What one moment will always stay with you from this?

[Ostryga]

Mine was realising panic shopping was everywhere, and that I needed to buy an entire food shop for Dd and I before lockdown.

I cried when I found a shop with chicken and milk.

The fear I felt of the virus at that time, and also not being able to make sure we had food is something I hope to never repeat.

@SemiFeralDalek I'm sorry, that is heartbreaking.

I remember not quite believing that we were going to go into lockdown on that last Monday (I think it was on a Monday? Covid obvs had the weekend off).

We were scrambling around like mad at work, trying to sort out last minute issues etc, knowing that Boris was going to speak to the Nation that evening!

I hadn’t got toilet roll but one of my work colleagues kindly offered me a large pack of Andrex, we made the exchange on the car park at work, felt naughty At this stage there was no toilet roll left in any shops!

Sitting on the bottom step of the stairs telling DS (then 5) he couldn’t go to school. Me crying and him putting his hands over my eyes to stop the tears.

Lying on the floor of DS (then 2) room trying to get him to go to sleep and reading (on my phone) 1800 people died that day (April 2020)

Going to Cornwall in July 2020, putting my feet in the sea and thinking we’d get through this.

Listening to the radio while giving the kids their tea and crying when they announced they’d approved the Pfizer vaccine. I cried again (Dec 2020)

Putting on full PPE to visit my dying Dad in hospital - he didn't have Covid but had been exposed to a positive patient. Told off by the nurse for getting too close to him. A rushed Covid compliant funeral with no wake.

Having to admit my widowed Mum to a nursing home due to her advanced dementia where she caught Covid. Recovering from this, she never regained her appetite and passed away this month.

Standing in a huge vaccination hall, everyone queuing silently and politely, with hope for the future, overcome with emotion.

Sitting 2m away from my parents in church at my grandmas very small funeral as we weren’t in a bubble and having to go straight home after.

Having sky high anxiety and being on the verge of tears every day for weeks last spring as DH and I juggled two FT jobs, homeschooling an 8yo who was deeply unhappy and taking it out on us and caring for a toddler. Never, ever want to do it again. All that against a backdrop of police patrolling local beauty spots, people viciously tearing others apart from going to the shop for a 'non-essential item' or sitting in their gardens, and queues outside supermarkets.

I am so sorry for those of you who have lost loved ones.

Back in March 2020, I was a key worker going into people's homes, and was driving a lot. The streets were completely empty, all the shops closed, it was surreal, eerie. The only other road users I used to come across was ambulances and police cars. My local shopping centre, apart from essential stores, everything closed. For me, it's really the empty streets. Also, hearing the number of deaths in the news most nights, absolutely terrifying.

Doing night shifts in A&E in the first wave, and clerking patient after patient who were 50 year old black male bus drivers, fit and well aside from some hypertension (relevant, because they were all on ACEIs), who’d caught Covid ten days ago, been told to stay home by 111, and who were now dying. Patient after patient, and I could have cut and pasted the clerking from one to the next. It was like a war zone.

Oh, and then getting out of my hazmat-style PPE, which we were only allowed to wear in A&E and ICU, and going up to my ward full of CEV covid positive patients in a plastic apron and paper mask, who were also all dying.

Outside of work, being followed around the park on more than one occasion by a couple of PCSOs, who were checking my two year old was exercising and not playing.

Coming out of hospital having had a baby, was unable to breastfeed and had to go into formula, wasn't able to buy formula anywhere as it has all been pack bought. Not the start to motherhood I expected.

Hearing that a friend I hadn't seen for a while had died.

"For me, the day I got my first shielding text, followed by a bewildering amount of texts and letters telling me to stay away from my family, sleep apart, eat apart, use different cutlery, different bathrooms if possible, not go aside at all (but I was allowed to open a window). I honestly then felt it was a death sentence and I actually sat and wrote down what I'd like for my funeral service. Then I took note of all the shielding advice and didn't touch my DH or children for five months. It's staggering, looking back, but I think we all did the best we could with what was known. When I shielded in lockdown 2 I didn't shield quite so extremely.

The moment I realised that as a CEV person there were people on here and other platforms that thought I was expendable and 'near death anyway' so wouldn't really count on covid stats. I started to see a shift in thinking where lives were measured one against the other in terms of worthiness and those like me failed the test. It really sunk in with the rhetoric around the great Barrington thing and all the posts about the young sacrificing for the vulnerable. I felt in the way and it really shot my mental health already fragile from shielding. (MadHairDay)"

Pretty much the same for me @Madhairday

I felt so abjectly terrified that I was going to die in a windowless Nightingale hospital, and leave my children.

Realising that if there were three ICU beds, and four people who needed them, I would be the one left behind. It's completely changed my view of healthcare, and I no longer completely trust HCPs.

A happy memory is taking my DCs back to school after thirteen months at home, and being able to say "morning!" to people on the way. I thought I'd be nervous, but I just felt deliriously, ridiculously happy.

Watching my parents being loaded onto ambulances one day apart. I remember sitting on the doorstep after Dad was taken to hospital early on Easter Monday (2020) after having tried unsuccessfully to nurse them and I wondered if I'd ever see them again. I didn't see Mum again, and Dad only once - at her funeral - before he died a few days after that. I will never forget just sitting there on the doorstep alone before going inside to text my brother.

@VexedofVirginiaWater I'm sorry.

@SummerWillow gosh I could give flowers the entire thread. I don't think the reality and sadness has hit us yet.

@SummerWillow and @VexedofVirginiaWater
so very sorry. X

@Changechangychange

Doing night shifts in A&E in the first wave, and clerking patient after patient who were 50 year old black male bus drivers, fit and well aside from some hypertension (relevant, because they were all on ACEIs), who’d caught Covid ten days ago, been told to stay home by 111, and who were now dying. Patient after patient, and I could have cut and pasted the clerking from one to the next. It was like a war zone.

Oh, and then getting out of my hazmat-style PPE, which we were only allowed to wear in A&E and ICU, and going up to my ward full of CEV covid positive patients in a plastic apron and paper mask, who were also all dying.

Outside of work, being followed around the park on more than one occasion by a couple of PCSOs, who were checking my two year old was exercising and not playing.

Oh my god this has shocked me to the core

Bastard bastard virus

@MilesJuppIsMyBitch

I thought the exact same about nightingale hospitals when I first heard about them. Thought I was going to die alone in one of them.

It's easy to look back now and see how daft that thinking was but with the information we had at the time it seemed more than possible. And yes to the ICU thing too with all the talk about having to prioritise certain patients over others and knowing I wouldn't make the grade.

Also the moment I found out my friends DD had died of covid, in her twenties

So much heartbreak on this thread. to everyone suffering.

At the beginning when the new channels were showing pictures and naming everyone who died from Covid. I can remember telling DH that, if I died from it, under no circumstances was he to let them have my name, let alone my picture. He was also told that I wasn't to to be mentioned on any memorials for Covid victims either.