give covid no thought outside my working life.

@workyticket that was the same for me. I’ve got Irish parents so spoke to family over there and my stomach dropped. You don’t shut pubs before St Patrick’s unless it’s a massive thing.

Mine was when I heard McDonalds was closing! I remember that feeling like a real ‘oh f*ck’ moment!

I realised it was serious when my friends partner caught it and died within 10 days of being infected. I had it reinforced last night when another friend told me she had just attended the funeral of her 41 year old previously fit and healthy cousin with no underlying health issues.