Feels surreal reading old threads on here from March

[Ozzie9523]

I’ve just clicked the ‘last’ key and read some threads from early March. Seems so weird reading those threads, how we were worrying about a few cases and thinking it might all be over in a couple of months, or wouldn’t affect us like it had China and Italy. Little did we know what was coming 😔 If someone had told us back then where we’d be 9 months later, and all that had gone on in between, we probably wouldn’t have believed them. Just thinking out loud really!

I was VERY worried and even bought facemasks from Amazon on 20 January, thats how scared I was reading about a new virus in China and they were having trouble containing it. I just had a VERY bad feeling about it all and unfortunately was proved correct with our governments lacklustre response to try to prevent it getting into the country. Others were doing very well and cracking down right from the beginning but I watched in disbelief as our country carried on as normal. I am very angry about the needless deaths that have occurred I say this as a Tory voter but no more, I will NEVER vote for them again.

I dont think anyone knew (although many will insist they did) what was going to happen, but some were more worried and seemed to have a better idea of what could happen.
However there are/were a section of MN who seem to take a lot of satisfaction in saying "I told you so".

Fizz reading that first corona thread some knowledgable posters talking about infection rate etc and also the idea that private healthcare wouldn’t be much use etc I only looked at first few pages but a couple of posters pretty much they are able to correct all the posters who thought differently. Science base probably.

But yes also lots of ott stuff about civil war, riots and power going down.

I think there was also a lot of hyperbole that hasn’t come to pass (same as Brexit really) , hospitals were not overrun, some had never been so quiet, there was plenty of food, we never did run out of toilet rolls, people weren’t dropping dead in the streets etc so lots to be thankful for.
Plus loads of people predicted this will go on for years, we’d never get a vaccine so that was all wrong too (happily)
So in balance some people did predict the seriousness of the situation and some people did over predict the disaster it would be.
We were going to have a second wave after VE Day, after Lulworth cove, after Bournemouth beach, after eat out to help out. Turns out where I live anyway there hasn’t been much of a second wave at all. Much lower than the first wave anyway and schools have stayed open which is good news

I was following what was happening in Wuhan from when it was first reported. I kept telling my friends it would end up here, out of control and life would be massively impacted. They thought I was nuts and laughed at me whenever I mentioned it. (I do remind them of this now .) It was nice to go on the early posts and find likeminded people.

@RedToothBrush

Witchend i was saying in mid August i was pretty sure there would be a major issue by half term.

It comes to me as no surprise now that theres angst over tier borders and London is stressing about T3 and the spread in schools which apparently wasn't happening in the North in September (unless you bothered to read the local press cos the national media was so bad).

Major issues ahead are:

Supply chain problems exacerbated by the end of transition (whether we deal or not). I'm already hearing numerous ominous sounds on that score from friends in various industries.

The time is going to take to establish vaccine centres and administer vaccines is scary. The sheer number of people in the priority categories is huge. I think its something like 10million before you get to the under 65s with or without a serious health condition. And we've currently got 400,000 doses which will take min of about 200 days to roll out at the current rate across 30 hubs. (to give you an idea of just how much this operation needs to be scaled up). Johnson is going to be disappointed by how slow it is. He needs things to get done yesterday...

Christmas. London and Kent are fucked already without that extra pressure. There's a real issue developing (following a not dissimilar pattern to the North). Its probably about 3 or 4 weeks to go before it starts to kick in. Without calculating the Christmas factor in.

Shit is going to be hitting the fan with two potential serious crisis hitting at the exact same time.

I think im going to hide under a rock and just sigh. With a large glass of gin.

I feel like more people need to accept that this is infact the truth of the situation, rather than happily saying that it'll all be over in spring. It won't.

I like mn for this. When I read my posts about getting mother in law into a home, which we did one week before lockdown and I am happy we did. But now she doesnt know who we are and we've visited a handful of times. Looking back reminds me of the posts I also have written about her in the past. It's sad really.

Bear in mind, There are more hubs than the 50 already announced. There are satellite hubs off the main hubs if you like. My hospital is not an official hub but we are getting some next week I think to roll out to staff and patients. So roll out will be quicker than some on here suggest once it gets going. Main issue I see could be ensuring people actually turning up for their appointment especially appointment 2.
We manage to do 14 million flu jabs in 2-3 months in normal times so it is extremely possible.

Watching the Tom Kerridge pubs programme was surreal. Seeing the news of Covid trickling in almost incidentally then Boris's announcement that people should stay home and not go to the pub, when the pubs were still open. The landlord s didn't know whether they should stay open or not.
Then there was a single case in a neighbouring village to one of the pubs and they thought they probably should shut because of that.
It brought it all back. What we didn't know then and could hardly believe.
We were just looking back at photos of the weekend before the schools shut. We can't really believe that we went ahead with a large church family day (after considerable debate, and we did make some changes like food individually plated and hand sanitiser) - we were so lucky that none of us had it.
On my parents' road, three near neighbours from different households were hospitalized (full blue flashing lights and hazmat suits, apparently?) in the first fortnight of lockdown. It felt as if the end had come.

Tbh at the time i remember trying to talk a few people off the ceiling and downplay some of the most dramatic fears whilst also stressing there was a serious issue.

I certainly didn't get it all right by any means.

But to say things like we didn't run out of toilet roll is not quite true either. I was concerned not that we would run out of stuff but that we would see panic buying similar to Hong-Kong (where there was an infamous toilet roll heist) and that would empty shops. And that certainly did happen. I was very much worried by late January on that and i know my dad (serious heart condition and diabetes background in research science) decided to mysteriously take up making bread then.

But overall i do remember hearing very early on how the crisis would last at least 12 months probably up to 18months. And i told other parents this the day the schools shut and was pretty much blasted for being ridiculous and pessimistic. That really pissed me off and frustrated me as i try to stay in the realms of probability and base things off whats happening on the ground as much as possible.

Being told I'm stupid and hysterical etc has very much left me with a simmering frustrated and anger over the wilful ignorance that dominates this country and is driving events atm.

It would be nice, to get it completely fucking wrong for once.

But we didn’t run out of toilet roll though. It is true that People overbought it but stocks were replenished quickly and once queuing to go into shops became normalised it was all ok again. I didn’t panic buy once. Not everyone experiences are the same. I was never unduly worried about the world collapsing so was I right?
I have never stopped travelling to work on the tube everyday and I work in a hospital so I think that helps. I get out and see the world everyday and that helps me keep the hyperbole I see on mn and the internet in perspective

@sashagabadon

Bear in mind, There are more hubs than the 50 already announced. There are satellite hubs off the main hubs if you like. My hospital is not an official hub but we are getting some next week I think to roll out to staff and patients. So roll out will be quicker than some on here suggest once it gets going. Main issue I see could be ensuring people actually turning up for their appointment especially appointment 2. We manage to do 14 million flu jabs in 2-3 months in normal times so it is extremely possible.

Do we have 28 million does of covid vaccine yet (remember you need double doses of Pfizer and Oxford)?

That's ultimately going to be our limiting factor. Even if we get the hubs up and running.

With covid there already seems to be a leaning towards centralised hubs for vaccine roll out rather than a more localised vaccine roll out. I believe there was a story on the local news last night about how some GPs were saying they were unable to do covid vaccine onsite because of the potential risk to staff and other vulnerable patients that having so many people into the surgery would produce. Lots of people won't be able to just go to their local GP. So i think real problems over accessing a vaccine particularly for older, poorer and less mobile patients looms in a way that doesn't exist for flu.

And we know there are supply chain issues that were flagged previously around vials for storing vaccine because of the number around the world that are needed.

In all honesty i expect things to be a lot slower to get off the ground than public expectation and we need to see the rate of expansion of rollout (so noting how many vaccines are done in the first few weeks and what the inital NHS targets are is important - thats 200 - 500 people per day per hub with an overall daily target of 5000 people is important) - the rollout won't be as slow i'm saying above but its important to stress how long its going to take to get up and running. We also need acknowledge we need to vaccine more people, in different locations, with greater infection control (and associated issues), with double doses and supply problems (which may be exacerbated by the end of transition) and all of this is realistic not hyperbolic.

My point is to reign in comparisons with the flu jab and the excitement of it all being 'nearly over'. Its not. Not by a long shot.

If you went to the shop needing bog roll and there was none, it doesn't matter if technically the country didn't run out of it

And everyone who stayed the fuck home so it wasn't so bad for nhs staff should have just carried on as normal because it was all hyperbolic?

Right.

Pisses off to la la land

I think a lot rides on the Oxford vaccine and getting that approved but from Jan I imagine things could well speed up significantly once everyone gets into the routine. They are learning about the pzfier vaccine all the time and my understanding is it is less limiting than first thought but does have limitations obviously.
Plus I think the moderna one comes.
If I was organising it I would be more worried about too many vaccines all arriving at once and getting them to peoples arms quickly rather than a shortage of vaccine. It is good they come at staggered intervals

I saw an ad on FB asking for volunteers for the local rollout of the vaccine, ie marshals etc. It said they were aiming for 900 a day.

@RedToothBrush

If you went to the shop needing bog roll and there was none, it doesn't matter if technically the country didn't run out of it

And everyone who stayed the fuck home so it wasn't so bad for nhs staff should have just carried on as normal because it was all hyperbolic?

Right.

Pisses off to la la land

That’s not what I said though. A lot of people buying bog roll already had 10 rolls at home, they were just buying more. That’s human nature. And supermarkets did start to m limit purchases pretty quickly. My daughter works in a supermarket and she was policing it for a day or two. I wonder if there is a single person in the U.K. who did not have a bit of big roll to wipe their bum even once in April. I bet there isn’t

@sashagabadon

I think there was also a lot of hyperbole that hasn’t come to pass (same as Brexit really) , hospitals were not overrun, some had never been so quiet, there was plenty of food, we never did run out of toilet rolls, people weren’t dropping dead in the streets etc so lots to be thankful for. Plus loads of people predicted this will go on for years, we’d never get a vaccine so that was all wrong too (happily) So in balance some people did predict the seriousness of the situation and some people did over predict the disaster it would be. We were going to have a second wave after VE Day, after Lulworth cove, after Bournemouth beach, after eat out to help out. Turns out where I live anyway there hasn’t been much of a second wave at all. Much lower than the first wave anyway and schools have stayed open which is good news

Possibly because eventually the govt conceded that British people didn't have special immunity and did lock down?

@sashagabadon

But we didn’t run out of toilet roll though. It is true that People overbought it but stocks were replenished quickly and once queuing to go into shops became normalised it was all ok again. I didn’t panic buy once. Not everyone experiences are the same. I was never unduly worried about the world collapsing so was I right? I have never stopped travelling to work on the tube everyday and I work in a hospital so I think that helps. I get out and see the world everyday and that helps me keep the hyperbole I see on mn and the internet in perspective

I live somewhere pretty untouched by Covid but I'm still human enough to think it's been a pretty big tragedy. I don't know a single person who has died of it, and I know of precisely 3 people who "think" they might had it. So I can, by your logic, not give a fuck about anybody else who may be dead, dying, lost their job, missing out on their education? Just so I know.

@RedToothBrush my experience is/was similar to yours. I remember I was mentally preparing for eg refuse collection to be impacted - ie realising what keyworkers were and how reliant we are on every single one of them.

I was accused of being ridiculous too.

It is tricky to get the right balance and I don't claim to have always had it. When I think I had Covid shortly after lockdown I was at some moments really frightened even though my only risk factor is my age and that only just. However I am a single parent.

@sashagabadon have you not heard of food banks (which also supply other essentials)?

Even without Covid there would be families without loo roll, and I'm prepared to wager there will have been more of them in Mar/April and probably ongoing because of redundancies/ effects on casual work etc etc

Silent. That’s not what I said at all. I said some of the things people predicted didn’t come to pass and there was a lot of hyperbole. That’s true. I am not saying it hasn’t been terrible for some.
But we have definitely escaped a lot of the civil unrest, dead people in the streets scenarios. That’s a great thing surely?
Plus we do have working vaccines, many and we never would ( I recall HIV mentioned a lot as the reason why) that hasn’t come true either, in fact couldn’t be further from the truth. That’s amazing isn’t it

[quote Augustbreeze]@sashagabadon have you not heard of food banks (which also supply other essentials)?

Even without Covid there would be families without loo roll, and I'm prepared to wager there will have been more of them in Mar/April and probably ongoing because of redundancies/ effects on casual work etc etc[/quote]
Totally agree the impact on jobs and that young people is awful and arguably worse than the disease. Yep totally agree with that

Just three weeks before the march lockdown myself and some friends had a meal in a hotel ,on an abba tribute thing ,the place was packed seems unthinkable now .

Actually that’s a good point about jobs , businesses and livelihoods. There were almost no posters predicting huge job losses , business closures , financial Armageddon due to a lockdown.The consequences of lockdown on education and young people in particular never really got a mention. We’re there any threads discussing the potential downsides of lockdowns in March? if anyone did raise this. I apologise as I didn’t see it.

I can definitely remember a thread where someone was looking to rebook a wedding or a holiday to August / September time and my response was 'that's 5 months away - of course everything will be fine by then'!

Although, TBF a holiday probably was fine at that time if you had been lucky with your destination and didn't get caught with quarantine (or the out-in-back out again we had with Portugal)