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

Yes I truly believed it would still be going on and that all the claims that it would be over quickly we’re absolutely insane. Our family just planned from the beginning for this to last and last. The fact that we have vaccines rolling out so quickly and possible relief in 2021 is nothing short of a miracle. I am in utter awe of the people who have worked so hard to make it happen.

Things kicked off for us when ds returned from his school trip to Italy in February half term last year, within a week he had what the doctor called a "viral chest infection" there was no test & it took him up to the first day of lockdown to be feeling almost back to normal. When lockdown started on 23 March & all exams were cancelled ds effectively left school, there were 24 weeks before school was due to start again & we expected things would return to normal. I don't think that we properly realised that a year on that we would still be under some kind of lockdown. I had hospital appointments in July & August & couldn't believe how deserted the roads were or the hospital. There have been some good things, I have certainly learned that I can buy just about anything via the Internet, Amazon, supermarket shops, clothes, birthday cards, medication, cosmetics, I don't think there is much we haven't bought during the last year, I have rediscovered pastimes like crochet, adult colouring, drawing, wordsearches, have read over 200 books. It has been good to spend time with ds & my mum, we developed a routine of having a discussion in the morning over what we wanted for tea, playing board games in the afternoon, watching old favourite programmes on TV, we started off watching every briefing but now don't watch them at all. I think we have learned that we are more resourceful than we can ever have imagined & stronger together as a family.

This time last year I was definitely in the denial phase. I figured it was all a bit of hype. There was plenty going about that it didn't affect the younger age group so I figured deaths might not get too high, would be like swine flu, bird flu etc. Panic and then nothing happens.

DD who was 3 got a high temp around 11th March and only she had to stay in for 7 days. I told my boss that I had to take a week off but would be back the week after and I never did.

I spent the following week consoling my eldest who was taking GCSEs. Her life was over, no leavers stuff, no prom. I kept saying that the prom might still go ahead 🤣🤣. One school in the area rebooked theirs for Feb 🤣🤣.

Once the schools broke up, panic set in and I've been panicking since. Nothing I would have done differently as I've followed all the rules but no way did I think we'd still be doing this.

They are definitely predicting another wave in late summer/autumn. I'm not clear why So those who can afford to go in holiday are alright jack again while those of us that dont will get told they will have to adhere to another Christmas lockdown? Will they act like its still going ahead as normal so they can get the spends in and then pull out the rug the weekend before...........AGAIN.

In mid February last year I though most people would be dead within 6 months. I was following covid since Jan as someone with a science background I was fascinated and terrified of news / rumours coming out of China.

I dont really I presumed it would be over within 6 months in March, but I guess I wasnt expecting this level of shut down for so long.

I guess you go in mental health survival mode and try not to think too far ahead and now I dint really think beyound the next month. For example I dont have any plans or excitement for the planned rule change in April. I can only think to school return and that plans out first.

I'm not really anxious ( I have had covid ), I just cant make myself feel excited that things will slowly open up. I need to see it first.

So basically i didnt believe there would be a vaccine by now but apart from that, I didnt look ahead beyound winter. Now I cant see ahead past the next week

I was sent home from work 2 weeks before the first lockdown because I'd been in a meeting room for more than 15 minutes with a colleague whose wife was being tested that evening. I remember thinking that my work was nuts. I didn't take it that seriously.

Next memory is telling neighbours (about 2 weeks later) very smugly I wouldn't be back in the office this side of Christmas. This turned out to be true, but again I had underestimated the pandemic as I am still home a year later!

My work were getting twitchy about people travelling. I was sent home (CEV) about 10 days before lockdown was announced and furloughed. Now set up to WFH and haven't been in the office since, everyone else has been back at some point but I've been shielding since

Remember when they said we could only have a three week lockdown because people would get "lockdown fatigue" and would stop following the rules?

Nope, I never thought it would go on this long. I remember a conversation with DH mid March as we were intending to book our summer hol at the start of April. We both thought it would be unlikely to go ahead so decided that we would look at Xmas hols instead, fully expecting it to be over by then.

Now we are tentatively considering Xmas 21...

I had a friend staying with me in early Feb, who’d lived through SARS and she advised wearing masks before it was mandatory. By early March, well before guidelines came in, she was limiting her outdoor activities and contact with people. At first I thought it was a bit much but clearly she knew what was coming.

I’m somewhat dubious about restrictions being over by the summer. With all the various strains there is bound to be one that will be resistant to the current vaccines, I have a feeling there will be more restrictions this autumn. I’d love to be proved wrong though!

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

There were certainly people thinking the very low rates in Summer last year was because London had achieved herd immunity!!!

Having watched Contagion, I was prepared for around 18 months or until they developed a vaccine. Luckily society hasn't broken down as much as it does in the film. But otherwise it is pretty much spot on.

Having watched Contagion, I was prepared for around 18 months or until they developed a vaccine.

...Is that you, Matt?

I knew it was long term. How could a virus that had spread so fast and so successfully just disappear after staying home for a couple of weeks ?
The government would have known it too of course , but it would have caused riots if they said this will go on for a year .
The mistake was made when suddenly the onus was on the general public to " beat it " ,now everyone is turning against each other blaming the next person for lockdowns.
Who knows what would have been the right way to handle it ? It was a first.

I know a few people who work for PHE and they were all saying last March that it would be months not weeks so not really surprised. I think other diseases have been incredibly virulent for 3 years or so and then settle down - eg the 1918 flu.

I prepared myself for 2yrs of it in January 2020 after news broke in china

I remember going to York in Feb half term 2020. My kids were joking that there was a "coronavirus" case there and we shouldn't go.

The town was flooded and that preoccupied us much more!

Less than a month after that the world changed and we were all at home!

And the weather was glorious for weeks.

I really wasn't sure.

I remember the schools closing and the dcs sports being called off and me being really upset, people at work trying to reassure me it would all blow over after the Easter.

I can remember thinking this is serious, things could change drastically for a very long time.

I remember everyone on here calling for schools not to reopen until the September, and me thinking well it won't magically have gone away in September. Getting annoyed that the government weren't getting gazebos and such like set up to get all dc back with measures in place.

The government have done a number on us with manipulation and managing our expectations and behaviours.

It terrifies me how little some people seem to think for themselves and do basic risk assessments.

I was still hopeful we might open up in time for our holiday to Florida in May 2020 😂 I can't remember when the penny dropped we werent going but I think it was April some time!

I won't even rebook it for 2022 atm...

I remember crying with my department head in March ( university healthcare) and saying 'this is massive and going to go on potentially for years' . That night I had a dream that I was stood outside of an A/E department with lots of nurses and doctors in scrubs and it was silent. We were waiting for the tidal wave of patients. Awful.

As others have said I thought this would be like bird flu and swine flu, a big fuss over nothing much. And totally thought it would be over in a few months. We were due to perform a play in April 2020 and I thought maybe they could just postpone and use their August 2020 theatre slot instead. Of course it's still unclear when theatre can happen again, and in any case we'll have to start rehearsals more or less from scratch.

Just before this time last year I was wearing a mask and gloves in public and washing my stuff from the supermarket. Everyone thought I was nuts, including my own family. I remember telling my parents and in laws to have shopping delivered and not to go out to shops or visit their friends. This was before Boris and Nicolas announcements.

I knew it was going to be bad, but I would never have thought the pandemic would have lasted this long. I thought it would have been like swine flu and over by September.

Looking back at the threads posted around a year ago is fascinating (I'm including my own posts in this, BTW, not trying to be superior!), particularly pre Feb half-term and things getting bad in Italy.

There was a sense that no Western government would try lockdown - there'd be riots! Society would break down! We wouldn't put up with it. The Chinese government can get away with it, but it's just not the done thing here. A lot of posters saw it as a Chinese problem that whilst worrying wasn't going to have too much impact.

For what it's worth, I thought we'd have a grip on it by summer, and at first it did seem all but over. I remember feeling a profound sense of dismay in late August/early September when the cases started rising again. With hindsight, I was stupidly naive.

@helpfulperson

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.

Exactly this I remember the exact moment my husband read and article on it and you could see the second wave etc on the scientists graphs. It was horrible I didn't expect the new variant though. That was an added blow

This time last year I was still going to the office, gym, eating out, travelling on the tube etc...I think I was in denial about the whole thing. I somehow thought that what was happening in Italy etc...wouldn't happen here and we'd be ok with a bit of extra hand washing.

By 17th March when I left the office for the last time to WFH, I thought we'd be back to normal by September-ish- I remember leaving some biscuits etc...thinking I'd be back in a few months! At the time my mum said 'this will go on for at least 2 years' and I still thought she was being ridiculous and that it wouldn't possibly go on for that long...now I've reached the point where I'm not even thinking beyond a few days ahead or making any plans at all.