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!

The other memory I have is being told on Tuesday 17th March to WFH.

And yet there are still people who deny the existence of this virus 😕

7th March we went away for a night. The weather was foul, so we bought lots of papers and sat in a pub in front of an open fire for the afternoon. Pages and pages of news reports and photos from Italy made me realise this would be us next.

I wasn’t scared until DH was sent home from work and started shielding.

[quote Cornettoninja]**@namesnamesnamesnames* Reading these brings it back. I feel odd about the last year and a half*

It really does doesn’t it? I’m not entirely sure I’m ready to revisit a lot of it yet, it’s not pleasant remembering various emotions the last year has brought up.[/quote]

I feel like we kept on keeping on, managing and dealing with life as it came. But to look back raises a new sense of catastrophe and shock.

@RampantIvy

The other memory I have is being told on Tuesday 17th March to WFH.

And yet there are still people who deny the existence of this virus 😕

We went to a BBQ last night with close friends. The DH still thinks it is all a conspiracy. He refuses to get vaccinated, and both sets of parents are in care homes. I was going to ask him if he was able to visit, but the conversation moved on. I am incredibly fond of our friends and know the DH has his quirks, but it does sadden me.

I started following the news about the virus in January. I just had a feeling it was going to be big. I did some extra shopping in January and February much to the amusement of my family.

I can remember talking to my mum in February and telling her to maybe get some extra food in as both her and dad were vulnerable. She laughed at me and told me to stop being silly. We got in to a bit of an argument about it and I told her how serious I thought this was. She dismissed me completely and told me that I should increase my anxiety medication as the virus was never going to be big here.
The announcement from Boris was the biggest thing for me though. Even though I had been expecting it, it just seemed surreal that the PM was saying in national tv that we would all lose someone and we had to come together. Stupidly I believed that we would just be at home for a few weeks.

Actually I think it was when I read a government planning paper on viruses and realised we’d pressure missed the opportunity for containment and was now in the delay stage. They then announced early March they were now focusing on delay and I thought yep clearly.

I remember being unhappy about mid feb and no one listening.

When I saw the emergency morgues bring put up in hospitals. And the nee rules for how deceased could be treated. And closing our office.

I don't know really. I've never felt scared at any point so for me all the lockdowns have felt inconvenient more than anything.

I guess when I was put on furlough as no one was buying anything! I was more scared of losing my job than I ever was of Covid.

Sitting in a classroom with teaching staff watching Boris announce schools would be closing and all of us just looking around in stunned silence.

In January 2020 when my Chinese students started being ordered home by their parents.

At the end of January when the news started to report on the cases on the cruises and the videos of people confined to their cabins. on the Diamond Princess 712 cases and 14 deaths. I was horrified that people were still going skiing at half term, especially as Italy was going through hell at that time. I cancelled our Easter cruise and our August holiday in Spain at the beginning of Feb.

I was already Brexit prepping and had lots of toilet roll and tins and I remember phoning my family and telling them to be prepared. I had colleagues in school laughing at me as I kept backing away when they came close to me. I could not believe we were kept waiting until March to shut the schools. My nephews and nieces were pulled out weeks before we closed.

I remember trying to buy thermometer as mine broke. I went into five or six shops on my way home from work - absolutely none in stock. No calpol that a colleague desperately wanted either. I was in tears by the time I got home. I remember the newsflash coming up on the internet that Ireland had shut it's schools and I quietly went to tell the TAs supporting my class that it would be us soon.

@Spottyphonecase

I started following the news about the virus in January. I just had a feeling it was going to be big. I did some extra shopping in January and February much to the amusement of my family. I can remember talking to my mum in February and telling her to maybe get some extra food in as both her and dad were vulnerable. She laughed at me and told me to stop being silly. We got in to a bit of an argument about it and I told her how serious I thought this was. She dismissed me completely and told me that I should increase my anxiety medication as the virus was never going to be big here. The announcement from Boris was the biggest thing for me though. Even though I had been expecting it, it just seemed surreal that the PM was saying in national tv that we would all lose someone and we had to come together. Stupidly I believed that we would just be at home for a few weeks.

---

My mother in law tried to plan a family get together for three weeks afterwards as 'surely it'll be over by then'.

When I came back from Guides one evening and found MIL watching tv and crucially had paused her knitting. Mette Frederiksen (danish pm) was on live tv sending all non essential public sector workers (me!) home, and the kids from school ....

The weekend of 14th March. I had two friends who had two separate holidays cancelled, and from what I remember I think a lot of planes were turned back to the UK whilst on their way to Spain. I was on a night out on the Saturday and the DJ made a reference about it being our last Saturday night out of 2020! At the time I was like how ridiculous but it was actually true. My parents were in Australia on a 4 week holiday of a lifetime they'd saved years for. By the Monday I was begging them to get an early flight home but there wasn't anything. Luckily the return flight was booked for the Friday anyway, I have never felt so relieved to pick someone up from the airport. The day after they arrived home their airline announced they were cancelling all flights from that point so they were very lucky.

watching the news coming out of China.

Telling the people I worked with a few weeks before schools closed I didn't know what I would do if when our schools closed if we weren't included. I was told that would never happen here and if it did there was no way we would be included.

In the end we were included and I was furloughed for the best part of six months just after lockdown happened.

Telling people it was big and no one listening. Once we went in to lockdown telling people I thought we would have issues for at least 2 years based on past pandemics, nobody listening.

when the panic buying started. I was tempted to buy a new chest freezer just to stock up

When they locked down the churches.
I'm not religious in any way and I only ever set foot in them for weddings etc.
But closing churches for the first time in history was a bloody hell moment for me.

You’ve summed it up pretty eloquently @namesnamesnamesnames.

I think I’ve just had a bit of an adrenaline crash anyway; I was so on edge about dd making it to the end of term without another isolation or testing that I’ve completely crashed this past fortnight. (She made it btw, complete with a sports day with one parent allowed and a school trip to the beach ).

Such a strange time. This thread is an amazing collection of peoples memories of a unique point in our history.

Early March when someone in the office didn't come into work as they'd been in contact with someone who'd come back from Italy and the conversation got dark and I remember someone crying in the office.

Then on the 16th March we were all told to pack up our kit and we'd be working at home from that point onwards. That was a week before national lockdown was announced - that was a terrifying speech to watch.

My first and worst one was when I saw people in Wuhan being bundled against their will into vans and forcibly barricaded into their homes by the authorities. My blood ran cold watching that.

Totally agree with this. That was definitely my first moment of "ohhhhhh fuck"

And then when it hit Italy, and then Spain went into lockdown and it was just this creeping fear of knowing it would arrive here.

Honestly I sometimes look back on the last 18 months and wonder what the hell happened. It just doesn't feel real.

Early, I cant remember when exactly. I remember being at work and saying to people the fact that we had heard about this meant it was serious. They thought me crazy and I kept quiet about it for a few weeks then other people started talking about it more. I bought extra calpol/paracetamol etc in February and declared in early february that they should close all the borders.

Theres a covid counter website which I added to my favourites in my phone when there were only 50k cases worldwide, it makes me laugh when I go to look at the website now because it still says "...50,000 cases..." in the title of the page cos that's where I saved it and now theres millions of cases

@OhGiveUp

When they locked down the churches. I'm not religious in any way and I only ever set foot in them for weddings etc. But closing churches for the first time in history was a bloody hell moment for me.

I walked through our church yard on my commute and during January/February they often played pre-recorded hymns through the locked doors. It was a strange juxtaposition of something really quite rallying and comforting against a background of fatigue and worry.

I’m not religious but they certainly managed to fulfil a spiritual, human need.

Working in a school and seeing it all unravel. Kids it coming in and self isolation meaning partial closures before the full one.
Weirdly, and I know this sounds stupid, but when I heard that Coronation St had only enough episodes to last until summer and they were being rationed. It's a national institution in my eyes and it was a signifier that society was unravelling 😬

Reading the news while pregnancy insomnia kept me up in late January/early February. Thinking we might just squeeze in DD's birthday party late feb because we were that bit further away (Oz)
Being asked by the MD to order n95 masks in case we needed to hand them out for leaving the building or getting home on public transport.
Seeing the new hospitals being built in days in China.
Giving birth in lockdown and spending the first three days alone in my room with DS unable to have any visitors (even dh).
Watching the photo montage of empty streets on the news while feeding DS late at night and crying as I realized he wouldn't be meeting our family for quite a long time.