Response to first 2 UK cases of coronavirus not robust enough

[MissPoldark]

The hotel is still open and accepting visitors. Apparently they weren’t immediately informed that 2 of their guests had been diagnosed.
All public areas should have been deep cleaned but there is no suggestion this has been done.

No details are being released about where the tourists had visited (because of “patient confidentiality” - bureaucracy is dangerous) How on earth can anyone in York know whether they’ve been put at risk?
How can they trace possible contacts without making this information public?

Business would grind to a halt if in peak cold and flu season we all had to take time off work with the sniffles due to a very small chance of contracting coronavirus - an unwitting vision of the future!

God this is bonkers and it’s only a year old

[quote Northernsoullover]@MissPoldark I wish you had been at the helm of our pandemic response. This thread is shocking. How naive we were...[/quote]
Yes.

In fact, you could still take over at the this late stage MissPoldark - I have full faith you’d be better than Boris.

@hanahsaunt

Hospitals are bracing for an influx of the worried well.

Yeah, guess that’s what they were doing. Reading this thread is bloody surreal.

@Lalliella

I can’t even remember coronavirus being news this early in the year. We were on holiday at February half term and I just remember the news being all about Caroline Flack.

Its interesting- even though Oz was behind in the first cases I remember coming back from Japan in mid January and the borders being closed not long after (well you could come back but had to quarantine) Just shows the government/media were already behind

Awful reading back isn't it! I was laughed at in late February/very early March for not going on a three week planned holiday abroad in case we couldn't get back. If we had gone we would have got stuck there as the borders closed during the time we would have been away. I had a feeling something might happen.

I remember reading the Covid threads back then and predicting future hasty name changes from people who would feel rather silly when proved totally wrong 😁

I worked in immunogy in the dim and distant past.
I knew it was going to be bad.
I was telling people it was going to be bad.

But even so, a small voice at the back of my head kept whispering "Nah..... It couldn't happen here"
Its because we haven't had to face catastrophe as a country for many generations. We are complacent.

My ex H had passed through China on a business trip and did a lot of business there and in SE Asia at the time . He called me and said "this is serious, it's coming and you need to be prepared for it", his tone frightened me. We'd not spoken directly for months as can't stand the sight of each other usually so I took it seriously from that moment. I ordered cotton, reusable masks with filters from Amazon for me and my children that day. Two days later you couldn't get a mask anywhere.

No this thread hasn’t aged well. I didn’t talk about the virus back then due to the general attitude of posters; this thread being a classic example. I knew it was coming. It was so obvious.

I was desperately hoping in January last year the government wouldn’t take us out of the Eu due to the looming pandemic. But they did. And treated the whole thing as a joke, an overreaction until they couldn’t do so anymore.

Dh and I went to France at half term. I didn’t want to go. But he is from there and I knew it would be the last chance for a long time to see his family. The risk in my mind was that perhaps his elderly father may die from it and dh wouldn’t have seen him. We left France the day on of the super-spreader events disbanded. And it snowballed from there.

The bliss of ignorance.
I hope the vulnerable posters on the thread are alright and well.

It’s very sobering to read this thread. The world has changed so much in one year.

I'm so glad I headed the warnings in January. My mother is ECV and I'm CV (she lives with me as her caretaker).

We're in Canada where they were barely reporting anything, but I had a bad feeling, so we spent about 2k and stocked up our chest freezers, pantry's, basement, etc with everything we could, and bought n95 masks while they were still available.

I know I'll get torn to pieces for hording, but it was in January, long before the panic buyers started so plenty of time to restock on everything. They probably didn't even notice a dent with just one household, but it meant when it hit our shores, we didn't have to leave the house for a few months until online shopping became available, or we had to leave for doctors appointments.

I still remember how the checkout lady thought we were nuts for buying so much pasta, rice, pet food, soups, canned goods, flour etc. Bet she understood why a few months later.

MaxiPaddy
I also built up stocks before the panic buying. We never ran short of anything because of my foresight. If you, I and many people could see it coming, it is a disgrace the U.K. government let thousands and thousands die by not taking any precaution.

I don't think I'd even given it any real thought or attention at this point in time, although caught on not long after. I went shopping with my 10yr old DD about mid Jan and she was WAY ahead of the curve. She wore a tube scarf around her face and wouldn't touch anything. I think she was into tiktok at the time so picked up info about the virus there. I remember telling her not to be so daft This thread gave me chills!

Christ almighty 😢

Wow.

I was terribly ill with flu like symptoms in December. I struggled to breathe and so did my then 1 year old - I don't think I had COVID but I just couldn't get the image of suffocating in bed out of my head. I remember watching it unfold in China on the news in early December. I begged my brother who was travelling from abroad to be careful and wear a mask and carry hand sanitiser especially passing through Heathrow as i thought it would be a hub with passengers travelling from Asia or who had been in contact with possible carriers.

He laughed me off. My parents told me to check in with my GP for my anxiety as I was seriously overthinking this and worrying too much. I ordered masks and just couldn't believe people thought it wouldn't get bad. I had a panic attack in early February when I was meant to travel on the train from London and cancelled the trip.

I'm so glad I listened to my gut. I don't think I was over cautious at all. I remember friends and family laughing at me in March. Six are now deceased, one has long COVID, I've lost count how many have had it.

This did not age well

A few months ago, I suggested that the UK put off Christmas until the summer. I was howled down, with someone asking "Are you on drugs?" I repeat - the UK sold their lives for a paper hat and a roast dinner.

My dd was visiting us from China in October 2019 and was due to return end of Jan 20 when this was all brewing in China...her flights were continuously cancelled and borders started to close basically leaving her 'stranded' in U.K. ...1 year on and she's still here in U.K. , unable to return to work ( although has been able to teach online) , borders closed again, unable to renew her entry/ work visa ( visa centre closed and there's now another level of bureaucracy to jump through in order to obtain visa ) She's desperate to return to China and still has flat there with all her belongings and unable to access her Chinese bank account from U.K.
ironically her city has had no cases of Covid since last May and no deaths and they're sent her face masks last Feb when there were talks of shortages ( how ironic looking back)
My dh was a medical student in the 80's, and 1 of his microbiology lecturers (Prof Pennington, who is now an 'expert in coronavirus) had warned then that the world was long overdue due a pandemic and it was only a matter of time
There were so many missed opportunities we could have taken to lessen this tragic situation

I was very glad of my brexit stash, which i added to in jan/feb time. Couldn't get a shop delivered for weeks and don't drive

@MissPoldark I wish you’d been leading the U.K. response to this...

Some of the threads on this post have had me . They’re not simply oblivious in a developing situation but giving their opinions and sneering at the OP with such confidence. Really makes you realise that a lot of people are full of shit

wow - this thread is so interesting to read.

It's like watching the early segment of a horror movie where the town leaders are saying "don't be stupid, it's all a hype" before the zombies bite them.

I think the mumsnet Covid threads will form an important part of history, the human reaction to how this all unfolded. If it wasn’t so utterly tragic it would be interesting from a historical point of view. I just hope lessons can be learnt but I somehow doubt it.