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.

Google Oscar Cainer astrological report for 2020, as published in DM online Dec 19, predicted a once in a generation event, and a further major event on its way for June 20. Very interesting reading.

I had this lightbulb moment yesterday while lying next to DS1 reading a bedtime story. It just hit me that this is real; it's going to change everything and there's nothing we can do to stop it. Really knocked me sideways.

Can't wait till we're all living in Mad Max thunderdomes and bartering for tins of beans with toilet roll. Yes this is a serious thing that's happening but you'd think it was the apocalypse according to MN.

I’m wondering when the looting and violence is going to start.

I'm waiting for this too.

One day this will be made into a film, I just hope it has a happy ending.

Totally agree...my dh put the somg..its the end of the world on last night and kinda felt it. It feels like the world has changed but we dont know how much yet. Saying that im seeing a birth of kindness in my local area with mums helping each other out.

We closed our offices today. It felt so emotional I wonted to cry. We provide services to the vulnerable / homelessness / food safety etc. My own team support each other. We have worked together for years. I know their private lives. Some of them have very vulnerable parents etc. I wanted to hug them all as we left but I couldn’t. It felt like the end of something. I’m still emotional now (really must get my HRT sorted).

China is only temporarily under control. And that control was bought with draconian measures - the UK would never dream of putting in place. Realistically, until a vaccine is produced, the virus will keep running through the population (there will likely be intermittent periods where governments gain temporary control over it). Im not an epidemiologist. But I am TRYING to inform myself.

Imagine how it must have felt in France after WW2. Not only did half a million die in the fighting but nearly 1 and a half percent of their population were killed due to the diseases etc as well! Being occupied by Nazis would have been awful, plus the fighting in the streets and bombing would have destroyed countless buildings, roads, bridges etc. If you had told them ‘oh it’s easier to rebuild that than what we’re going through now’ I’m pretty sure they wouldn’t have agreed... yet reading about just a few years later: “The 1950s were a turning point marked by economic expansion and social change in France. Jean-Pierre Rioux wrote that 'the "beautiful" pre-war nostalgia is finally fading, the domestic market is prospering along with demographic growth, and that a better life is at hand: the "boom" days are inaugurated'”

Yes this will be tough and we may well go through a recession, to say we will never bounce back is to not learn the lessons of history. The human race has come back from a hell of a lot worse.

We are in shock because we live(d) in a wealthy comfortable country (or existed in an uncaring callous scary poverty-stricken existence depending on your circs of course), and now it seems like it's ending.

But it isn't. It is a hiatus, a vaccine will be developed, immunity will develop, everything will return to normal. And that's the real shame, no one will learn anything, it will be business and capitalism as normal and the toilet-roll-grabbers will carry on regardless while the rest of us bleat about learning lessons and more kindness.

@Frazzlerock. Firstly, this is a mess. No doubt of it. And secondly, I’m so very sorry to hear of your lost babes. So, even though your wedding OUGHT to be different, OUGHT to have all guests there, OUGHT to be a huge celebration for you, it can still be very very special. Don’t fret. All will be well. Enjoy your special day.

* China is only temporarily under control. And that control was bought with draconian measures - the UK would never dream of putting in place. Realistically, until a vaccine is produced, the virus will keep running through the population (there will likely be intermittent periods where governments gain temporary control over it). *

Public hygiene in Mainland China isn’t the best so I feel this is a losing battle there unless curfews are kept in place. Deaths in Italy and Spain (and now France) were in part driven by people travelling and going on holiday / eating out / using vulnerable people as childcare. Seems like the UK may well be heading the same way but hopefully by the time the cases hit the NHS there isn’t an overlap with the flu season.

The big difference between this and the war is that it's a deadly virus that we can't see and no one is testing for in this country (outside hospital) so we can't even work out where we might be more vulnerable, or safer. We can't come together in a wartime spirit and support each other the way we want to because we all might be carrying and spreading it.

This, more than anything, I think, leads to the sense of dread, panic and fear.

Every crisis is different and of its age. The way things recover, or not, from each one depend on so many factors, it's not really possible to compare. We are very lucky - we have lived through the longest peacetime that Europe has ever known, with the highest standards of public health. We will all recover, maybe with some healthier attitudes to our communities and to our planet.

@Frazzlerock I am very sorry to hear this and hope your day goes ahead and is wonderful somehow.

DH responded to a suicide a few days ago as a result of anxiety around coronavirus. Poor person just had a breakdown about it and saw no way forward. There are so many effects spinning off from this disease that we haven’t even fully realised yet

I teach fitness classes including about 5 that are overwhelmingly attended by seniors. I am worried that I won't see some ever again once gyms re-open. My parents are no longer around but my lovely ladies are like family to me. Many have families of their own but I feel so emotional when I think of them

So sorry Frazzlerock

I agree with those saying get a grip! Yes, it's awful and I'm as worried as the rest, but the world will not end and life will go on. The world has been through great change before, just because you weren't there to remember it doesn't mean it didn't happen and it wasn't hard for those who were there. I've just been reading an article about a elderly man talking about how they had to self-isolate during the polio epidemic in the 40s (this is in NZ), so even that is not new. We in this country have also dealt with major quakes, bringing death and destruction. My thoughts are: you either go forward, or go under. Your decision.

@Supersimkin2 that's one of the most sensible posts I've read on MN since all this started!

Well said @CaptainNelson

@twosoups1972
I’m exactly the same, when I first wake up I keep thinking I’ve just woken up from a terrible nightmare

Of course we should do all we can to lessen the spread of the virus, but it's also important not to blow things out of proportion. There will be some personal tragedies, but the world will recover. This is hardly the end of civilisation as we know it. If some businesses fail, others will open to take their places. Life will go on.

We can't come together in a wartime spirit and support each other the way we want to because we all might be carrying and spreading it.

No, we can't come together in person, but we can come together. One advantage we have over previous generations who faced calamities is that we can connect to each without having to be in the same room. I've already seen offline communities moving online to continue activities, and offer support. I hope that over the coming weeks that will become more commonplace. Even if we are physically apart we don't have to be isolated. And this won't be forever, it will pass.

I hope at the very least that it makes people
See that social care and the NHS and the staff that work in them need to be valued and well funded finally.
It's exposed in one day in my care home what happens when good will runs out, and there is no plan B 🤷🏽‍♀️

IKWYM OP. I was watching an old film the other day and I was feeling envious of the characters, for having the freedom to live their lives normally, with no restrictions! It really does feel like everything has changed, and I miss things as they used to be.. just a few days ago.