Active discussions

Meet the Other Phone. Child-safe in minutes.

Meet the Other Phone.
Child-safe in minutes.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Talk
Mumsnet classics

Relive the funniest, most unforgettable threads. For a daily dose of Mumsnet’s best bits, sign up for Mumsnet's daily newsletter.

See all MNHQ comments on this thread

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:
CovidCorvid · 08/08/2021 22:01

Covid 19 was declared a pandemic on 11th March.
Congrats to all the MN who called it well before the WHO

I don’t think it’s that anyone on here was particularly amazing…..but I have to say I don’t know what the WHO were doing.

It was in France and Italy in late jan. known about, in the press. Dh was skiing in France last week in jan and I rang him to see what resort he was at because I’d read it was in a ski resort. Luckily a different one.

So it was spreading round the globe, they’d seen what had happened/was happening in China. Did WHO just think we’d handle it better? It would be weaker in Europe?

Even when it came to U.K. via the Brighton guy and the women in york people didn’t seem bothered for a couple more weeks.

Pipsqueakpopsqueak · 08/08/2021 22:12

My friend text us all in early April 2020 to say an ambulance was picking her husband up, but was leaving her behind. They both had it, and both were in a really bad way. She had heard him collapse upstairs and it took her an hour to drag herself up the stairs to get to him because she was so weak. She later said she fully expected both of them to die that night. She should not have been left behind by the ambulance but they said they just didn’t have the beds for her and her husband was in a worse condition. That was truly frightening. I felt so helpless.

MarshaBradyo · 08/08/2021 22:13

@purplesequins

those of you who only realised in march, do you not read/hear/see any news?

not judging, just interested.

Do you really think this is the case?

If you look at early threads you can get a sense

By March more talk was happening anyway

Antsinyourpanta · 08/08/2021 22:13

Since the beginning there have been a lot of posters who have been saying,
....well I said in January....etc
To me, it seems like theres a "told you so" feel about it.
I admit on our home town social media page, there were people who were concerned, and wanted to take their kids out of school, and got laughed down. I said at the time (probably mid feb) that with the current info I wasnt particularly worried about my kids being at school. As the situation progressed it did become more scary, and the figures were changing daily....but do I wish I'd taken my kids out of school at that point?
No.

OverByYer · 08/08/2021 22:20

When I was getting my son home from New Zealand and orders were literally shutting around him as he journeyed home. The relief when I picked him up from Heathrow I will never forget

OverByYer · 08/08/2021 22:21

That was March 2020

PicsInRed · 08/08/2021 22:22

Covid 19 was declared a pandemic on 11th March. Congrats to all the MN who called it well before the WHO

This is like declaring someone a magician for baking a cake out of a box. Those of us who saw it coming did nothing more than read the news and pay attention. If only our government and the WHO did the same?

They made utter berks of themselves with their wilfully ignorant inaction.

BillyAndTheSillies · 08/08/2021 22:24

We were in Disneyland Paris when people started whispering about Disneyland closing. We left on the Wednesday and France had shut down by the Friday.

I remember sitting on the ferry home trying to book my weekly food shop and not being able to get anything at all - when I'd been doing weekly shops online for years.

Closer to home they built a temporary morgue opposite City of London cemetery which was on our exercise route. I remember the chimneys going on a Sunday - which doesn't usually happen.

My brother used to live in Wuhan and he was getting information from his friends who were still there that just seemed like a scary film plot.

MarshaBradyo · 08/08/2021 22:24

There were a few who saw it really early on on here. Not sure any are still around or not

Scarcity20 · 08/08/2021 22:30

This reply has been deleted

Message deleted by MNHQ. Here's a link to our Talk guidelines.

EmilyDickinson · 08/08/2021 22:31

I’m not surprised that most people didn’t realise Covid was that serious. I think that all of us to a greater or lesser extent take our steer from how the government reacts. It’s telling that for many posters the moment they cite is Johnson’s speech and that was certainly the moment that it hit most of my work colleagues. I remember people coming into work the flowing day looking utterly stunned.

I think the main reason I realised what was coming was because I was interested in the 1918/19 flu pandemic and knew that pandemics occur roughly every 80 years (once in a lifetime). I knew that we were about 20 years overdue a serious pandemic and therefore to me it wasn’t an unthinkable event, but rather an expected one.

LaurieFairyCake · 08/08/2021 22:35

Scarcity20

Michael Yeadon said anyone who had the vaccine would die within 2 years Hmm

What a fucking nutter - just goes to prove that serving as a science officer on allergy research means sweet fuck all

CovidCorvid · 08/08/2021 22:37

I kept a document in the early days of U.K. case numbers.

When was the moment you realised covid was serious?
SummerTimeIsLovely · 08/08/2021 22:41

I realised it was possibly going to be a pandemic in October 2019 - we were overdue a pandemic and it was a novel virus.
However, I did not fully understand what pandemic meant and how restricted our lives were going to be

My son had Covid after a skiing trip to Austria in Feb 2020.
I was so worried about him - he had all the symptoms at that time - very very unwell. I set the alarm to check on him repeatedly overnight. I phoned NHS 24 and my GP three times to alert them and ask advice. NHS 24 nurse laughed at me, and the GP was useless - not going to forget that in a hurry.

Bjarnum · 08/08/2021 22:46

When my son , who is not known for keeping in touch regularly, came to visit and would not get out of his car or even pull down his window and insisted on talking via the phone! He is a doctor in intensive care. Later he got covid himself and was very ill. Once the vaccine arrived he called almost daily to ask if we had been vaccinated yet.

Jaxhog · 08/08/2021 22:47

When I was told that diabetics were especially vulnerable. My brother, great-niece and I are all diabetics. My brother worked on and off in China and had just returned.

Picklesbaby · 08/08/2021 23:04

I’ll Kent forget when the woman from the pram shop rang to ask if we wanted to collect our pram & car seat 10 weeks early . We laughed but went along with it . They closed that night for months. Dh wasn’t aloud in when I was induced untill I was moved onto labour ward and had to drop my bag at the door. He was sent home 2 hours after my emcs and had to collect us from the door when we was discharged a midwife had to carry my baby for me. I had 0 support afterwards and couldn’t even get my babies tongue tie cut as the clinic was closed. Dhs dad only met baby a few times and then Covid killed him when baby was 5 months old .

Picklesbaby · 08/08/2021 23:04

Never *

Rainbowshit · 08/08/2021 23:15

Monday the 16th March. Boris's announcement. I had a bit of a panic attack. Went into the office the next day and have wfh ever since.

Original poster
namechanged984630 · 08/08/2021 23:23

@SummerTimeIsLovely

I realised it was possibly going to be a pandemic in October 2019 - we were overdue a pandemic and it was a novel virus. However, I did not fully understand what pandemic meant and how restricted our lives were going to be

My son had Covid after a skiing trip to Austria in Feb 2020.
I was so worried about him - he had all the symptoms at that time - very very unwell. I set the alarm to check on him repeatedly overnight. I phoned NHS 24 and my GP three times to alert them and ask advice. NHS 24 nurse laughed at me, and the GP was useless - not going to forget that in a hurry.

Weren't the first reports in late December @SummerTimeIsLovely ...? Or were you in China?
OP posts:
TheFormidableMrsC · 08/08/2021 23:30

For me it was DS's school saying that they were closing on 20 March. The day before I had been diagnosed with breast cancer and told that I would be having surgery on Monday 23rd and it was so quick because of Covid. It was surreal. I collected my son and the atmosphere was so odd. Nobody knew how long this would be for and all I could think is that nobody would be able to look after DS while I had surgery. It did work out but that week was one of those that I will always think "you couldn't make it up"

MrsFezziwig · 09/08/2021 00:11

I was worried but not excessively so in the early part of 2020. Ex-NHS for over 30 years and don’t even remember working through SARS and swine flu, so it might have gone the same way. Started to be more concerned in early February and as I was due to fly to the USA mid-month on holiday (with no feeling that we shouldn’t go) I went to Wickes & managed to source their last two N95 masks (I’ve been a prepper since the Brexit referendum in 2016 so had been stocked up for the previous couple of years with other supplies).

While on holiday we watched things ramping up in Europe and with the superspreader in the UK, but there still seemed a sense that it might be contained (though I had a few arguments with my friends who were quite sneery, saying everyone was over-reacting and all people had to do was wash their hands!). Arrived back at Heathrow early March and got on a packed Tube, surprised that everyone seemed to be behaving normally.

23rd March went to my step parent’s funeral. Only immediate family allowed to attend. Then went home to watch Boris’s announcement. Now that was a very weird day.

Shopaholic100 · 09/08/2021 00:22

When my grandma’s neighbour who worked in a hospital caught COVID, passed it to her husband who died after contracting it, the poor lady was so sick but at home and no one could be with her to support her.

Also when my daughter caught it and the only place she had been was to work wearing a mask the whole time. Up to that point it didn’t really hit home how easy it was to catch.

voxnihili · 09/08/2021 01:38

I remember being at work and in a meeting with an education consultant. He told me that he thought all schools would be closed by the end of the week. I didn’t believe him and thought he was being ridiculous. 3 days later I walked out of my school not knowing when I would be back (my DD’s nursery closed so I couldn’t work). I’d been following the news but thought it would be like SARS or Ebola which didn’t seem to affect us here (I was still at school when SARS was about so couldn’t really remember much about it but don’t remember anything changing).

SummerTimeIsLovely · 09/08/2021 07:18

@namechanged984630

Not sure what you’re saying.
Covid was in China first - but with it being a novel virus that no one had immunity to, and with travel in the modern world - it was obvious Covid 19 had potential to become a pandemic.

We were skiing in Austria - not that far from Italy and there were Italians in the resort. It was the European half term. Covid was kicking off in Italy at that time.

He definitely had Covid. Fitted all the symptoms, it was no ordinary viral illness