When was the moment you realised covid was serious?

[namechanged984630]

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!

Weren't the first reports in late December@SummerTimeIsLovely...? Or were you in China?

I also thought they didnt identify the virus (and name it) until December.

It was declared a global health emergency by the WHO on 31st January.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-51318246

[quote SheWoreYellow]It was declared a global health emergency by the WHO on 31st January.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-51318246[/quote]
That’s in response to the comments about it being March and those who called it earlier.

January 24th celebrating DS1s 21st and him raising the subject. Later leaving the restaurant and seeing people wearing face masks and then getting very worried (in UK btw).

End of January watching the news.

End of Feb I was involved in job interviews for a big company in U.K. recruiting for cleaners to basically wipe door handles and surfaces all day every day. 9 month minimum contract.

Start of March all my work disappeared.

I thought it would be just like swine flu too. I carried on as normal until a few days before lockdown when we couldn’t find toilet roll, hand wash or paracetamol anywhere. I then started to think it must be serious when I saw the shelves so bare.

I admit that I was one of those people who didn’t take it seriously in the beginning and thought people were just being hysterical and that it would just fizzle out. It felt as thought we’d been there before with SARS, Ebola and Swine Flu and they didn’t turn into anything and Covid would be the same, I now realise that we were long overdue a global pandemic and that I was probably a bit in denial about it all. It is so unimaginable. If you went back in time to a year before and told people what was coming they’d never have believed it. I actually remember my next door neighbour saying to me on the doorstop during the first clap for carers ‘who’d ever have believed something like this would happen’. I think that sums it up.

I remember reading about it online in the January, and taking it seriously when no one around me at home did. They all thought I was being over anxious especially DH so I didn't really mention it again except to tell my in-laws and mother (all of whom have underlying illnesses) to do the same. I started slowly filling the freezer (no crazy panic bulk buying!) just a few extra bits here and there and made sure our cupboards and medicine box were well stocked over nearly 3m. I also bought things that I wouldn't usually - a few long life bits, bread mix, bottled water and the like. I have small children and I made sure I had a few individual pints of whole milk in the freezer and lots of nappies/calpol etc in. I batch cooked for froze nutritious meals in portions in the same way that I had before the births of my children.

When March hit and the panic buying started, my DM and MIL both told me that luckily they'd listened to me and were well stocked. DH came from home work early March with a load of IT equipment and a distinct air of panic and told me that he'd been told to work from home for the foreseeable - at that point he said 'shit, we need to stock up I'm going to go to Costco'. I showed him that we didn't need to. My slow stocking meant that I could give a bottle of calpol and a pack of nappies to my cousin who couldn't get her hands on any when she needed them and I distinctly remember posting 3 packs of paracetamol to my brother in a Jiffy bag when we first went into lockdown and he couldn't get any and was poorly. I wasn't sure if it was allowed, but he got them!

So DH panicking about food early/mid-March and also him around the same time telling me he thought we should pull our child out of preschool that day too. We sent her on the Monday, decided that day not to send her again and when I went to collect her they told me that they were closing. Me and her key worker had a bit of a wobbly lip moment as she handed her over, we both knew that she wouldn't be back - she started school in the Sept- somehow and they were really close. She had 1-1 support and I remember her keyworker saying to her (in hindsight, not wise!) 'come here DC, let's have a really big hug before you go home today!'

DH sent me a photo of the queue to get into the little Tesco near us the first time he went out for milk, bread, fruit and veg. It was huge, and very surreal.

Boris' speech 'You must stay at home'. Seeing the Nightingale Hospital go up and the plans for overflow morgues. Reading a Sky News article on the horrors going on in Italy. Ordering disposable masks at an inflated price off of Amazon as i'd read that soon they'd be needed to leave your house and again DH says 'that'll never be needed, what're you doing?''

I think some things will never leave us. I'll never be a full on prepper but I will always keep my home well stocked with medicines, non perishables and a full freezer.

Weren't the first reports in late December @SummerTimeIsLovely ...? Or were you in China?

I think pp meant in Oct 19 she thought a pandemic would happen soon. Not what or when as it wasn’t known in Oct

When I was sitting in an office with our clinical director and others discussing what works would be needed to store dead bodies at out of hours and how we would prioritise admissions. Thankfully the temporary morgue was not needed.

Around February 2020, after days possibly weeks of scary news and videos emerging from Wuhan. I ordered n95 masks online, then convinced myself I was going overboard, and cancelled the order, which I regretted within a day or two (tried to re-order but they'd sold out already).

I had wrap around scarf things at home, and my instinct was telling me to use some sort of face covering. I can remember ds and I going out for a walk in blazing sunshine wearing them, and dandering past our GP of all people, who looked to be in a bit of a daze, then when he saw our scarves (and a couple coming the opposite direction, with similar make shift face coverings), his mouth just sort of dropped open, like he couldn't believe what he was

Not long after that, I tried to buy more hand sanitiser in every chemist within a mile or two, but non left. Thankfully I was able to convince my boss to invest in some for work, via our cleaning supply company, and staff put our money together for one we could decant into mini bottles, for ourselves.

I can remember thinking letting Cheltenham go ahead, was a terrible idea. That was in March, and by my birthday in April, we were in lockdown. I think Cheltenham, and ski trips to Italy, brought the virus to N.I?

*what he was seeing

This was when I got truly terrified, when they started digging out extra graves, in cemeteries here.

www.google.com/amp/s/www.newsletter.co.uk/health/coronavirus/coronavirus-grim-drone-footage-ni-covid-19-graves-emerges-uk-records-deadliest-24-hours-so-far-2525460%3famp

It had scared me, seeing the graves dug in Iran a month before, but seeing it happen in your own country, is so much more terrifying.

www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/12/coronavirus-iran-mass-graves-qom.

DH went abroad for a long planned cycling trip on 12 - 15 March and I really wanted to ask him not to go. I didn’t say anything as I knew he wouldn’t go if I really didn’t want him to but worried everything might then blow over and he would have missed his trip for nothing. On the 14th, EasyJet flights were being turned round mid-air and that was when it really sunk in. He was up a mountain with no signal so it was hours before he knew what was happening and whether his flight would go ahead. EasyJet basically said be on that plane or they couldn’t guarantee how/when they’d get home. I’ve never been so glad to know a plane had taken off!

TV news footage from Italy, very early on.

Watched the pandemic unfold in January, DB & family lived in Shanghai at the time so was worried about them. DS returned from a half term ski trip to Northern Italy with a bad cough, & we were taken by ambulance by staff in full Haz Mat to a hospital car park for him to be tested. A long planned trip to NZ for my DDad's 80th in April (via Hong Kong) was sadly cancelled in early March. Even then, my thoughts on the impact were all on a personal level, although I was horrified by footage from Ethan & Italy. DH & I couldn't believe the Johnson delayed the lockdown & let Cheltenham & international football go ahead. But it was the Stay at Home instruction that made me realise beyond any doubt how serious this was. Even now I pinch myself that we are living through this, & am saddened & angered by the number of preventable deaths.

I checked my diary/journal, and my first mention of covid was not until 8th March 2020 when I wrote about this 'thing that started in China a month ago and is spreading at an alarming rate, but which could be just a nasty flu". Bear in mind, I'm a cynical, old boomer, and have been through multiple media-fuelled health scares over the years that just fizzled out, so I just assumed it would be another one of those. The moment I recorded it in my diary was because the Press had recently reported the 'first UK death' in a hospital not far from where I live, so I wrote: "That suddenly brought it very close to home, and now I'm a bit nervous myself". So, I guess that marks the exact moment I realised covid was serious. Funny how the mind plays tricks, as I'd have sworn I first realised when it hit Italy. Or maybe even before that, when they put up the hospitals in Wuhan? But, no, much as I'd like to think I was prescient enough to be hazmat shopping back in October 2019 when a bat sneezed in China, the truth is much more prosaic.

From the first case in China! I told my dh we would have kids off school and let's get ready back in late December 2019 and that we should forget our America holiday booked for March 2020. He thought I was over reacting. The borders to America closed the day before we were due to fly

I work in a supermarket, and have done all through covid. At the start there were no screens, limits on numbers, gloves or masks etc. I only work part time so every week there would be something added in so I suppose the ramping up of measures were gradual for me.
When the panic buying started I thought that this is getting more serious and would listen to the news religiously. When lockdown was announced and my dh was put in furlough, it was somewhat surreal that when I walked to work there were no cars, not many people about, people jumping into the road to avoid walking near you. It really was like the end of times.
One of the ladies I worked with had to isolate right at the beginning for 2 weeks, and when she finally returned to work she found the lack of traffic, no one about etc really unnerving and cried all the way to work.
I've always had a very full cupboard of everything so anyone who needed cleaner, bleach etc asked me for stuff, I'm so glad I had enough to share with people. That's continued, as in I'd buy a bit extra every week, not go out and buy ALL the loo rolls.
I was surprised about people's selfish attitude regarding rationing when we brought in limits on shopping, and the disgraceful way a lot of people spoke to staff when they weren't allowed to buy all the beans/ bread/ loo rolls etc. Conversely, the way the community rallied round to help those who couldn't go out was very heartening.
My omg moment was when Boris addressed the nation and told us to stay home, realizing that I'd be unable to have my grandchildren over, my new born granddaughter not being able to have the same relationship with me that her brother did during the first few months of her life, not being able to see my best friend every week or my children. Every time I went to work I was worried that I'd catch something from the customers, constant hand sanitizing, constant wiping down of the tills etc. It took a long time to relax a bit about it all.

When I saw ( accidentally I will add ) the sky news report on the awful situation in Lombarde Italy
I was about to go to bed at 11pm and could not move from the settee .. I will never forget the images ans the despair of the poor medical staff 😢 They advised urgently that we lock down in the United Kingdom, “now “ … and we did about a few days later I think … and then of course those images very sadly were not exclusive to Italy 😢

As soon as went into Lockdown March 2020

I realised it was serious when my friends partner caught it and died within 10 days of being infected. I had it reinforced last night when another friend told me she had just attended the funeral of her 41 year old previously fit and healthy cousin with no underlying health issues.

Mine was when I heard McDonalds was closing! I remember that feeling like a real ‘oh f*ck’ moment!

@workyticket that was the same for me. I’ve got Irish parents so spoke to family over there and my stomach dropped. You don’t shut pubs before St Patrick’s unless it’s a massive thing.

Towards the end of January 2020. No cases reported in the UK (or anywhere else other than Wuhan from what I remember), the "mystery illness" was yet to even be given a name. I was very sceptical about how everything was reported in the media and was convinced that really shit times were on the way. I was convinced that the UK would be heading towards an economic crisis because of it. My friends and family thought I was neurotic, making a big deal of nothing, arsehole colleagues mocked and laughed at me. I felt like i spent 3 months "waiting" to be either proved right or wrong as to whether any of this would happen.

I'm glad i don't feel like that anymore. I also genuinely believed it would all "blow over" in 3 months. What an idiot i am

I spent the build up to the first lockdown reading contradicting news reports "its just flu/no it's not/1000s dead from covid/no they're not" and found it really crap for my mental health. No longer follow any news/media regarding covid. I always have a general understanding of what any current rule/guidance are (thanks to people who don't bloody shut up about it) and I've pretty much always followed that, other than that i give covid no thought outside my working life.