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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:
linsey2581 · 09/08/2021 19:17

Working on a Covid ward and seeing 6 people die on a single night shift. It was horrendous. We weren’t even allowed to clean the bodies prior going to the mortuary. I sat in my car that morning after that night sobbing my heart out.

Whenigrowupiwanttobea · 09/08/2021 19:20

While doing a medication round I was wondering what the commotion was. Several of the girls I worked with who had children at the same Secondary school as mine were forming a queue outside the Manager's Office to try and sort out childcare. I asked them what on Earth was going on to be told turn on your mobile. When I did fb was rammed with the jungle telegraph telling everybody the school was closed as of NOW for the foreseeable future! Then I got the official text from the Principle!! She was the first one to close a school in our area before the official noti e from Boris. Then the speech he gave where he told us all to stay home. It was spine tingling! A mixture of anxiety, excitement, wtf? sadness and wtf?

Justcallmebabs · 09/08/2021 19:31

Being on a group work call and being told we had to move our whole paediatric service out of the hospital to make way for an influx of adult patients with covid. A move like that would have taken months/ years of planning but under these circumstances took a week. Incredible feat by all those involved.

Being told on the same call that the number of ventilated adults would exceed number of beds in the area significantly and it was expected that patients would be shipped around the country, where ever there were ventilators available. Everyone was a bit speechless……

Rosiebrown1 · 09/08/2021 19:43

The moment I received a text from DC’s nursery to say they had been sick. They then sent a message to all parents saying they ‘had a potential Covid case... please be warned.’

Then another message saying, ‘We are risking our lives and the lives of our families and others caring for a potential Covid case’...

DC had nothing at all but was banned from Nursery for three weeks.

Then a family member died, apparently of Covid.

Autopsy report said they didn’t die of Covid at all but their death was recorded as a Covid death.

Now that’s been rectified but will still historically be a “number”..

Please, please don’t slate me on Mumsnet.

Llh1979 · 09/08/2021 19:44

When my daughter came home from work sat on my bedroom floor and broke her heart
Her ward at work had been changed to a covid ward and she lost 6 patients on 1 shift 💔

Toooldforthis321 · 09/08/2021 19:47

The weekend before kockdown there was an eerie atmosphere in the shops as people stocked up.

And

When I caught it and couldn't walk properly, coupled with memory loss and thinking I was going mad.
I am still here (obviously Grin) and very grateful for it.

Ddot · 09/08/2021 19:47

When I asked for PPE and got a reply of try to scrounge some because we dont supply it. Front line worker but work for contractors employed by NHS.

patkinney · 09/08/2021 19:49

Good thread. For me I think it was March 1st 2020. I live quite near a University with a high proportion of Chinese students. I was just about to go into a local supermarket when I saw two of them waiting for a taxi and they had face-masks on...

I had heard about Corona and assumed it would be like bird-flu, a problem for some other part of the world to worry about, but when I saw them I thought: hang on a minute, this could be getting serious.

Two weeks later I was sent home from work.

Ddot · 09/08/2021 19:50

Rosiebrown1
💐

Thisisnotreallymyname · 09/08/2021 19:52

When we arrived at Heathrow from the Far East the day before the first lockdown and it was practically empty. It was the weirdest feeling walking through an empty airport. I knew then that this was something we have never experienced before.

GettingItOutThere · 09/08/2021 20:04

march 2020, rumours of lockdown circulating and I had hardly any food in, i left work early and stocked up. No toilet roll!

Then got a call to collect from childcare early. It hit me most during lockdown 1 and I felt totally isolated and really sad.

Sillysuzie · 09/08/2021 20:09

Mother's Day. Didn't dare hug her. Go near her. I'd just finished a shift at the supermarket, not a thing left on the shelf. I delivered her card and gift and the tiny bag of rice and gluten free flour I'd put aside, wasn't allowed but did anyway. It was the last rice and flour for months. I had to leave to care for my disabled daughter so didn't care about getting in trouble.

Thirtyrock39 · 09/08/2021 20:14

@Justcallmebabs

Being on a group work call and being told we had to move our whole paediatric service out of the hospital to make way for an influx of adult patients with covid. A move like that would have taken months/ years of planning but under these circumstances took a week. Incredible feat by all those involved.

Being told on the same call that the number of ventilated adults would exceed number of beds in the area significantly and it was expected that patients would be shipped around the country, where ever there were ventilators available. Everyone was a bit speechless……

Yes I'm also nhs and know that usually any minor staffing change literally can take months to organise but that people were being redeployed and wards converted and whole new teams set up in days was astounding
PinkTonic · 09/08/2021 20:20

I started watching the John Hopkins counter at the very beginning and I’ve just checked and I ordered masks and sanitizer in the third week of January. The last day I went into the office was 4th March. I was somewhat hopeful at first but after watching a briefing webinar by Chris Whitty on the 11th Feb it was obvious what was coming. I’m not unduly anxious but I have autoimmune disease and had to shield.

Cam77 · 09/08/2021 20:28

End of January with the news that China had cordoned off a whole province. I knew things would probably escalate.

Snowdrop30 · 09/08/2021 20:29

I honestly thought that lockdown would be over in 2-3 weeks. Then I remember hanging a big load of the washing in the line in my garden and just hearing ambulance siren after ambulance siren. It was frightening.

TakeMe2Insanity · 09/08/2021 20:30

December 2019 stories of an illness hitting china where people were collapsing on the street from exhaustion. Our concern was if it would spread to our holiday destination in Asia by February.

February 2020, our hotel was the epicentre for covid taking off in that country.

MyFavouriteIsland · 09/08/2021 20:30

When I was told I was being redeployed to covid ward and I went and saw all the beds lined up

BristolBetty · 09/08/2021 20:36

Friday 13 March 2020. I'd been working in Worcester and had spent most of the day in meetings. I checked my phone on the way home and for the first time the newspaper headlines made me feel jittery - there seemed to be a new sense of urgency. The train was quiet until Cheltenham Spa, where police officers had formed a line along the edge of the platform to hold back the crowds. Then hundreds of people piled on to the train. It would have made me anxious under normal circumstances, but at that time it felt like pure madness. At first I couldn't work out what was going on, and then I realised it was the Cheltenham Festival. I'll never understand why that event, and others like it, went ahead.

Antsinyourpanta · 09/08/2021 20:43

I remember getting some train tickets in early march and the ticket seller looked rather bemused and said I was being optimistic. Everyone else in the ticket office was asking for a refund on their season ticket. It turned out he was right, I didnt use all the tickets. I remember being in central London both in March 2020 and November when all the shops and cafes had closed and it was literally like a ghost town, eerily quiet and empty with nothing open. It was so weird.

nopuppiesallowed · 09/08/2021 20:50

My husband was in Southern Italy in 2020 when the pandemic struck the North. He came back to England by train - and the trains were empty, except for him. When he arrived home, we went into self imposed isolation in case he'd contracted the virus, but it was like a game - I couldn't really take it seriously. My 91 year old father used to push a newspaper through our letter box every day and we'd wave to him through the window. Our isolation ended on the 23rd March.....
But the day I took it really seriously was the day I got a text from the Zoe project saying I'd tested positive. I checked everything I needed was in my toilet bag.....

Wam90 · 09/08/2021 20:56

@Pipsqueakpopsqueak that’s truly heartbreaking. Did they both make full recoveries? 🤞🏼

Fluffmum · 09/08/2021 20:59

I was going to Abu Dhabi at the end of February 2020 and loads of people on my flight had masks on. A week later we weren’t allowed to go back to Italy from UK for work as the borders were closed .

Yourcatisnotsorry · 09/08/2021 21:05

When I spoke to a colleague in China in February 2020 about him Coming over to work on a project and he said he didn’t think he would be allowed to leave the country for a long long time.
Mother’s Day March 2020 when we thought it would be the last time we saw our mums
January 2021 when the paramedics came into our house

Tealwarrior · 09/08/2021 21:12

@Snowdrop30

I honestly thought that lockdown would be over in 2-3 weeks. Then I remember hanging a big load of the washing in the line in my garden and just hearing ambulance siren after ambulance siren. It was frightening.
My son in law is a Dr and right at the beginning I asked how long he thought this would go on and he told me that along with his colleagues he thought at least two full years.