[Closed] eve of 1st lockdown 23rd March 2020, what were you doing, your thoughts ?

I was probably working from home by then, all very uneventful to be honest..

I do remember being one of the last to leave the Science park and going to work when it was a complete ghost town - was a bit like 28 days later.

i was on the sick from work. i had been sent home with a virus.

I'd moved back in with my dad temporarily as my mum had been taken into hospital after a series of seizures. I had two weeks away from my family and I remember being depressed and a little scared as my wife developed COVID symptoms during the first week I was away. Thankfully she was fine. Whilst I know a few people who have tested positive and some who have gone on to develop full blown symptoms I haven't lost anyone close to me or indeed know anyone who has. For this I do feel very lucky.

Can't believe that is has been a full year.

And loo roll, it was a right PITA trying to find loo roll, also Allbran and Earl Grey Tea IIRC.

I seem to remember lockdown coming the day after I went to see The Lighthouse at the cinema on March 12th... maybe that was just entertainment places closing..? On 23rd of March I was doing an online speed awareness course. Imagine that, people getting done for speeding! 😆

My company has a minute's silence planned for tomorrow, as "reflection" on Covid.. like I guess if we didn't have a time for it, we'd probably completely forget it was going on eh. Sheesh.

I was WFH, p20 was at work. We know that we would catch it at some point via the ambulance service, which played out, but not till November as p20 ended up working in YAS driving school much longer than expected as they tried to get as many people as possible qualified to drive. It was scary - knowing we would get ill and waving him off to work each day not sure what would happen. Worried about my family - thankfully all of whom have been fine (including my 92 yr old grandmother who beat Covid!). We got our neighbours to socially distanced sign our wills, and I put letters through everyone's letterbox with my phone number on it should anyone need help due to isolation. That turned into a big street WhatsApp group which has been good for people needing support at times. I remember going to the chemist and stood outside (now normal) and the main A road was empty. Very odd looking back.

I was here that Monday.

I remember being a little bit excited about being allowed to work from home for what I thought would be a couple of weeks or so. How wrong I was. Sitting at home alone for days on end lost its sparkle very quickly.

As others, I was already WFH (we started a week before the official announcement). Every single day has pretty much been Groundhog Day since then.

I also had an entry in my Google calendar, inspired by Kerley's panic buying/stocking up -

. https://singletrackmag.com/forum/topic/wheres-the-coronavirus-were-all-going-to-die-conspiracy-thread/page/7/.

Like a few already, we got sent to WFH on the 17th thinking it'd be a few weeks and now a year later I'm rather liking it sat in my log cabin at the top of the garden.

I now have a separate work space which also doubles as a training space with my bike permanently set up on the trainer. I don't have to spend nigh on 3 hours a day commuting to the office and back, so I get more time at home with the kids - which is nice. Yeah the not seeing everyone is a bit of a shitter, but it's not the end of the world for me at least and the intermittent non-lockdown periods allow for decent catch ups before it all goes to shit again as some people simply can't follow guidance, but that's life ain't it folks!

Chopping down a tree with the neighbour and making plans for a summer in the garden.

Trying to find stock for my village shop, moving out of my house away from wife and child and working 16hr days....

I'd been to my last university campus on March 7th. Week before that had 5 days riding in Malaga. Can't remember 23rd, but we were in the pub the day they were closed/not closed/closed. Some very confused publicans locking and unlocking doors.

I do remember that week rescheduling loads of on-site work until end April. Later on it was May then June and then we just did it all on-line. Don't expect I'll get onto another campus until September this year.

I was pretty worried I'd get zero work because Uni's would be kind of busy doing other stuff, and I'd no idea how to deliver it virtually. And yet here we are a year later, stupidly busy and defo not going back to being on the road 10-15 days a month.

We've been super lucky with family and friends not getting really ill or worse. I know many others haven't... 🙁

I was coming home from a packraft/camping trip down the Spey as I got too cold. Had decided I wasn't going to keep working at my job as I didn't like it. Got told not to do any work from that Monday, got contract terminated a couple of months later and haven't worked a day since.
Have spent most of that time in my flat by myself, though did get a decent summer.

I was planning a move back down to Weymouth. On the Friday evening we had an evening planned at the pub in town with a band and lots of pub mates. Another guy was taking a 9 month sabbatical to ride his motorbikes around Europe and the UK so we were using it as a leaving do.
I heard the news at lunchtime and thought "sod that" as every nutter in the area is going to cram into the pub for a last session before lockdown, so I didn't even bother going.
Still stuck up here, although operation 'head to Weymouth' is firmly on for April.

I remember having to drive 25 miles to Newcastle in order to buy bog roll.

I was buying all the Pasta and Toilet Roll in the North East,then selling it in Newcastle.

Sat in tears with my girlfriend. Her work had just shut (wedding co-ordinator) and all of my gigs for 2020 had been cancelled, and the schools that I taught guitar in had shut. Furlough was yet to be properly announced and SEISS was even further away.

It didn't turn out too bad in the end, but it was ****ing awful at the time, and in the 12 months of Covid, our household income is down by nearly half.

I was just over a week into self isolation as my daughter had shown symptoms. I'd spent most of that week coordinating the shift of staff to WFH and our external IT support had essentially phoned and squeaked help! As a geochemist, it was an interesting couple of weeks, lots of procedures were written.

Was out trail building behind Stirling. Have not been back to those trails since! 🙁

I’d been WFH for years but it was the first day school and nursery was shut. Wife flat out busy in new job and my employer was a bit more flexible so I offloaded what I could and did what absolutely needed doing in the evenings.

As it turned out, the first of 164 days straight looking after the kids. I was expecting 6 weeks tops.

Had the flu(might have been covid) so was home anyway. Got better. Continued to WFH.

I was busy writing my MSc dissertation this time last year.

As for the lockdown(s), I still question the ethics of all for purposes of protecting (mostly) over 80s many of whom - in care homes - would now be dead anyway one year on (the average stay in a care home is just 2 years).

Many kids have lost a year of school which is massive for them, the economy is trashed and many business and individuals will never recover. I don't want to make it all about myself but, for example, I'm now having to do a menial job I hate; if it were not for covid I'm sure I could have secured myself a proper job.

Took the full suss out for it's last ride "for a long time"

1-----2------3-----4-----5-----6-----7-----8-----9----- and 10

Ah,that's better

Remember being sent home from work, as despite the official government definition of key workers covering those who dealt with benefits payments, as it was such a small part of what the organisation did they ignored our work completely. Was told that a laptop would be sent out at some point and no, I couldn't take any paperwork with me - at the time our work was predominantly paper based.

Big panic 3 weeks later as benefits went unpaid and laptops were issued.

Wife was a frontline social worker, remember her having to carry on and do visits with no PPE.

Kids had 4 grandparents at the time, one with latevstage cancer and one with early signs of dementia. Was convinced we wouldn't have all 4 by Christmas. Pleasantly surprised that we do. No one close to us has caught it, a couple of colleagues have had it and got through it, one Scouting connection sadly lost to it.

Wondering what starting a new job would be like on the 23rd having been out of work for 9 months, somewhat worried it would all go pear shaped and trying to work from home wouldn't work. Turned out a lot better than I expected but still working from home.

I'd given my notice into a role I hated in early Jan and was 2 weeks before the end of my gardening leave with a growing panic that the job market was on its knees. As it turned out, it was, and it took me another 3 months to secure a new job (which was not good and I left 3 months after joining).

My wife had a bit of fever and was feeling a bit ropey. She lost her taste shortly afterwards but felt fine within a week or 2, hough her taste took longer to come back.
I'd also just started what turned into a streak of exercising every day that is still going today, even though I had a week early April where I felt like death warmed up, some kind of virus maybe???

The local brewery had started delivering fresh draft beer to the door, I was well and truly taking advantage of this...

In truth, it all felt a bit surreal and I certainly didn't see it as being as serious as it turned out to be. I'd not say I was overly scared then (I'm not sure I ever have been that scared), I was more worried (still am) for my numerous friends who work in hospitality who saw their businesses and incomes pulled out from under them.

We were sent home from work on 16th March when it became obvious that a lockdown was imminent. The office remained open for another 2-3 days so anyone who was working remotely could get in and collect belongings.

We all thought it'd be "a few weeks", BJ was banging on about all be back to normal by Easter, we were assuming sort of summer time.

I was getting out for bike rides by mid/late afternoon rather than commuting which was nice.
It took me another few months to get properly sorted with a decent home office set-up because Amazon had seen a massive run on second screens, laptop stands etc.

Thankfully I hadn't booked much in the way of holiday - I often head out to Spain for a week of road cycling at end of March time but I can almost book that last minute anyway, there's no real planning required. Friends who had booked onto events like Etape du Tour were more concerned. And I do a lot of volunteer work for domestic cycle racing and that just dropped off almost immediately - initially it was events up until July being cancelled but very soon it was the entire year gone.

My analysis had just been presented to SAGE. It showed the epidemic in the UK was growing at the same rate as all other countries when at the same point in their epidemic, but that deaths were doubling faster than cases. I thought that based on the evidence of impending healthcare collapse, some form of intervention would be necessary and was pleased with the announcement. We'd already been sent home from the office, so no change there.

We had seen it at work already in all probability, we'd isolated one set of labs and offices because of symptomatic staff (no-one could get a test to confirm though) and plans were being drawn up. Then it went batshit mental and we had to close down 'off at the wall' in two days up to 20th March. Risk assessments all round for what would happen as we let fridges at a few 10's of mK above absolute zero warm up unsupervised except by hastily jury rigged remote monitoring, etc.

We thought it was madness, and a total waste of time for a couple of weeks of what at the time was something not happening in the UK.

We subsequently have had some very ill staff, have lost some close to us, and wonder how we UNDERestimated the severity at the time.

I kind of agree with i_scoff_cake; where I disagree is that we should have locked down sooner, and harder and not thrown money at our mates to put bent purchasing contracts and T&T apps together. THEN we might have avoided the things that have come true. 26,000 estimated died because of a slow decision to lockdown. 30,000 more because of the Christmas reopen - no close! debacle. And we still ****ed the economy up as well.

But as above - I as much as anyone thought it was merely a passing shower.

We'd been sent home the previous Tuesday. Never been back and contract ended in December.

At the time I was already looking for the lockdown exit strategy - just checked and I was posted on the main CV thread on 30 March about exit strategy - and couldn't see any short or even medium term way out so I was bracing myself for the long haul even then.

It was my 60th birthday on the 23rd - I'd had to cancel the party I had organised for the previous Saturday as it was expected that bars and restaurants would have to close down. So it was a completely underwhelming birthday spent on my own.

Had been lucky though as had been in France skiing until the 14th when Macron announced the closure of bars, restaurants, ski resorts etc from midnight on the Saturday so we had a full week skiing and flew home on the Sunday. Felt sorry for all the people on the Saturday flights who arrived on the 14th and weren't able to ski.

I was away at my in-laws trying to decide on a headstone for my wife's grave 🙁
Had a phone call from work that all my engineers were to self isolate as our apprentice had CV-19.
Decided on the 24th I better go home so ended up working from home while supposedly on holiday!
Been in work ever since, very little of my job can be done from home.

Two weeks before, I came back from London for the last time on a deserted 16:00 commuter that's normally packed to the gunwales. Thought it might be a month, six weeks tops... One week before, I was pulled on to an emergency team with anyone slightly IT, manning a makeshift helpdesk to help all the other office staff work from home - I had 3 days of that, my last day in the office was the 19th of March, I popped in at the weekend to snaffle a monitor then it was 3 weeks of furlough and almost a year of WFH (went back in a few days last week). London being quiet was super-eerie - then I got anosmia and spent a fortnight bricking it.

I've been totally lucky. Anosmia was my only symptom, work have been fantastic, and touch wood no-one I know has passed from it.

I'd been WFH for a few days as we'd been sent home 'for a couple of weeks until this blows over'
I've been in work 1-2 days every week since (i manage everything going through our build facility - and i can't do it all from home) but still at home the rest of the time.

can't believe its been a year... with some time to go i think..

I actaully wrote some thoughts down (not usually a diary type person, but thought it might help with the stress). My first entry was 23rd March:

"So all the kids are home again...slightly unexpectedly! One one hand it is lovely to see them again but one the other hand we had got used to the peace with them at University.

Still quiet on the COronavirus front in [rural village] - feels like the calm before the storm. Village is a mix of eerily quiet and daft folk ignoring the advice to isolate.

Struggling with the distractions, stress from work, stress from study and yet more distractions. Need to find a way to keep calm and get some work done!"

Doesn't feel like a great deal has changed in a year, although we know more and the outlook is more positive 🙂

... what were you doing, your thoughts ?

All travel plan going back home for holiday in the far east cancelled.
Save about £2k for not travelling home.
Was about to celebrate dooms day but that did not happen, oh well life goes on as normal as it can be for with me trying to learn to cook properly.

It’s had to believe it’s been a year.

Ever the helpless optimist I was assuming a 2-3 firebreak lockdown would see us right. The extraordinary measures being taken were about right and Boris, remarkably was doing about as good a job as we could expect from him and that the figure of 20k deaths was probably more of a ‘worst case’ than a prediction.

I actually wept as Furlough was announced, I don’t know how stressed I was, until it was lifted. We were 3 months into living in our first ‘owned’ home and it looked like we could lose it before we even unpacked.

Hindsight is glaring sometimes, and I guess 12 months from now I might look back at this and wonder how I could be so wrong about how I saw things panning out.

I’m lucky enough to have had my first jab and millions of other have done too, let’s hope this is the way to the end. The world feels like a tinderbox, I’m not sure how another major set-back would go with people.

I remember being at home thinking 'about time' because we'd been isolating already - didn't send the kids back to school after feb half term as we have a couple of very high risk people in the house.

I'd been skiing in St Anton with my family and my step-dad speaks good German so he was reading in local newspapers about the outbreak in northern Italy. They cancelled an extra week following on in the Dolomites as a result of what they'd read. Foreign office advice still said it was fine to go on holiday to Italy/alps for god knows how long afterwards...

The extraordinary measures being taken were about right and Boris, remarkably was doing about as good a job as we could expect from him

Not really the thread for it but WTF?!

Wasn't really a particular day for me- I went to a gig on the 11th March and already by then things were feeling pretty sketchy. I think the Scottish and UK governments' different approaches were definitely kicking in. Also I was caring for my mum who was very vulnerable so that was a worry. I was on my way towards leaving my job anyway, so, there was a very close run thing when they told us "yep, we're shut from monday" where I was like "good because that means I don't have to refuse to come in, that would have been awkward". But it all feels a bit weird with having drifted into it rather than being the big cut off.

I had been skiing in Austria at the end of Feb. Got home on the 29th and a few folks in the airport had masks on. I hadn't really got a grasp on what was happening. Then I was due to travel back home to NI/Ireland with work for a week in the 2nd week of March. That was cancelled and all international travel within our company was banned. Then it happened. I work from home anyway, but I couldn't visit customers for months. Furloughed for 3 weeks in April/May.

I remember listening to this podcast. He was right about many things, but maybe his timescales were a bit off. Even when he mentioned 3-6 months I was shocked. And here we are not knowing when it will end.

Not really the thread for it but WTF?!

Believe it or not, before we knew the terrible truth about what the virus was going to do in the UK and that the measures were all too little, too late, it did actually appear that Boris, or rather the people advising him knew what they were doing, and bear in mind that before it was announced the word 'Furlough' was completely new to most people, being paid to stay at home for weeks on end (as assumed at the time) by a TORY government.

In work the doctors were being given a crash course in covid before they were recalled from research to itu
Northwick Park (where a lot of our colleagues were based) had already declared critical incident and we were trying desperately to help them get PPE and sterilisation equipment : they cleared our supplies & were desperate for scrubs & goggles

2 things had unnerved me, Our lab WhatsApp group has a lot of statisticians and the R number & estimated fatality rate made it clear that governments herd immunity policy was insane
https://www.itv.com/news/2020-03-12/british-government-wants-uk-to-acquire-coronavirus-herd-immunity-writes-robert-peston

And Lewis Goodalls report on News night a week before asking why UK wasn't taking it seriously as other countries

https://twitter.com/lewis_goodall/status/1238242156365721609?s=19

So it was a relief that government finally seemed to be taking it seriously
I had to go in on the last day to help pack up our qpcr machines to go to lighthouse testing labs (where they would sit unused for over a month!)

My train into London was empty, rather than completely rammed & as normal & cycling thru empty London was spooky

I had an interview on the 20th March and we weren't sure if we should shake hands at the end of it. We did, though both reached for the sanitizer shortly afterwards.

I remember walking round Birmingham after that and it being dead. It was a Friday afternoon when it was normally heaving and there was no-one around, though everything was still open. I weirdly ended up on a solo pub crawl, dropping into a few favourite places for a beer, to collect some takeaway and a chat with the owners. Being sat in a completely empty bar at 5pm on a Friday where normally you'd be queuing out of the door was very strange. It was a very sombre affair.

I was in China on a business trip as the situation was unfolding. We were in two minds whether to cancel but at that point in January 2020 there was very little in the media, it was just starting to gain some traction in the news. By the time we were coming home 10 days later the situation had escalated although you wouldn't know it, there were no inbound checks on arrival at Heathrow only a few extra people wearing masks and the cabin crew spraying disinfectant spray around the cabin before take off.
Went straight back into the office when we got back and by that time people were getting a bit twitchy. We were sent to work from home after a week! A bit later I got a real snotty cold accompanied by a bad cough. That was the back end of Feb 2020. Got sent home and haven't really been back since. When the 1st lockdown was introduced I was out running. It was pretty surreal from that point on.

We've been extremely lucky through this whole period in that I've carried on working (with my Chinese counterparts among others), my OH only does a few hours a week and has been on and off furlough but it's not affected the family finances and we live in an area where there are plenty of decent places to exercise from home (I've been riding my local trails a lot as I don't need to drive there). It's also meant I've been able to spend a lot of quality time with my kids (3 & 6) which has been the biggest bonus of all.
Have to try and keep some perspective on what's going on as it's really affected a lot of people so that means we've been following the rules, not seeing family (OH is from Wales) and friends etc, only one of us going for shopping and all the other stuff...

I was a week and a half into being unemployed. I had another job lined up which I had intended on stepping into after a couple of weeks off. I didn't start until the end of May. As I'd been doing nothing anyway I was already fully into the swing of baking bread and doing all that stuff around the house that I'd been putting off.

I've just checked my google maps timeline, aside from exercise, I went nowhere except the supermarket from 23rd March to 14th May.

I shut up the business for the boss and got our essential data into the cloud ready for working from home. I had a week in the office on my own before going on furlough.

I remember commuting by bike suddenly being a joy, no cars to speak of and no muppets on the road. By the end of that week the cyclists were wobbling onto the road for exercise and the weather started to improve.

It was the worst of times, it was the best of times. It was also my birthday weekend.

Dog-sitting our increasingly short-sighted, epileptic old dog who’d also managed to smash his jaw jumping off a bed into the skirting board so I was treating his infection with antibiotics.

I was also waiting to get my wife back from (central) London neuro hospital. She was assisted travelling by train (as it turned out right in the middle of the panic/lockdown announcements)

They had to reschedule/cancel further scans tests what with the Covid hubbub, her shoulder-joints were increasingly failing and (extra-weirdly) the act of swallowing food and drink was becoming more and more difficult.

They were now testing for (quote) ‘prepare yourself for a diagnosis of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis’ (ALS, ie rapid deterioration, paralysis and death within typically 3 years)

Hearing this possibility/likelihood was an entire gut-plummeting shock to me. I’ve been caring for her/watching her triumph for years with this and other disability/disease/related-injuries. But ALS on top? I felt immediately I had to prepare for the worst and so I began the mental process. To be like the most ‘grownup’ husband, FIL/SIL etc that there ever was. I began cleaning every nook and cranny of our home. Weird. Cleaning, cleaning, cleaning. Throwing cluttery things away.

I went into anxiety meltdown I suppose. It’s only ever happened once before and that was during another quadruple life-changing whammy where autonomy was being stripped away

Tight chest, dizzy. Short of breath. Went through a weird combination of pre-emptive grief-disbelief-planning-grief cycle, and also a quiet additional repressed panic re her return journey/safety from Covid (she’s well into the co-morbidity bracket having had a collapsed lung, ongoing disease and is prone to pneumonia at the drop of a small bug)

What if I get sick now, outside, from a delivery?? Who will care for her?

We’ve been trying to get to the bottom of her joint and pain and related issues for over 5 years but I never imagined this.

Anyway. Better news. Problems are ongoing today, but a year ago the important results came in a week or so later and they had ruled out ALS!

I sobbed again, now with relief as I took the phone after the call. Mrs P just looked bemused. We are made of different stuffs it seems! She says she would just have pragmatically chosen voluntary euthanasia.

I then sold my old road bike and instead bought a drum kit to work on my fun-quota, anxiety and focus issues. And then we queue online for a month, order groceries in, buy a second hand freezer and wash every packet of food. Forever. Like most of you?

A year later, she’s still awaiting healthcare but we’re holding on. And I’m still drumming.

*edit - apologies for the long one. Catharsis a year on is still catharsis I guess

was working in Leeds city centre and I took a picture on the 18/19th in the morning rush-hour and instead of the thousands or folk communing, it's looks like a particular lazy Sunday afternoon. There was a rumour we were all to be sent home that didn't materialize until the following week, at which I never went back, and subsequently handed in my notice as the role was a shitty one anyway.  Moved house and back into primary care since!

Like others, I'd already been WFH for about two weeks. I remember it all being a bit of a novelty at first if I'm honest, and actually quite enjoying it.

A year later, I'm typing this looking out of my new office window at a rather lovely view of a hill in the Peak District, following a move that would never have happened (or certainly not for a few years) had Covid not made working from home much more of an obvious ongoing possibility for my and my wife's employers.

I'm not going to lie, other than some minor inconveniences and amended leisure plans, Covid has had a positive impact on our lives (touch wood, tempting fate, etc etc).

I always wondered what it would be like to have a memorable date as a birthday.

Not what I had in mind, tbh.

Being grounded on your 35th birthday sucks.

I'd been working from home for about a week already. We'd been told to work from home if able to do so.

I remember watching Bo Jo's press conference announcing the lockdown, waiting for 30 mins or so before calling my boss (to give him chance to speak to his boss) to find out what we were going to tell our field based staff to do.

Within the space of about an hour everyone had been informed by WhatsApp that they were to remain at home cleaning / servicing their equipment until we had produced the Risk Assessment which would allow then to return safely to their normal activities. That process took about 10 days.

At the start I thought it would all be over and done with after a couple of months. I'll probably continue to work from home even when we are allowed to return to the office, although no date has even been hinted at as to when that might be.

As for the lockdown(s), I still question the ethics of all for purposes of protecting (mostly) over 80s many of whom – in care homes – would now be dead anyway one year on (the average stay in a care home is just 2 years).

**** me

Did I really just read that?

Just to sprinkle some facts over that utterly callous drivel. At the age of 80 your average life expectancy is 10 years. So plenty of people in their 80s can expect to see their 90s.

Only 15% of people over 85 are in care homes

The group most at risk of death or hospitalisation from Covid (90% of cases) are the over 50s, not the over 80s. Its 25% of the population

Anyway. Vote Conservative!

The extraordinary measures being taken were about right and Boris, remarkably was doing about as good a job as we could expect from him

You have staggeringly low expectations!

I was in work on a run of night control room shift, we were all betting on how long Boris would hold off putting making the decision. It was blatantly obvious it needed to be done but even on Sunday morning he was saying there was no need. Lots of customers had already shut their premises and banks were planning for it so it was going to happen without the Govt making it official anyway. I'd deliberately been up to Coed-Y-Brenin that Friday for one last trip away before the lockdown, fully expecting it to be announced on Sunday. It was very eery cycling back home at 6.15am Monday morning through a deserted Cardiff, normally there'd be lots of early workers about. Riding back in for the next shift at 17.30 felt like a scene out of 28 days later: no traffic, people or trains in Central Station. Just me in near-silence pedalling away with bits of litter blowing around. Gives me the chills just thinking about it!

The rest of that week was spent in a kind of other-worldly fog. I was back on the road just going to every customer I could find and collecting all of their money from their safes as lots of businesses feared being robbed. It still doesn't feel like I lived through it now, especially as I've been made redundant so will likely never see that side of things again. The fact it happened midway through the Six Nations tournament which means Cardiff is a massive party normally around now just added to the stark contrast of the whole situation.

When talk turned to stuff like the furlough scheme etc it felt like another alternative world. I always thought on the more pessimistic side of things anyway but the way it all quickly unfolded those first few weeks was still a shock. The fact we are here, 12 months later, with various vaccines, a still-functioning NHS and a hope that there is a way out at the end of it felt impossible back then. Just imagine how much better we'd be if the clowns in charge had done things correctly sooner!

The world feels like a tinderbox, I’m not sure how another major set-back would go with people.

As the scenes in Bristol last night show that's the big worry now. We've all been pushed to the absolute limit, the end is just about visible and anything that takes that away could lead to anywhere.

The last 12 months have been a real-time history lesson and we're still not at break time yet.

I was in hospital with broken collarbone, 9 cracked ribs, concussion. I believe my bars tapped a tree Was due to start a new job in the morning

over 80s many of whom – in care homes – would now be dead

And one might be Tom Moore.

1—–2——3—–4—–5—–6—–7—–8—–9—– and 10

Ah,that’s better

Same here.

I've been incredibly lucky. I had retired the year before and all I had to do was cancel some stuff I wasn't going to be able to do. I know one bloke who thinks he maybe had COVID right at the beginning and one friend's 102 year old dad who had it on his death certificate.

Other than that no contact with it at all.

I'd been following developments coming out of Korea regarding mortality and vulnerability, so wasn't personally that worried.

As a postie in the urban NW, I just got to work like a **** for the last 12 months in a comically non-Covid secure work environment, frantically hoying out non-essential future landfill to people internet shopping on the back of their furlough pay. Some of us got a bit poorly, nobody died, nobody's suffered long term symptoms. Not many obese octagenarian posties, mind. I pop into the STW echo chamber for a chuckle every now and again.

And hey, saved loads of money! As a frontline 'key worker' in my 50s I even got my first jab yesterday (no side effects, back at work this morning). Bonus.

Has an ill-advised post been deleted as there's some comments about the over 80's and the PM that are a tad confusing?

My work was closed down sharply this week, planned trips from Dundee to London and Halifax this week cancelled and everyone sent home with their Surface Pros to begin working from home. No-one had a clear view how long this would be for but we had the feeling it would be a long time. 'Essential workers', playing a role in keeping government functioning. Predictions from a particularly wise friend in a relevant area of medicine were that we would have restrictions for at least a year and that only an early and successful vaccine roll out would make a really effective change to that. A great many mistakes and resulting extra deaths were predicted.

This was also the week that I began booking shifts as a 'reserve' ambulance driver to work on patient transfers for a Covid assessment unit. The gig was to package and move patients from their assessment in a consulting room, out to the car park to say goodbye to family who'd brought them in, walk or roll them into the back of the truck and drive to acute admissions at the nearby hospital's red zone. Clean the vehicle and return to step one. Repeat... At this stage, I didn't really know what this was going to involve but boy, did I get my eyes opened the next weekend as I hit the first of the back to back 12 hour shifts. These days, images on screen of a row of ambulances parked outside an A&E make the hairs on the back of my neck stand up and I sometimes get emotional about it.

Being grounded on your 35th birthday sucks.

A friend is just going to have his 2nd lockdown birthday

Thinking 'FFS get on with it', to be honest. Same as every day for the preceding fortnight.

My daughter is about to have Lockdown Birthday  - The Empire Strikes Back. Last year was a zero birthday. She doesn't want Return of the Jedi birthday next year.

A friend is just going to have his 2nd lockdown birthday

Tell them I sympathise...

It's all a bit shit, isn't it?

yep. Feel like its just life now and we will be in this state of social distancing / lockdown forever.

My 40th last September and my lad's 1st birthday - not that big a deal not having a nice do with family and friends in the grand scheme of things, but another thing making life a little bit shitter.

Same. People around me are planning to get together when they can, make plans for summer, and I don't want to do any of that. Living in your own house in fear is just the new normal for me now.

we had got back from skiing the weekend they closed the resorts and flights stopped. still feel very lucky we managed to get that week away in. didnt have anything else booked all year so not had any of those issues to deal with. i had decided to work from home a week before they made it compulsory. couldnt wait to GTF out of London. hard to believe ive never been back!! WFH was brilliant for me, saw the family, walked the dogs and rode my bike every single day. was out of work for 3 months during the year tho which was bitter sweet. loved the time off, riding and digging loads, school runs, even cooking for the family, all stuff that never used to happen being down ldn all week. proper skinted me tho!

i miss the pubs. thats my only gripe tbh. i never struggled for bog roll, touch wood stayed virus free so far, as have all the family. woods and hills stayed open, never really went anywhere else. always been a bit ocd hand washer so love that i get to sanitise my hands in the shops, and the introvert in me is delighted i dont have to hug, kiss or shake hands with people i meet! I even enjoyed home schooling! gutted we cant go skiing this year but im not complaining too much about that.

im about to turn 40. my mates have been discussing our 40th's for the last 20 years! but tbh im quite glad it will be forcibly low key! will definitely celebrate with a riding trip somewhere epic when we are allowed...

I even enjoyed home schooling!

Pervert.

Already had been working from home for 3 weeks, and was on-call that night, a week later started 12 shifts managing part of the public health response. It's not stopped since. I've colleagues who have had few days off and very little leave since it started in January 2020. I remember looking at plans and realising they weren't going to happen and being worried things were going to go downhill for a lot of people. Thinking about it now, very lucky family haven't had it and don't know anyone who has sadly died, but some were hospitalised.

The extraordinary measures being taken were about right and Boris, remarkably was doing about as good a job as we could expect from him

You have staggeringly low expectations!

HAD, we're discussing how we felt 12 months ago.

You can wind back the Covid thread a few hundred pages to check if you like to get a feel for the feelings of STW, but my memory of the 23rd of March 2020 was that the measures announced that day were taken positively by most of the public. Some thought it was too late, some thought it was a bit drastic but it was seen as 'enough' by most. The world was a very different place back then. Spain and Italy had both had terrible outbreaks, but it seemed at the time we could avoid that happening here, because it hadn't happened by the time the Government announced the lock down and more importantly the furlough scheme, because then, more than even now, people feared losing their jobs and houses more than Covid.

You can track the PMs approval ratings pre and post 23/03/20 announcement here.

https://yougov.co.uk/topics/politics/trackers/boris-johnson-approval-rating

It's easy to forget how much the world has changed in the last 12 months.

we’re discussing how we felt 12 months ago.

It's not how I felt 12 months ago, it was obviously too little too late and as pointed out above the government was criticised for that at the time. We thought we could manage with bluster and British exceptionalism and 'herd immunity'. Did you forget about Boris failing to attend 5 COBRA meetings about the situation, or boasting about shaking hands with everyone in a COVID ward?

It's got nothing to do with hindsight, it was obviously stupid at the time. The late lockdown and the Christmas lifting are reckoned to have killed around 30,000 people apiece. We only recently introduced travel restrictions FFS and now if you have a second home abroad you're allowed to go over to 'manage' it.

https://twitter.com/newsthump/status/1374301845888319489?s=20

No revisionism from me P-Jay I haven't considered the PM was doing a great job from the first of the missed COBRA meetings onwards. He's been  a day late and a dollar short for everything to do with the pandemic.

He's not been a dollar short for his mates and his mates' mates though the corrupt bastard.

The OED definition of shit is due a change it should now include a reference to Boris Johnson.

The first real impact was a cancelled ski trip on 1 weeks notice. Then my wife was sent home to work and is still doing so. I work in a hospital so have been in all the way through to varying degrees so from a work perspective not a lot changed. We were fortunate in that my site was designated a green site so we could still treat very ill patients safely.

The bigger impact on us has been in our personal life. It’s the old you don’t realise how much you enjoy things until you cant. Not being able to se family, ride and travel has been really difficult to deal with despite making the most of the lifting of restrictions over the summer.

It maybe blind optimism but I’m still hoping we can go to Europe this summer. We were able to last summer and despite all the media we are in a better place this year than we were 12 months  ago where we were at the bottom of the cases mountain