When did you start taking it seriously?

[LuxLFC]

For me it was January when the W.H.O declared it a public health emergency, although I was already aware of it by that point. I stocked up about 3 weeks later. It has been interesting to see people around me so dismissive of the situation until that first press conference with Bozo & the other 2.
What about you or the people in your lives?

As a big Disney fan once I saw ALL the parks were closing that's when I realised this was serious

@LuxLFC glad you don’t mind me asking.

When the news from China started coming out, I immediately thought about the swine flu and SARS epidemics and knew it would go global. Did others forget about those epidemics in our recent lifetimes? Again, not snark but trying to understand collective (or cultural?) psychology.

I’m American and was in NYC during those times. Obama took decisive action and being in NYC, we tend to take decisive action for disasters as well to mitigate the damage. Again, so maybe it’s cultural compared to how things are handled in the UK?

I think the problem with SARS, Swine flu etc they didn't have as big an impact globally & certainly not locally. People were aware but unless I'm remembering wrong it wasn't as aggressive or serious. It didn't spread as quickly so to begin with COVID felt like another one of those illness that would come briefly & go & not be serious.
But for me, when Italy was being so badly affected I thought hmm if that's happening in Italy it could easily happen here too.

When they started to close down whole areas in China. I knew it would have already spread as people travel all over the world. Then when Italy shut off the north I knew we'd be getting it bad.

Some point in late January when that German woman travelled from China and infected six of her colleagues. Started following the first ‘Worried about Coronavirus’ threads in AIBU. Panic rose three weeks ago when shit hit the fan in Italy.

Like another poster, it was when they said they were building the 1000 bed hospital. I’m a prepper but I went straight out and bought extra, as two of my adult children are in the high risk group. I knew that some of my clients would also struggle so bough stuff I can pass onto them. We will be bunkered down for the next few months. I will only be out once on a blue moon and taking huge precautions.

I honestly couldn't believe they let the skiiers return to work and school after seeing what China was like.!

Those first few threads when people said it was just the flu. Don't know what it was but it was gut feeling for me!

At the end of December I started monitoring it closely and buying a little extra shopping each week. I didn't go mad as I'm very anxious and overreact. I thought I was just humouring myself so I could feel calmer. February I realised it was definitely happening. And last week when I saw videos of people queueing down the street for groceries, jus t like videos that were coming of Wuhan in the early days, that's when I realised everyone else knew too and that was right to be anxious.

When they started to lock down Wuhan, it was obviously serious. They don’t shut down a city the size of London for the hell of it. Hoped then it could be contained.

I remember someone posted quite early on, Aibu to be worried about flights landing from Wuhan?

I remember reading an article which said, how we could contain it by shutting down global travel but this would never happen because money. Now look where we are. If only they’d closed borders much sooner.

What I still don’t understand is why we were smart enough to quarantine people coming from Wuhan, then we let flights come and go from lockdown areas in Italy for so long.

On the 5th March I was discussing what another big over hyped scare it was. On 9th March I made my first online Sainsbury's order in over a year as I was a bit concerned about going out. Also on 9th March I started with a temperature. On 11th March I felt okay and took my mum to a private medical appointment where there was no one else around, but was concerned that they provided a towel for clients to dry their hands on in the loo. By that time I was singing Row row row your boat when washing my hands. I stocked up with household items on the way home and have been indoors since. On 12th the Sainsbury's order arrived, we were both in the porch but I didn't sign. On 14th March paramedics were at my house because I was strugging to breathe.

So gradually between the 9th and 13th as by the 13th I knew I shouldn't have shared space with the delivery driver, nor should I have gone out the day before.

By the 14th I was in full isolation mode scared I'd end up in hospital.

I'm staying at home for the next 3 months. I've lost my business anyway and have 2-3 months savings so am staying put.

Last Tuesday. I had to visit a hospital and my news consumption went up to find put info then it hit me and I did some more research at the weekend. I do think if all you did was watch the news and look at death rate you might think it is overblown at the moment but the impact will be big and more so if we do not all act.

I think we would have had to shut down 95% or more of inbound flights from anywhere with immediate effect after first case to have any impact. That is what they said.

We should have been studying this and responding from day one in China and acted as soon as it became appparent it was bad.

I honestly thought oh no it won't happen here because we know about it and naively assumed I suppose that we would do something if it was a risk!!!

No excuses and unfortunately it will change the global consciousness of the whole world. We will have to heal from collective post epidemic trauma on a mass scale.

When I woke up this morning feeling like my throat was swelling shut

Tuesday. I also thought 'it's just flu' and that if everyone who was diagnosed with flu was announced and everyone who died with it was announced then would everything be turned upside down like this. Of course I'm now a lot more concerned.

@halcyondays
What I still don’t understand is why we were smart enough to quarantine people coming from Wuhan, then we let flights come and go from lockdown areas in Italy for so long.

Racism? Probably that mixed with a feeling that traveling within the rest of Europe is seen as “normal”? Italy, France, and Switzerland have been hit badly primarily for the reason (I think) that it was skiing season/school holiday season. Everyone from the rest of Europe and the world went to the Alps in those countries, mixed together combined with rich executives coming in from Asia for holidays with their families and BOOM, a giant petri dish.

Great and very appropriate username by the way. :)

For me, everything was ‘normal’ right up until last Saturday 14th March.
I had two weekends away planned, one in March, one at the start of April I was still going.

Then I went shopping on Saturday and saw the rows and rows of empty shelving units. I’d seen the panic buying in the tv, but that was somewhere else. The good people of my home wouldn’t be swayed by all the idiots on the tv. But the supermarkets had been stripped bare, the pub where DH and I go every Saturday for breakfast was deserted too. The realisation that this was real hit me on Saturday.

I had a bad feeling end of January but then when our first super spreader didn’t amount to much spread (that we were aware of) I relaxed a bit and thought we may have it under control.

However, once Italy escalated and after Feb half term all those who’d been on an Italian ski trip or to an affected area were only asked to isolate if they had symptoms I guessed then it would get very bad here.

I wish we’d done more then. We should have asked every single person coming back from Italy to self isolate. Yet surgeons and teachers went straight back to work...and it exploded.

When I realised men arent out acting like slime behind their wives back. Never seen anything stop that in my life.

When the news from China started coming out, I immediately thought about the swine flu and SARS epidemics and knew it would go global. Did others forget about those epidemics in our recent lifetimes? Again, not snark but trying to understand collective (or cultural?) psychology.

It was thinking about SARS and swine flu that made me think that - like them - it would be very sad because some people would lose their lives but it wouldn't actually affect me much. Neither of those had any real impact on my life.

I thought my colleagues were being unnecessarily alarmist in thinking we'd all be working from home, that schools might close, etc until about the beginning of last week - but that feels like a long time ago now!

The beginning of February was when I started to really take it seriously. DH has taken a bit longer but finally got there about 3 weeks ago.

We are lucky that we are able to always have a pretty much fully stocked pantry & freezer and always have medications in due to DC2's underlying medical problems. However, we did start to stock up on basic medication (not panic buying though just an extra box here and there) like paracetamol, ibuprofen, cough medicine etc. We also started adding more dried and long life bits to the 'no deal Brexit' cupboard, including coffee, chocolate, snacks, meal replacement bars and drinks, long life milk and dried milk powder, bread mixes for the bread machine, porridge oats and rice and pasta etc.

We bought one extra pack of toilet roll the week before last which we have hidden away from the DC , and we also got a plentiful supply of flannels and an extra box of laundry detergent for if we run of of toilet roll, along with disinfectant and bleach.

Both DC and I have underlying congenital cardiac issues/defects and DC2 catches everything going. I didn't send them back to school this week and we are self isolating, the DC have not been out of the house since last Friday. I have cancelled all doctors, hospital out patient appointments but there is one that DC2 absolutely needs so I am shitting myself about that one. I have masks, gloves and eyewear ready for her and I when we go. DH works for the ambulance service and went back to work last night after a couple fo weeks annual leave. He said the ambulance station(s) and hospitals/A&E departments have a completely different atmosphere to them that they did before his annual leave.

I have set up a 'POD' for DH when he comes home, where he can remove his uniform and put it in a bin bag, it has bleach wipes and alcohol gel and a towel for him. He puts his clothes straight in the washer and has a shower before coming upstairs (bathroom is downstairs).

I may be going overboard but I would rather overreact than under react.

Just checked my Amazon account - 22 January, I ordered face masks, that was the beginning for me.

About 3 weeks ago.
We went for a shop to replenish our pantry and get a couple extra bits for the freezer as DP saying it's "going to go down".
Before it all went crazy and the loo roll disappeared.

Feel very lucky we don't need to hunt down the basics in the current circumstances.
We only need to pop out once a week or less to get any fresh stuff.
We've left our numbers with elderly neighbors and offered to go to the shops for them if they need anything.

In January when I saw the stories coming through on Reddit. I started making sure my medicines were in order and my storecupboard was refreshed in February much to the hilarity of my family.

5 weeks ago when we cancelled our holiday to Spain.