If someone said to you last March...

[Wowcherarestalkingme]

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

My sister lives OS and comes back twice a year. Late February she was about to book flights to come in April. We were talking about whether she should come or not and couldn't quite get our heads around the fact that perhaps she shouldn't. She told me she looked up Spanish flu and said it lasted 2-3 years with multiple waves and what if she couldn't come back for over a year or two.

I could not fathom that it would last that long, comprehend how many people would die, how many business would go bust, how many people would lose their jobs, how my kids wouldn't go to school, how I would shield and not see my friends, how I would not get a day off from caring for my elderly and severely disabled father.

I would never have believed it. When the kids were sent home from school I stupidly believed they would be back after the Easter hols, not that I’d just about make it to the summer after months of home schooling, swearing blindly I’d ever do that again...to then have to do it again 6 months later.

I remember seeing Wuhan locked down & thinking it could never happen here. Then Italy. When it was just in china I honestly thought it would blow itself out like SARS did. Then things started getting serious in italy but I still couldn't have imagined we would still be in this position now, although logically I knew it would take a while. I did know it was something we were going to have to live with though.

We were told three weeks to flatten the curve, and the general consensus was lockdown couldn't last much longer as people would starve and there would be riots.
I know with hindsight it seems everyone knew exactly what would happen but that's not what I remember at all!

They are vaccinating 50-59 yr olds in our area so on the home run. Hopefully the vaccine is going to make any third wave less deadly. I also think that our second wave was driven by the KENT strain which accounted for almost all the cases during January. The KENT strain is just starting to spread through the rest of Europe. Probably why the scientists are a little more confident in the UK.
I watched the Horizon special and they admitted that the KENT strain is the predominant strain in the uk currently. So the massive push to vaccinate as many as possible may well pay off in the long term. I’ve seen a number of patients who have had Covid since having vaccination and have all had very mild infection.
Remember that the plan was to bring down serious infection and not to eliminate the spread of infection. The R rate is not as important once you have protected those who are likely to die, and actually the more of the healthy population that have covid the closer we get to herd immunity. It’s very similar to the vaccination programme used against flu.
By the end of the month we will see if it is effective if the death rate bottoms out.
Once we reach herd immunity the virus will run out of susceptible hosts and transmission will become harder.
I think the main aim will be to stop new strains entering the country. But that will depend on people taking responsibility and resisting foreign travel for the next 6-12 months while the rest of the world catches up.

Angry mum below makes some brilliant points.
My main concern is that people will go on holiday abroad. All those ones that have been vaccinated..

@notrub

Does anybody else remember watching videos of China's lockdown last January. I know a lot of people were highly critical of it.

China's result was that the lockdown ended some 11 weeks later and life relatively swiftly returned to normal. Travel quarantines were imposed and as a nation, they have largely sat out the rest of the pandemic.

Anyone regret we didn't do the same?

People cry "freedom", but personally I think that UK citizens have had to give up a LOT more than Wuhan residents ever did.

A stitch in time saves nine has never been more apt.

A couple of weeks ago I listened to an interview with a British man who had returned from Wuhan on one of the rescue flights. The way he was describing the Wuhan lockdown (with hindsight) he wished he’d stayed in China as he felt the authorities had dealt with it in a much more efficient and safer way.

@CathyorClaire

I thought it was the most bonkers over-reaction I'd ever seen (am old) and still do.

History will judge us harshly.

Me too. On 11 March last year I met my son for lunch and we laughed about red crosses on doors and cries of “Bring out your dead”. Both of us still think the last year has been complete lunacy.

Yes I would. But probably only because I’ve spent a huge chunk of my adult life living in various countries in Asia. I’m only surprised it took so long for a virus to overcome the rest of the world outside Asia. I’m surprised it wasn’t one of the bird flu viruses or SARS etc, that have circulated previously in Asia, that have meant Asia was better prepared to deal with pandemics maybe. I’m also not at all surprised that methods undertaken to control the spread in Asia are unpalatable for us in the west and therefore it has been more difficult to control the virus here. I’m not, btw, saying either is right or wrong, just different. Both approaches have pluses and minuses.

No. I remember seeing it in the news in China and thinking "oh god they have another sars variant" but I didn't for one minute believe it was anything like it is now. Or think it was going to affect the whole world.

Everyday I remember it was getting closer and I still didn't really register what it meant for us as the uk.

Now I think, when this first happened, did our doctors and nurses expect this was what it was like for them?!

As it got closer and closer and then imploded, I cannot imagine how the nhs staff must of felt.

I can't agree that life in China is 'almost normal'.

They can't let people into country as normal. Which means they have to think hard about travelling out.

Masks are still compulsory in lots of places. Lots of hygiene measures contantly in schools.

Even the Chinese govt are finding the surveillance state burdensome: you have to check in and out of everywhere you go with compulsory app. Temp taken, very public stigma attached to anyone who gets covid.

There are local travel restrictions or quarantine between regions, so people have to think hard about who they visit when.

There are recurring lockdowns of specific cities when they get covid outbreaks.

Much of life is still far from 'normal'

@notrub

Does anybody else remember watching videos of China's lockdown last January. I know a lot of people were highly critical of it.

China's result was that the lockdown ended some 11 weeks later and life relatively swiftly returned to normal. Travel quarantines were imposed and as a nation, they have largely sat out the rest of the pandemic.

Anyone regret we didn't do the same?

People cry "freedom", but personally I think that UK citizens have had to give up a LOT more than Wuhan residents ever did.

A stitch in time saves nine has never been more apt.

The UK has a population of 67 million and has suffered 124k deaths from Covid whereas China has a population 22 times bigger at 1.44 billion but has only had 4,600 deaths or 4% of the UK's rate.

Now this could be because of the measure taken by the Chinese Government or simply because they have lied about the Covid cases and deaths statistics.

Plenty of epidemiologists were warning exactly that. None of this came as a surprise to me.

I thought it would be Xmas 2021 before we were free so it's going better than I thought it would. I feel much more optimistic now

I don’t think I knew. Not how long we’d have these restrictions certainly.

Mind you, I find it hard to remember what I thought!

"Now this could be because of the measure taken by the Chinese Government or simply because they have lied about the Covid cases and deaths statistics."

It often seems convenient for Western nations to either ignore China, or pretend that their success didn't really happen - after all can't have a bunch of #insert racial term# beating #insert jingoistic adjective nationality# can we now??

Thing is China isn't North Korea. Western journalists have pretty much total access to Chinese cities, never mind all the ex-pats who live there. Chinese citizens have plenty of access to the internet. It isn't even remotely possible for the Chinese government to cover up the sort of death figures that would have any significance in the grand scheme of things.

The simple fact is China immediately recognised the danger the virus presented and determined that it would take ALL possible measures to eradicate it at all costs.

In January 2020 I was confident that things were being done behind the scenes, that the world renowned Pandemic Plan had been activated, and that all possible actions would be taken, in accordance with the Precautionary Principle, to protect the British people.

In February a relation of ours was very ill with a respiratory virus and he asked his consultant if he needed to be tested for "this new thing". The medic said no, they hadn't found any community cases yet, and my relative said "Well you won't if you don't test people, will you?!"

By March 2020 I could see no evidence of any of the Pandemic Plan having swung into action and I found it extremely worrying.

Wasn't it about March 5th that the Prime Minister went on This Morning and said the "take it on the chin" thing?

Yup, I was reading things that said we wouldn't have a vaccine for at least a year, possibly longer, & that pandemics usually last at least 18m. I was baffled by all the people who seemed convinced it wasn't going to affect us as it spread rapidly across many other countries, or who insisted it'd all be over by Easter! I'm feeling a lot more confident about the timescales the government are talking about now than what was being reported this time last year.

@StealthPolarBear

We were told three weeks to flatten the curve, and the general consensus was lockdown couldn't last much longer as people would starve and there would be riots. I know with hindsight it seems everyone knew exactly what would happen but that's not what I remember at all!

I got quite tired of hearing that our pandemic plan was the best in the world.

"Obviously Italy would never happen here...!" was another one.

I certainly don't remember everyone knowing this was a long haul.

I remember it was going to be a 3 week lockdown, then 12 weeks to break the back of it by June.

There were a lot of people who thought that would be it, and poo-poohed the idea of a second wave.

I thought it would be over in a month

@PrincessNutNuts

In January 2020 I was confident that things were being done behind the scenes, that the world renowned Pandemic Plan had been activated, and that all possible actions would be taken, in accordance with the Precautionary Principle, to protect the British people.

In February a relation of ours was very ill with a respiratory virus and he asked his consultant if he needed to be tested for "this new thing". The medic said no, they hadn't found any community cases yet, and my relative said "Well you won't if you don't test people, will you?!"

By March 2020 I could see no evidence of any of the Pandemic Plan having swung into action and I found it extremely worrying.

Wasn't it about March 5th that the Prime Minister went on This Morning and said the "take it on the chin" thing?

I'm right with you there.

We actually were following a plan believe it or not, but the facts behind that plan are rather shocking.

Many years ago Ferguson (IC) did some modelling on influenza epidemics - they looked at things like closing schools, travel restrictions, etc etc and ended up concluding that each would slow the epidemic down slightly, but not stop it.

This ended up getting referenced by the government team responsible for epidemic planning. THEY determined that since these measures wouldn't stop the outbreak, it was pointless trying and the best thing to do was simply spend some time measuring some basic criteria about the virus at the beginning, and then let it run riot. Bear in mind at this point, this was ALL with influenza in mind.

So when covid arrived, THAT was the plan they put into action - hence the limited testing at the start to get that data, and then community testing ending and the plan being herd immunity....

And then Neil Ferguson must have been like you're doing WHAT??? Wait! That's NOT what my research showed at all you muppets!!

By then it was too late for limited measures so we went into full lockdown.

It's an awful example of administrative "scientists" gathering round a table and accepting conclusions put before them without ever questioning the full context of where those conclusions came from...

@1dayatatime

It's 140,000 deaths based on what doctors have put on death certificates.

coronavirus.data.gov.uk/details/deaths

@notrub

Oh.

Dear.

Christ.

That's worse thanI thought.

We have been talking about it this week at work as it’s coming up to a year since most of us were in the office which is mad to think about

There was talk at the start that all asthmatics would need to shield for 12 weeks. Fortunately because of my severity I didn’t have to but I remember saying there is no way I am working from home for 12 weeks! Who knew that a year later I would still be doing it (and hating every day of it)

My first reaction that this was something to think more about was going to Tesco for a regular shop (would have been about the 13th March) and shelves were empty, people were fighting over toilet rolls and queues were crazy. I was with my mum and we both just stared at each other thinking WTF is going on. I took loads of photos to send to friends and everyone was totally shocked

Feels like a lifetime ago

We were told we were shutting the office for two weeks lol.