Were you scared at the start? Are you still scared now?

[Lou0808]

I'm trying my absolute hardest to try and adjust to this new "normal".

But so far I'm not doing very well.

I'd love to just go shopping but the thought of having to be constantly aware of keeping a 2M distance, being mindful of touching things or wearing a mask is just not my idea of fun. 😞

We drove past our local shopping centre yesterday and was really surprised at how full the car park was.

It's gone from people panic buying back in March, people saying how bad this was and how serious it is, to now parks, supermarkets and shopping centres being packed.

Are people not as scared of this anymore?
Do they feel like it's not as serious or as much of a threat?
Or are people just accepting that they have to live their lives with this threat around and are happy to do that?

I do have anxiety and OCD and I know they play a big part in How I feel.

But why am I still stuck to my feelings back in March whilst everyone else seems to be moving on and accepting this new way of life 😞

I was slightly scared early on, of the virus.

I was very scared of the English government's reaction to it which was slow and cumbersome.

I am not scared now as I know there are very few cases in our local area and so the chances of getting corona are extremely low.

I'm also not scared as I know I'm in a low risk group, and my children have an almost negligible risk.

I am still not out shopping though- I had to go into town to do a job this week and it was awful and not fun at all going around in a mask with half the shops still shut. I don't want to sit in socially distanced restaurants. I also found workers a tiny bit stroppy/or just that every one is one edge.

So, no more shops for me for a while, which is not out of fear, it is out of preference.

I haven't been scared throughout. I'm aware, I'm cautious. I try to be careful, as careful as you can be to an invisible threat.

I won't stop doing the things I want to do within what I deem to be acceptable and priority for me and my family.

I was worried about the virus at the start.

Less worried about the virus now, more worried that those who are at greatest risk of the virus are being thrown under the bus in the name of getting the economy moving, particularly those of working age who may be forced to return to work or lose their jobs.

I believe lockdown should be eased, but I also think that much more support needs to be given to the shielded for a lot longer than the end of July.

Nope and nope.

I observed most of the guidelines throughout but never stopped going to the shops, worried about benches in the park or stopped having takeaways or washed shopping or quarantined post.

And i'm a nurse.

I have been mildly concerned for myself throughout, in the same way that I am mildly concerned I might get cancer or sepsis or any other number of things. It doesn’t keep me up at night though or dominate my thoughts. I have shopped throughout etc. I am more concerned for those who are more vulnerable than I am and I am concerned about the economy.

I am very optimistic about a vaccine (I wouldn’t be at all surprised if HCP’s and the most vulnerable are vaccinated by Christmas) so I very much view this as a temporary situation to be sensibly endured with better times to come fairly quickly. I’ve written off 2020 but I’m hopeful 2021 will be a big improvement!

Yes and yes (and I’ve had it and really wouldn’t want to go through it again).

@ohthegoats

Was scared at the beginning, but not for me - for my partner who is auto immune and asthmatic - and I was in school, kids were going off ill all over the place. It was super stressful.

I'm not scared now. There are other risk factors that are much worse than partner's and he wasn't told he was vulnerable by a GP. He'll get it badly if he gets it, but I feel more comfortable with what the risk means than I did in March.

I'm concerned about full school classes, can't lie. Again, not for me - for others, particularly vulnerable staff.

@ohthegoats

Do you mind me asking what the autoimmune condition is?

I have psoriatic arthritis; I also have mild asthma.

I'm not on any medication for my arthritis (personal choice as I didn't want to be on medication when I was pregnant)

The medication that has been suggested to me is safe for breastfeeding but it would also put me onto the shielding list, so I've decided against meds for now.

But then I do worry about having an uncontrolled inflammatory disease and how that would effect my outcome of Covid.

I haven't been scared at any point. We've all got to die sometime.

I was concerned seeing the reports coming from China and the fact that our government didn’t seem to be acting quickly enough, which meant that a lockdown was then becoming inevitable.
I was scared of schools closing as I knew it would mean our children were likely to see the inside of a classroom again until after the summer holidays.
I was scared of how quickly laws were put into place that removed so many of our freedoms.
I was scared how quickly the general public seemed to turn on each other and be so willing to report suspected misdemeanours.
I am now scared of the huge impact the last 3 months will have on us all as a society, both health wise (covid and non covid... the cancer situation is a ticking time bomb) and economy wise.

No and no.

I was really scared at the start. I thought we would lose family members and that terrified me.

But now I feel more relaxed, especially as treatment and prevention seem to be lessening the impacts of the disease. We don't live in the UK, but I have recently taken a flight to come here for the summer and I am loving our new-found freedom (that we didn't have in our country of residence). We are just loving being able to go out for walks and enjoy parkland and countryside and greenery, and we are very excited about being able to go to the zoo and for the forthcoming openings of theme parks etc. There is a lot to love in the UK at the moment.

We are thoroughly making the most of it, before winter comes and no doubt things get bad again.

I was wary and concerned rather than worried. At the start most people didn’t give a shit due to Boris and his hand shaking shenanigans when it should have been taken more seriously and then the government had to terrify everyone into making them believe it was worse than it actually is to get them to feel worried. Reminiscent of the bloody awful AIDS adverts in the 80s that had me as a 12 year old who’d never had a snog let alone sex terrified that I’d catch it and die. Now they have to try and unscare everyone they terrified by overegging the threat to most of the population. As if we won’t twig that if they hadn’t dithered are the start and fucked over care homes we’d be looking at a lot less deaths.

I’m now much more worried about the consequences of the economic devastation than the impact of the virus. I don’t think we can fully spring back to normal but I do think we need to do as much as we can to salvage the economy and jobs whilst shielding the vulnerable. Locking up everyone for the benefit of the few whilst the economy disintegrates is no longer viable. If it ever was.

So interesting reading others thoughts and experiences.
At the beginning we were told that for people with no underlying health conditions it would probably be like flu. So for myself and the DC I've never been worried but DP does have a condition (brain haemorrhage years ago and has flu jab) which did worry me (especially when information starting emerging about Covid causing blood clots in the lungs but he spoke to his GP but he said DP didn't really fall into that risk group)
DP has been WFH since end of Feb and only been out for walks.

My main concern was about our household having to go into 14 day isolation and not being able to get my usual supermarket delivery. To this day I don't know how but we were automatically placed as priority with Sainsbury's and always got a delivery or click and collect. On the odd occasion I went to the supermarket I wore gloves, and only took my phone, credit card and car keys which I wiped down when I got home. I never wiped/washed shopping, would just put away then washed my hands and wiped down door handles.

Now our children have gone back to school (this is their third week) and we're feeling calm and confident at the moment. I know there is still a debate around do children transmit Covid but even The WHO have said there is no evidence of children transmitting it so we felt confident in sending them back. ( If it comes to light that children do transmit then we will have a rethink)

Moving forward I live in an area which now has quite a low infection rate and normality seems to be returning. (There's a cheeky older man who lives on our school run route. For the last few years I've stopped to chat to him at least a couple of times a week. Saw him again this morning for the first time and it was lovely to see him watering his lawn and threatening to soak me) I feel in a very seize the moment mood at the moment. I am concerned about autumn and winter, not so much about catching the virus and how it will affect us - new treatments look very promising, but more about how the economy is going to cope and how our children's schooling and education will be.

I'm more worried about things as we come out of lockdown. There seems to be such a focus on what 'can' we do rather than what 'should' we do.

I'm reluctant to go out shopping for non essential items because I feel the people that want to do that will be people that don't take it seriously and more likely to inadvertently spread the virus.

I've been lucky that local supermarkets have been very quiet, but I have noticed that they are becoming less so as the weeks go on. I'm scared that as soon as the pubs are open people will think everything is back to normal.

I was a bit concerned around the middle of march (horrendous cough, struggling to breathe etc) but I just want normality back now. We never wiped the shopping down or anything like that. I have some mental health issues and I felt starting behaviours like that would make things worse long term.

We're in Scotland so most things are still shut, preschool/school isn't an option but we have lots of plans for the summer.

At the start most people didn’t give a shit due to Boris and his hand shaking shenanigans when it should have been taken more seriously and then the government had to terrify everyone into making them believe it was worse than it actually is to get them to feel worried. Reminiscent of the bloody awful AIDS adverts in the 80s that had me as a 12 year old who’d never had a snog let alone sex terrified that I’d catch it and die. Now they have to try and unscare everyone they terrified by overegging the threat to most of the population. As if we won’t twig that if they hadn’t dithered are the start and fucked over care homes we’d be looking at a lot less deaths
I could not agree more.

No and no - frontline staff

I was never scared of the virus, only of the massive effect on my mental health and life of lockdown.

We all got covid (DH, six month old DS and I).

I’m still not scared of the virus.

I was very worried about it (and I'm not generally a worrier) because my daughter is on the "moderately vulnerable" group (rather than the extremely vulnerable shielding group) and she picks up every cough and cold going. I work for the NHS so was very scared of bringing the virus home to her. She was unwell in March, so had already been at home for couple of weeks before lockdown started, which was good really. And once we (at work) began wearing PPE at all times and enforcing social distancing in non clinical situations, I became less worried and felt I was doing what I could to protect myself and my family. I've been out shopping this morning - wearing a cloth mask, because if I have picked anything up at work, I don't want to pass it on to anyone.

I was scared at first, mainly because I'm my daughter's only carer. My daughter is an adult with a severe LD who can't look after herself. I was scared I would catch it and maybe die and no one would know she was alone in the house.
I got over it by researching the virus and keeping up with research into treatments and vaccines. I'm not scared at all now.
We've been going to shops and on walks throughout lockdown, we used public transport for the first time since Feburary yesterday, it was fun.

It's gone in a U shape - I was very scared before lockdown because of reading global news, especially that coming out of Italy. It felt like no-one around seemed to get how serious it could be.

Then I felt better while isolating (not the isolating part - it's not been easy, I've lost some of my work, home-schooling's been tiring etc). but I felt like we were going to get numbers down to something manageable.

Now, I'm struggling with anxiety all over again because, just like before, it feels like a lot of people are acting like if they just go back to normal then this thing will go away. What has changed, apart from some improvements in treatment, from a couple of months ago? We still have a large number of cases, we've had tens of thousands of deaths, but that doesn't seem to be enough to concern some people. And I'm truly dreading it all flaring up again. So it's like the beginning all over again.

I can't say I've ever been scared about it. I have been, and am, concerned for some people, especially those with young children and elderly in homes. My son hasn't been paid for his regular job and it is likely he won't be able to do it for the rest of year because it involves travel but he seems unworried, he is doing a lot of other things from home which are proving popular. He also believes he has had coronavirus,was sent home from 'abroad' in February after which he and a couple of others were ill. The other two were hospitalised and tested positive, one has residual health problems; son coped at home and got better but he wasn't tested. He really needs to get finger out and have an antibody test so he knows for sure but he has been self isolating.

I have three elderly cousins, two of whom are vulnerable but they seem to be fine. Two have been very careful, only going to supermarket at an allotted time and for a walk, keeping distance and wearing masks. The other one lives with a partner who is also vulnerable and they didn't go out at all until the other day, seemed quite happy gardening and doing things indoors.

I'm still here, going out tomorrow for a short while. It will seem strange.

Everyone who is afraid - you have my sympathy. Thank goodness there appears to be light at the end of the tunnel.

duffeldaisy what has changed.
The main thing that has changed is the number of infections. At the beginning of lockdown there were an estimated 100,000 new infections per day. Now is down to around 1000 (and probably still falling rapidly).
The other main thing to have changed is the level of knowledge we have now - who is susceptible, where to focus testing, how to socially distance effectively, superspreading events, importance of vit D, and much much more. Every new piece of information helps to control the rate of infection.

I'm not scared for a number of reasons:
Current infection levels way down and a lot of those will be in hospital, in a care home or self isolating.
We understand a great deal more about how this virus works eg blood clots therefore use thinners, vents not as good as cpaps, remdesivir and dexamethasone as treatments.
Was never particularly worried re getting it as low risk profile but now even if I did and ended up poorly I have faith that they've got much more of an idea how to treat me.