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Original poster

If someone said to you last March...

225 replies

Wowcherarestalkingme · 04/03/2021 19:02

That this would go on for another 16 months would you have believed them? Did you think a year ago that schools would still be closed, businesses going under left and right and still having to wear face masks all the time?
Do you think it would have affected your behaviour in the first lock down?
I was just thinking today that it’s coming up to a year when lockdown was first announced and I truly believed at the time it would all have blown over by Christmas. Never did I think we would still be where we are a year on. And thank goodness for the vaccine!! Just interested in peoples thoughts on how they felt a year ago to now really

OP posts:
Original poster
Wowcherarestalkingme · 04/03/2021 19:03

Sorry blown over by summer not Christmas. Don’t know why I was thinking about Christmas

OP posts:
manicinsomniac · 04/03/2021 19:12

I would have thought they were insane. Sad

Neron · 04/03/2021 19:15

A year ago, if someone told me it would be illegal for me to work, and illegal for me to see my family and friends, I wouldn't have been able to catch my breath from laughing so much.

SerenadeOfTheSchoolRun · 04/03/2021 19:16

No - I thought it would be over in a few months. But, in fact, we did have quite a big lifting of restrictions last summer. I wonder where we will be this time next year.

Monkeytennis97 · 04/03/2021 19:17

Yup I knew it would go on longer than a year at least. Anyone who thought it would be over in 12 weeks or by September when the schools went back needed their heads read. See also the bullshit lies about schools being safe.

MrBullinaChinaShop · 04/03/2021 19:22

@Monkeytennis97

Yup I knew it would go on longer than a year at least. Anyone who thought it would be over in 12 weeks or by September when the schools went back needed their heads read. See also the bullshit lies about schools being safe.
Weirdly though, so many on here (including teachers) were saying ‘keep schools closed until September’ which I thought was odd, as September was always going to be a ridiculous month to send all kids back en masse. It would have made more more sense to get more kids back in May/June when infection levels were rock bottom and lessons could be done outside (in fact our primary did get every year group back before the summer holidays). Anyway no I didn’t think it would all have gone away by now (it was fairly obvious that Covid is going to be something we’ll have to live with in the long term) but if you’d have told me that it would be illegal a year on to see my family in my house/garden I’d have thought you were going insane.
Dadnotamum72 · 04/03/2021 19:22

If people had been given the scenario of what was going to happen in advance on a thread, I wonder how many replies would have said that will never happen and there would be civil unrest, whearas in reality everyone has mostly been complient.

Personally perhaps guessed it might come back to bite in the winter, but wouldn't have believed in so many restrictions and the length of this lockdown.

Spillanelle · 04/03/2021 19:23

If I’d known I would have seriously considered just leaving the country and working remotely from somewhere abroad. Some friends upped sticks at the start and moved to Bali then Dubai and have had an amazing year.

IdblowJonSnow · 04/03/2021 19:24

I'm so glad I didn't know this time last year. I would have found it much harder to deal with.

Equally I have no desire to have a crystal ball. Hoping for a few months of seeing more people, friends and family and very thankful for the vaccination.

Bedforme · 04/03/2021 19:25

I had a good idea it would be a year or so as soon as I saw us not closing border and early lockdown.

Quartz2208 · 04/03/2021 19:26

Yes a thread I posted on last year popped up when I said that pandemics tend to last 18-24 months so I expected it would be Summer 2021 before we were looking positively towards normal with 2022 being more likely.

I didnt see it being quite as bad in the New Year though as it was

helpfulperson · 04/03/2021 19:27

Actually if you listen carefully to some of the medical professionals a year ago the said pretty much that. They certainly talked about recurrent lockdown. We just couldn't cope with listening.

Fuckadoodledoooo · 04/03/2021 19:28

Yes.

It was quite clear it would be long term. My family were sure it would all be back to normal by summer, then October half term, then Christmas. That's not how pandemics work though is it.

So I knew it was for the long haul.

Puffthemagicdragongoestobed · 04/03/2021 19:28

I remember chatting to my brother in April and we both agreed that the pandemic would last until around 2022.

HelloThereMeHearties · 04/03/2021 19:29

No, it wouldn't have surprised me. What would have surprised me would to be told that not one but multiple effective vaccines would be developed and approved so soon, and that a third of the UK adult population would have been vaccinated within three months.

I mean, didn't people understand what "pandemic" meant? Confused

honkytonkheroe · 04/03/2021 19:30

Most people seem to be like you op. Sometimes at work one of us will suddenly comment on the bizarreness of it all, saying "who would have thought that a year on we would be in lockdown again?" or "Just think of all those businesses not being able to trade and losing money every day - how mad is that!". I think everyone is a bit shell shocked.

DD should have had A levels in 2020 and being told there would be no exams was a really major thing after so many of years of exams taken for granted. I couldn't have previously ever imagined a circumstance where A level exams would not take place.

Not to mention mask wearing! I went to London in early March 2020 and saw a couple wearing a mask. I thought it was mad! I hadn't really followed the news and didn't really know we had COVID coming our way! I follow it much more now. Now I wear a mask without question, feel like I've forgotten something if I get out the car without it and it feels weird to be going inside without one on.

TokyoSushi · 04/03/2021 19:32

I really didn't. When school closed on 20th March, it was very much communicated as a couple of weeks and back open after Easter. I think it's been better for me that I didn't know what was coming as the thought of it would have been too awful to bear. I used to have a very busy and active social life and I would have been devastated at the prospect!

As it happened, with WFH, I've been in the house for most of the year, I think I've almost forgotten what my life used to be like, but I can't wait to give it a try!

MarshaBradyo · 04/03/2021 19:33

I don’t know

I can’t really put myself back to then. It’s been too long

megletsecond · 04/03/2021 19:37

I always assumed it would take this long. It's an airborne pandemic so we couldn't just snap back to normal.
My initial thoughts were it would start to get better around summer 2021. I'm going to plan around a short lockdown next winter too just in case of a mutation.

claracluck1978 · 04/03/2021 19:38

Yep, DP and I both thought we would be looking at summer 2021 before things started to get back to normal.

We didn't plan anything for last summer, Christmas or the start of this year as we could see it dragging on. We didn't think it would get so bad this NY though.

unmummsymummy21 · 04/03/2021 19:39

I honestly thought it would last forever ! Or at least two years. I thought the first lock down just wouldn't lift for a very long time and was pleasantly surprised when it did and very happy ! I thought in a way that life would never be the same again and was proved wrong last summer and I'm happy about that.

MarshaBradyo · 04/03/2021 19:40

I do recall realising around the time Merkel said 70% or so would get it that we were merely slowing things

confuseddotcom090 · 04/03/2021 19:40

I remember thinking in March last year, if we stop acting normal now, when will it ever end? I mean, it's not that bad a virus, in the grand scheme of history. Not as bad as smallpox, the Black Death or even Spanish flu. Maybe not as bad as the Hong Kong flu. So if we act disproportionately now, it will never stop.

And so it has transpired. And science has died.

JellyBabiesSaveLives · 04/03/2021 19:42

Most people I spoke to thought I was very pessimistic for saying schools wouldn't be back till September. In turn, I had one friend saying it would be 18 months and I thought that was mad!

I'm glad I didn't know though, mentally taking it in smaller chunks made it easier.

Kazzyhoward · 04/03/2021 19:42

Yep, it was obvious it was longer term, especially seeing it was known from the start that vaccines wouldn't be available until Winter. I think there was a lot of denial/wishful thinking that it would disappear, even more so in Summer when numbers were low, but without a vaccine, it was never going to go away.

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