Just hit me everything has changed.

[Iwannatellyouastory]

At home in UK, self isolating as I have been in close contact with someone now showing symptoms.
Listening to local radio and adverts, obviously planned/ paid for a while ago coming on in between the records.

Win tickets for a music festival in the summer, promoting test drives special deal if you book before end of March, special finance package for start up businesses, some electrical firm promoting it’s services etc

It’s like a glimpse into the past, festivals are going to be cancelled, nobody is going to book a test drive are they? Start up businesses are likely to go to the wall, unless they sell hand gel or toilet paper. Will anyone want to book electrical work unless it’s essential of course.
Big job losses already announced at airlines, mobile phone companies etc, the company that both my sons work at is unlikely to survive a downturn in business.
Me and my DH are in our sixties so not so worried for our future, healthy so unlikely to be too ill if we do get the virus. What about our kids, grandchildren and the rest of society though.

I think we'll get through the virus itself but the effect on the economy is far more worrying. Yes, things will return to some kind of normality but many people will lose jobs and businesses will crash in the meantime.
And I'm tired of this nonsense about the blitz - this is not remotely the same and the world is a very different place now.
People are anxious and worried and I think we need to acknowledge that and support each other. Anyone who doesn't think this is a massive deal is kidding themselves.

Many of the changes will be positive. Consumerism was out of control. If people learn how to amuse themselves without buying stuff, that's a good thing.

I love solitude and an empty calendar, so a suspension of normal life suits me down to the ground.

The world has never been this reliant on technology and business.

It’s pointless to compare it to the aftermath of the Spanish Flu because rebuilding was much simpler.

We are going to lose airlines, probably most of the high street, the NHS will be under such pressure that we will be put back decades in terms of recovery from many illnesses.

Our lives are going to be very different from now on.

I also thought that, there was an ad on the radio yesterday about short breaks to Dublin, then the one about the government plan to support small businesses. All sounds really sad now...

Much love ( not in the best MN tradition I know) and wishing good health to everyone on the thread x

My mum also says it’s nothing like the blitz was, although she was a child at the time so maybe she was shielded from the worst.

I think we're heading for a dreadful global economic depression, whatever happens with the virus itself. The stock market is the stuff of nightmares.

I can't see how small business will survive and my heart breaks for the people who have worked so hard to get cafes and bars and shops and so on off the ground, who rely on day to day custom and who are going to be destroyed by this.

I absolutely don't need or want a kick up the bum. I think it's normal and healthy to be saddened by the things that are happening and very likely to happen.

For me it was hearing my kids talking and saying "Do you remember when we used to go to school?"

These measures are temporary. We're all in hiding so the virus has no one to host it and will die down.
The world will change but some of those changes will be for the better. There will be new research into anti-virals. There will be rethinks on how society is structured. There will be reduced air traffic, so reduced pollution.

Listening to the radio adverts really got to me too. You realise how much the world has changed so quickly. Sports betting ads talking about what the score is going to be tonight, when now there is no sport to bet on. Adverts for Sky Sports F1 when all the races have been cancelled. Adverts for SAGA trips/river cruises. Adverts for business wanting to expand. All so redundant now. It's very sad

I lost my job today. My place of work has closed due to covid 19. I'm a zero hours worker, my work will go under if this continues for more than a few weeks. My DH is self employed and has had 3 jobs cancelled this week. We have enough saved to last a couple of months and then we are in serious trouble.
This is nothing like the blitz. During the blitz everything was rationed so the absolute selfish grabby behaviour that is going on in our supermarkets couldn't happen.

I am 62 and remember the poverty of the post war years. I think since the boom of consumerism in the 80's people have become rather complacent and take so very much for granted (esp the NHS) and are far more demanding.

Perhaps this will be a sort of "reset" button to put things back in perspective. Perhaps afterwards people will re-evaluate what is truly valuable in life.

Perhaps.

There was a historian on Radio 4 today who said he thought this would be such a significant event that future historians will define the post-war period as "Before Coronavirus" and 'After Coronavirus". Sobering stuff.

I've been thinking about this. I wonder how life will be in the long term. I don't think we'll be the same after this.

@Divebar I love your post, great attitude and I hope you are right.

I’m wondering when the looting and violence is going to start. I’ve read all the novels, I know how this goes.

I keep waking up in the morning and thinking it's all a dream. Then it hits me.

And you think you're safe from things like this, living in 2020 with advanced medicine and research. Look at all the diseases we've managed to wipe out in the past. It's scary knowing there are others yet to come.

I watched The Big Short at the weekend (great film btw). It's about the sub prime mortgage scandal that almost broke capitalism in 2008.

Felt like the end then a bit too, though less impact day to day. Just in the US 5 trillion dollars disappeared from pensions, savings and house prices. 8 million people lost their jobs. 6 million lost their homes.

Banks were bailed out by the government etc.

Yet only 8 years later, with RBS still owned by the UK government the banks started selling the same dodgy loan packages that caused the crash.

Capitalism bounced back like it never even paused.

I'm not meaning to minimise what's going on but this too will pass.

@ThinkAboutItTomorrow I keep needing to read posts like yours, thank you.

Oh dear god

People do love hysteria

Look at China. The epicentre!!!!

Under control already with no reported cases out side of Hubei

We have less than 2000 cases in a population of over 66 million

I don't think its the end of the world, things will change for a while but in a year or so we will go back to normal more or less. Some businesses will go, some new ones will come. Hopefully the government will protect incomes and food for people.

Get a grip

Very true, end of life as we know it

I can't see how small business will survive and my heart breaks for the people who have worked so hard to get cafes and bars and shops and so on off the ground, who rely on day to day custom and who are going to be destroyed by this.

Not sure about other parts of the country, but where I am small businesses might survive. A lot of banding together to offer deliveries to their local communities, and people seem very keen to support them. I would guess that's not going to be so easy for businesses that offer a service that requires the customer to be present though.

MyuMe, what's it like being this stupid?

But we don't have less than 2000 cases, we have no idea if people aren't tested.