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Original poster

When was the moment you realised covid was serious?

596 replies

namechanged984630 · 07/08/2021 22:54

For me I think it was when it hit Italy, so early
March. Until then I really believed it'd be a storm in a tea cup like swine flu.

I remember certain songs I was listening to as I refreshed the news in early March that still give me the heebie jeebies even now.

And I remember taking my dog for a walk at some lakes a few miles away (so drove there) and wondering, on about the fifteenth of March, if it might be the last time for a while. When I was there an elderly man said to me that it was nice to get out to forget the state of the world, I'll always remember that.

I remember seeing the Wuhan hospital be built and only paying the vaguest amount of attention. So arrogant to think it wasn't a problem for us!

OP posts:
EspressoDoubleShot · 07/08/2021 22:59

Being asked did I want to move to excel
Being trained how to put on PPE and masks
Participating in emergency planning meetings

SunShinesBrightly · 07/08/2021 23:00

Realised it was serious the day they announced schools were closing and the GCSE exam my pupils had prepared for the following week was cancelled.

Felt really scared for the first time - Only recently when a very good friend was hospitalised. That knocked me for 6.

TimeIhadaNameChange · 07/08/2021 23:01

Not really until Lockdown. But I have an excuse - I gave birth on the 2nd March and was in hospital for a week. I didn't watch tv whilst I was there and was only reading about it on MN and it just didn't sink in.

chickenbasket · 07/08/2021 23:01

When I gave birth last March and then every single maternity support service shut down and left me completely high and dry navigating birth injuries and a sicky baby with no support.

NuffSaidSam · 07/08/2021 23:02

'I remember certain songs I was listening to as I refreshed the news in early March that still give me the heebie jeebies even now.'

Me too! They make me feel sick when I listen to them.

For me it was March 16th when the West End shut down at like 6:30pm with shows due to go on at 7pm. It was when Boris was doing his 'we won't order you to shut down, but also you should shut down' and no-one knew what was happening. And the panic buying was at full throttle.

Workyticket · 07/08/2021 23:03

When they shut the pubs in Ireland days before St Patrick's day.

Im not even Irish but that was my 'oh fuck' moment

RampantIvy · 07/08/2021 23:03

When DD rang me to say that all F2F teaching at her university was cancelled and all the students had to move out of halls and go home (16/03/2020).

LowlytheWorm · 07/08/2021 23:03

The Monday night when old BoJo made his announcement- it felt weird. Like I knew this was a moment in history. And that life would not be the same again for a long time. At that point I wasn’t sure how long- but I bought Easter eggs that I saw on my way back from visiting my adult child who was unwell and needed toilet roll and paracetamol.
It was the last time I saw them for months. (But at least I had Easter eggs!)

cherryadeisyummy · 07/08/2021 23:05

When they started making plans to repurpose the kilns at the steel factories in case of mass cremations.

ShanghaiDiva · 07/08/2021 23:07

January 24th
I was living in China and you could not enter the supermarket without a mask.

Wanderlust20 · 07/08/2021 23:08

Being in Japan at the start of March when they started closing schools and theme parks... Sounds bonkers now that I was allowed to travel for work but we were like oh shit..! This is serious.

My family started to panic too...

JanglyBeads · 07/08/2021 23:08

When I started reading Worried about Coronavirus on MN, including links to what international scientists were saying - before Feb half term.

Lots of people thought I was panicking unnecessarily.....

JanglyBeads · 07/08/2021 23:09

Hi @ShanghaiDiva, well remember your posts last spring.

DespairingHomeowner · 07/08/2021 23:10

When it got bad in Italy - a bit close to home

I realised it would last a long time, but was thinking it’d be a year, not knocking on 2 …

Gormless · 07/08/2021 23:10

Hearing that some large spaces at my place of work might have to be repurposed as temporary morgues

Justyouwaitandseeagain · 07/08/2021 23:12

I stopped travelling into London in January. Both me and my husband had a bad feeling. Then watching the pictures from Italy of the horrific scenes in hospitals and the amazing scenes of locked down residents singing together from their balconies.

MrsClatterbuck · 07/08/2021 23:13

When my sibling told me over the phone that they were really worried about covid. They were in health care and had worked through SARS in 2002 (not sure exact year) This was in February.

Reallybadidea · 07/08/2021 23:14

On January 25th I took dd to the GP and while we were waiting I ready the paper published in The Lancet the previous day, describing the 'novel coronavirus', the disease it caused and the fatality rates. I remember just sitting there thinking "SHIT".

And then about 3 weeks later and colleagues returning home from holidays in Northern Italy and being allowed to come into work (hospital) because they'd been staying just outside the 'red zone'. The realisation then that the public health authorities and the government hadn't got a fucking clue what they were doing.

converseandjeans · 07/08/2021 23:14

When they closed down schools and cancelled exams.

When people started panic buying loo rolls, hand gel & paracetamol.

DramaAlpaca · 07/08/2021 23:15

@Workyticket

When they shut the pubs in Ireland days before St Patrick's day.

Im not even Irish but that was my 'oh fuck' moment

Yes, we knew it was serious then. And our Taoiseach's (prime minister) speech to the nation that made everyone sit up and take notice.
NotMyCat · 07/08/2021 23:17

A couple of occasions
Some time in February reading the prepper board on here
Mid March being sent home from work as my boss got an email to send all vulnerable workers home
Boris announcement which was on my birthday felt surreal. I think because it's the first time I've seen anything like it in my life time. It reminded me of standing with my mum watching TV and seeing 9/11 and thinking it was a film, it didn't seem real

ZingDramaQueenOfSheeba · 07/08/2021 23:17

when my DH started panicking. it was quite weird.
I told him that feeling as if the world was on fire is how I feel constantly, every single day (I was dx with anxiety almost 15 y ago).
it was quite bizarre, that for once I was the calm one because people everywhere were suddenly reacting in a way that was very familiar for me.

I felt understood and that never happened before so it had to be something big to cause that change

Workyticket · 07/08/2021 23:17

Pubs and St Patrick's day are like salt and vinegar aren't they?

Not sure why that was the stand out thing to me. Some of my EsoL.students had already started wearing masks and gloves to class then too which hit home

Aposterhasnoname · 07/08/2021 23:18

When a minister, can’t remember which one, probably Hancock, appealed for companies to make ventilators and said the government would guarantee to buy as many as they could make.

Thirtyrock39 · 07/08/2021 23:18

Panic buying terrified me- still makes me anxious now if I go to the supermarket and there are empty shelves
The week of 16 March was the scariest week of my life - it felt like the apocalypse and I felt like society was going to collapse/ it doesn't help that I'm a natural worrier and one of my coping strategies is 'what's the worst that can happen?' Which is useful for normal everyday worries but cataclysmic when there's a pandemic unfolding!
The week after when lockdown started and there was the nhs clap etc and a feeling of everyone pulling together for the greater good was for me personally less scary than the week before when everything changed in the space of a few days
I still find it quite eery looking at things from the couple of months leading up to it and how we had no idea what was round the corner

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