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.

Regarding future epidemics, this one may be a wakeup call and provide much needed investment into vaccine research and public health. If this effected children and 20s-40s as violently as the 1918 flu did things would be even more apocalyptic right now. I'm not saying it's a good thing, of course, or that the people it will effect don't matter. But it could be much worse, and we may learn valuable lessons from it.

*affect

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'm a historian, I would agree with that. We will be living in a very different world once this is over, but that won't necessarily be a bad thing. Certainly, Britain was very different after the WW2, but I don't think many people would argue it was worse than 1930's Britain. People came out of it with a sense of purpose and a determination to improve the country for everyone.

It hit me when I went round to my parents to collect something from them and drop something off for them.

They put my thing in the porch and I left their thing in the porch.

They waved down from the upstairs window and blew kisses and we turned and left.

I realised I'm not going to be in the same room as them for months ....

@twosoups1972

I’m keeping my fingers crossed too. China have reported one new case domestically and they are starting to re-open factories. People who have been ill have come out the other side. People who are ill here are coming out the other side. I think we’ve been very lucky over the course of my lifetime but that means we’ve become incredibly complacent or perhaps not very resilient as a result. I’m a police officer by the way and am used to “ bad situations” but am surrounded by people with “ can do” attitudes who’re prepared to work around the clock. When I’m anxious I like to think about that because as long as you’ve got people around prepared to do that ( in all areas of life) I know we’ll come through the other side.

That's true Saskia but in the short term things are going to be very difficult and much will depend on how governments can boost the economies afterwards.

Another interesting thing is what I heard David Miliband saying this morning. America has abandoned it's role as the world leader on this and China has very much stepped into the vacuum. I suppose as the virus started there they have more knowledge than anyone else, but he did suggest it's a wider reflection of the US (and to a lesser extent UK) role on the world stage and could contribute to a shift in the balance of power.

I agree it will be similar to the 9/11 shift. The month after that was surreal and scary.

It'll be ok eventually but I still cried on the way to work today.

Life will be different afterwards, and I did wonder if this will hit with the climate change message and we'll see more long term changes, like people working from home more often if it becomes the norm for roles that have always been office based previously.

I also wondered if it will change us - my Grandmother was a massive stockpiller, but she'd suffered in the war and with rationing afterwards, going without was normal for people like her who'd not had the money to pay blackmarketeers. My other grandmother who'd been a child of a wealthy family in the war wasnt the same, she didn't feel the need to keep weeks worth of food in or bulk buy when things were on offer/available, but then things just arrived on the table, she didn't get involved in the 'how'.

I can see lots of people who were caught out without much in the cupboards last week keeping much more stock in the house.

And yes, many small companies will go under, people will lose jobs. The recession that follows this will be hard.

We’ll be out the other side just in time for Brexit - in fact the panic buying, worry about food shortages, businesses going to the wall and travel restrictions are all good practice.

Puds I am in Dublin Ireland and I use a Ventolin a week I have very bad asthma. Today I went to collect my inhalers and they had none. I went to every chemist within a 10km radius and no look. I had to go to a&e and risk getting infected with this illness to get an inhaler. Absolutely crazy

Barely a twelvemonth after
The seven days war that put the world to sleep,
Late in the evening the strange horses came.
By then we had made our covenant with silence,
But in the first few days it was so still
We listened to our breathing and were afraid.
On the second day
The radios failed; we turned the knobs; no answer.
On the third day a warship passed us, heading north,
Dead bodies piled on the deck. On the sixth day
A plane plunged over us into the sea. Thereafter
Nothing. The radios dumb;
And still they stand in corners of our kitchens,
And stand, perhaps, turned on, in a million rooms
All over the world. But now if they should speak,
If on a sudden they should speak again,
If on the stroke of noon a voice should speak,
We would not listen, we would not let it bring
That old bad world that swallowed its children quick
At one great gulp. We would not have it again.
Sometimes we think of the nations lying asleep,
Curled blindly in impenetrable sorrow,
And then the thought confounds us with its strangeness.
The tractors lie about our fields; at evening
They look like dank sea-monsters couched and waiting.
We leave them where they are and let them rust:
'They'll molder away and be like other loam.'
We make our oxen drag our rusty plows,
Long laid aside. We have gone back
Far past our fathers' land.
And then, that evening
Late in the summer the strange horses came.
We heard a distant tapping on the road,
A deepening drumming; it stopped, went on again
And at the corner changed to hollow thunder.
We saw the heads
Like a wild wave charging and were afraid.
We had sold our horses in our fathers' time
To buy new tractors. Now they were strange to us
As fabulous steeds set on an ancient shield.
Or illustrations in a book of knights.
We did not dare go near them. Yet they waited,
Stubborn and shy, as if they had been sent
By an old command to find our whereabouts
And that long-lost archaic companionship.
In the first moment we had never a thought
That they were creatures to be owned and used.
Among them were some half a dozen colts
Dropped in some wilderness of the broken world,
Yet new as if they had come from their own Eden.
Since then they have pulled our plows and borne our loads
But that free servitude still can pierce our hearts.
Our life is changed; their coming our beginning.

Edwin Muir

What i think is interesting is the rise of the griefgrabber - the way people are saying they're shattered, sobbing, crying, etc almost as a badge of honour. When they are their families are healthy. And when there's an audience, natch.

I think there'll be a reaction against the grief grabbers - and their platforms - who are all about themselves when the crisis is over - in many ways, that will be healthy.

it's so interesting that the internet has made it much easier for us all to stay home more, but that it also breeds the panic and hysteria that fuel the crisis itself.

None of you have jobs clearly that's why a shut down wont affect you

Things will recover, but they will take time.
Britain was nearly bankrupt after the war, we survived. I lived as an adult through the decimation of manufacturing where I lived. Factory after factory closing, incredibly high unemployment, run down public buildings.
Things do recover. They take a while. There are very tough times ahead for a lot of people. And once we can all emerge and do things those who do have money will want to spend it having a good time.

Many people will tell you who are older that most people rarely went to restaurants when they were young. It was a big treat. It will go back to that for some. But over time people will make more money.

Definitely another 911 moment.

Maybe it helps that where I grew up and lived went through such a shit time? Billy Elliott captures the feel of that time well. So having lived through a time when lots of living there felt the place had been destroyed for ever, but also lived through it slowly recovering.

If you have only ever lived through general society being okayish, then this probably does feel more like Doomsday. It really is not.

Nearly every generation has some major crises that changes things.

@CandiceSucksCandy that's terrible.

I don't want to belittle how terrible it is for those affected whether health-wise or financially. It's terrible and I really hope it does not get as bad as is predicted. But I am reminding myself that I have been through a difficult time in my personal life and felt like life would never be ok again. But time makes such a difference. A few years on and things are so much easier. Its amazing what you can get through.

It hit me today the my year 6 child may miss her last few months at primary. No show no prom. Made me feel sad for her

@Pattymayo1 That is really scary. Glad you got one and hope you are okay.
I nearly asked for another inhaler in my last repeat prescription, but thought - no I am okay for the moment. I hope that wasn't a mistake.

Everything will be fine, eventually.

People are so dramatic!

@Olawisk it is part of coming to terms with things. And show more respect. People are going to lose their jobs and maybe houses.

DIYBother that poem was set as part of an OU course I did. It's very moving and definitely food for thought at the moment.

Yes, I’ve had a few sobs about it.
The world feels a strange place.

Frazzle, that’s absolutely heartbreaking and it certainly puts everything the rest of us are moaning about into perspective. I hope you can be married very soon and it’s the most joyous day you could possibly have. 💐