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!

Wiping my arse with kitchen roll

When the British Army arrived back in NI and WhatsApp went crazy sending pictures of the trucks.

For me it was the day Wuhan locked down, 23 January 2020 I think. I can’t remember a lock down ever happening before. To me it seemed clear that the Chinese government was terrified about how fast this virus could spread and how hard it was to stop. I started buying masks, hand sanitizer and extra food at the start of February knowing it would hit the U.K. soon. I’ve never prepped for anything before. I couldn’t understand why no one else, particularly the government seemed worried. I’m still angry that as a country we weren’t better prepared

When they closed Disneyland.

I went straight to the market and bought groceries because we had been about to leave on holiday (not Disney) so our supplies were very low.

January 2020, when the footage of bulldozers erecting emergency barriers in Wuhan appeared.

No idea why our idiot government was still insisting into March that it hadn't arrived in the UK and there really wasn't much to worry about. Yep, I'm sure those terrible Chinese communists are just doing this in full view of the world for the lols.

Being ordered to WFH, not something my employer was overly keen on at the time, a couple of weeks before the first official lockdown.

I had been listening to the ominous reports on Radio 4 for a good while, but up until that point I hadn't been any more concerned than for bird flu or swine flu.

Sympathy for those people who have lost someone.

All of the stuff in the news about F1, Dyson etc producing ventilators. That really made me think we were going to be completely fucked. Similarly I remember watching a segment of BBC breakfast where a chap was using his 3D printer at home to make visors for health care workers.

For me it began to sink in on my 30th birthday on 20th March. My family visited me that day but none of them would hug or kiss me, then that night I went out for a meal with my husband and it had just been announced that all restaurants and pubs would close that night. Felt very surreal. Then Boris' announcement on 23rd to stay home, my 41 week midwife appointment on the evening of Thurs 26th sitting in the waiting room watching the first Clap for the NHS happen live. The realisation that not only would my family not be able to visit my newborn in hospital, but wouldn't be able to visit for weeks. Then giving birth and my husband being told he had to leave after 2 hours and not come back. Coming out of hospital and realising all the shops had closed while I was in and we couldn't pick up any new clothes for our baby.
Definitely the weirdest fortnight of my life!

There was an interview with Jeremy Hunt where you could see the fear in his eyes. He looked terrified and he used to be Health Secretary.

I remember all the corona memes early in the year and I started keeping an eye on the John Hopkins counter for China, the lockdown of Wuhan was like reading the storyline for a disaster movie but it was all still safely far away.

Italy and March is when I got frightened, and I cried to my DP about what it would mean for my dd, then 4, and my fears about her world turning upside down.

When it hit the UK I seemed to calm a bit, l find easier to be living it rather than anticipating it I suppose. I worked in a hospital through all three lockdowns (since left and was non-clinical) and the view from my window was where all the ambulances entered and it was so, so busy all the time. All of the extra ambulances sourced from elsewhere too. I remember going to work one morning last summer and seeing a load parked up outside their garages and feeling such a wave of relief, they hadn’t been parked up for weeks at that point. The clinical staff looked permanently exhausted and wrung out.

When my holiday to Italy - for mid-April 2020 - was cancelled.

@Dizzy1234

Flew back into England from Asia just as the lockdown started, there were no cars or people on the roads, got to my house and went to the supermarket and the shelves were empty, it was so scary

This us terrifying! There is a film that actually starts like this. A perdon wakes up alone in hospital, gets out, and no one in yhe streets... Now, the film is eery, but to be in this in real life! Oh God! We just had to go into town, always a busy city centre. No cars, no one soul, nothing! I can only imagine how it felt to travel and get back home to this!

February, but my friend was living in Wuhan.

I started buying masks, hand sanitizer and extra food at the start of February knowing it would hit the U.K. soon. I’ve never prepped for anything before. I couldn’t understand why no one else, particularly the government seemed worried. I’m still angry that as a country we weren’t better prepared

Baffling, isn't it?

I had Covid in January 2020, I'm in the UK. I caught it from someone who works side by side with someone who returned from Wuhan in January 2020. All three of us were ill at the same time.

Listening to the UK government telling us last spring that it didn't arrive in the UK until late February made me buckle with laughter. That, right there and then, was all the proof I needed to confirm we are being governed by a bunch of complete and utter imbeciles.

The idea that while this was spreading all over the planet, that somehow the UK was a special case, and all those flights coming in here from various already infected countries just happened to have nobody onboard who was carrying the virus... until late February?

Absolute morons. I await the public inquiry eagerly, but I suspect it will totally ignore much of the blindingly obvious.

Our mayor (Italy) closed the schools for 3 days for deep cleaning and we all rolled our eyes. We went back on the Tuesday and Wednesday and then the region announced schools would be closed till the 16th March. I had kids with tests and was messaging them to say "obviously the tests will be done after the 16th"
Then the weekend of the 7th and 8th when the press leak about Lombardia being put into lockdown and there was the mass exodus. Even then though, it was still "for fuck's sake" rather than fear.
That came on the evening of the 9th when the PM announced a total lockdown. Because it was total. But at the same time, there was the sense that things were being done in your best interests. I was, and remain fucking glad we had Conte looking out for us.
@ShanghaiDiva, I was on many threads with you back then. Good to hear from you.

First week of Jan 2020 we were on hol in Cornwall and it was on the news -i remember thinking oh i really hope we're lucky again in the uk like with sars... 23rd jan (wuhan lockdown) i realised we probably wouldn't be as it was obvious how much more easily it spread.
Mid Feb when there was the Brighton superspreader i knew for definite then - he clearly didn't realise he had it yet spread to so many. I felt like i was going crazy because it was so obvious how things were going to pan out but hardly anyone i spoke to could see it. March was actually quite traumatizing as the govt were just doing nothing and letting it get worse, i couldn't actually comprehend how utterly incompetent they were

Can't remember exactly but it was some time in Feb. I was surprised they left schools open for so long at the time

@ThreeWitches

When my holiday to Italy - for mid-April 2020 - was cancelled.

This was in Feb, btw...

I work in school...

End of February, parents evening....putting out hand sanitiser and making signs saying there would be no hand shaking. At the time we all thought it was a bit of a joke and over cautious.

When lockdown was announced...I used to deal with private letting who hired the school for clubs etc...having to message them all to tell them school was closing and we had no idea when or if they'd be able to come back. One of my hirers was chap in his early seventies, who I'd be chatting to via email for 4 years but never met. He came in to settle up his final bill and we bumped elbows.

About 10 days into lockdown when we were told my dad was end of life with frailty, but it could take 6 - 8 weeks to get carers in place because of the rise in demand and illness levels. Fortunately it was much quicker.

When they cancelled the London marathon. I was at work as a Carer when they announced it and it came through on my iwatch as I was with a service user. I remember saying to the gent (who has since sadly passed away) that this is actually serious. I had been joking about it and being quite dismissive before then but the cancellation of such a major event really made me go ‘ah, shit’.

I went out and brought loads of pillows convinced that we would all get it and need to sleep sitting up.

I found it incredibly stressful in February when I was reading up, and trying to discuss it with family, and everyone thought I was exaggerating. Plenty of "it won't come here" as though people couldn't transport it. Ironically I got sick quite early on, in mid March.

I had been nervous about it since maybe Feb 2020, but it was not until the NBA "postponed" their season on March 11, 2020 that the incredible seriousness of it all hit me (I am in the USA).

Towards the end of February. I also decided, about six months before the government that I was cev.

@EspressoDoubleShot thank you

@CheddarToldMeTo it was people like you that made all the difference. We had so many people come and help us / get redeployed and it was SO appreciated. Thank you

Sunday 15/3 went on my daily visit to see my disabled dad in his care home. While we were in with him the manager came snd said we had to leave as head office had just called her to say they needed to lockdown immediately. That was the last time I saw my father properly - he died six weeks later.
Probably the scariest moment was my dh coming home and telling me that he had just been at an emergency planning meeting for a temporary mortuary to be set up. Hearing how many bodies they were planning for chilled me to the core. Horrific.