When was the moment you realised Covid was serious?

[Bit of hope]

Sadly and unbelievably, there are still people who believe it is a hoax and a conspiracy by the government to control the citizens--- All I can say is: OY VAY

Sorry but what is OY VAY?

 

[gogrannypop]

January 2020- I overheard a doctor at work discussing what had not yet officially reached our American borders. He is far from an alarmist so the alarm I heard scared me. I began taking precautions. I made my own masks out of material for my household etc. I seemed to be the overreacting weirdo until they abruptly closed my child’s school in March “for up to 2 weeks”.

Same for me- Jan. of 2020. Bought extra canned food and staples.

 

[musicaljoke]

It was around the middle of March 2020 when it hit me that this was real and would affect me, even though I was safely situated on an island in northern Ontario, Canada. I knew it was serious when our church agreed that we would not meet again until the virus had resolved. Occasionally we would cancel church for winter storms, but never had we cancelled church for an unknown length of time.

I was at the piano that Sunday and as people were leaving, I played the old hymn, 'Til We Meet Again. I had tears flowing down my face, thinking that it could be well into May or June before my beloved church family would get back together again.

I couldn't imagine that there would be children born and walking and we would still be separated.

 

[Bit of hope]

It was around the middle of March 2020 when it hit me that this was real and would affect me, even though I was safely situated on an island in northern Ontario, Canada. I knew it was serious when our church agreed that we would not meet again until the virus had resolved. Occasionally we would cancel church for winter storms, but never had we cancelled church for an unknown length of time.

I was at the piano that Sunday and as people were leaving, I played the old hymn, 'Til We Meet Again. I had tears flowing down my face, thinking that it could be well into May or June before my beloved church family would get back together again.

I couldn't imagine that there would be children born and walking and we would still be separated.

So nicely said. At least your church made a good decision. How many didn't ignore it and gathered with so many people, totally dismissing the measures.

 

[MrX]

Another vote for when NBA suspended season. I remember talk of having the NCAA Tournament without fans and thinking how outrageous that was - and then everything stopped, and a tourney without fans suddenly seemed like a luxury. Then came the empty shelves, and going on expeditions for supplies, like we were living in the Walking Dead universe.

Our Governor announced a two week lockdown on, I think, March 18, 2o2o. I remember we all gathered at the pub and people were saying "see you in two weeks." Already, at that point, I knew that the only way to defeat a pandemic was through Test/Trace/Isolate/Repeat. I also fully realized that there was no chance of that approach every working in the U.S. So, as people were leaving, prior to the lock down deadline, I remember telling a friend "it's not going to be 'two weeks' - we'll be lucky if we're back by September." She bet me a beer that we'd be back at the pub at the beginning of April - I've yet to collect on that one.

When the first 'two week' lockdown was extended, my wife and I decided that, since this was never going to end, we were going to try to live normal lives. As she said "I've got to die of something." At that point we started to attend and host house parties with like-minded friends. On May 11, 2020, the Governor allowed restaurants to reopen - since my "pub" is also a restaurant, that meant the bar was open. So, in my little corner of the world, things really returned to normal after six weeks. The summer and winter, of 2020, were tense, as people weren't stupid - they could see an empty restaurant in front and a packed bar in back, know that maybe this wasn't exactly what the "spirit of the regulations" meant - but we survived. The Covid Police came twice, and didn't find anything, and, despite a lot of new permanent coughs, no one was hospitalized or died. Those six weeks were absolute torture for me, and my heart breaks, almost every day, as I read about the isolation many of you have maintained for over 18 months. I don't regret choosing to keep living in the moment. I hope you all have found the same peace in your choices.

 

[Bit of hope]

Another vote for when NBA suspended season. I remember talk of having the NCAA Tournament without fans and thinking how outrageous that was - and then everything stopped, and a tourney without fans suddenly seemed like a luxury. Then came the empty shelves, and going on expeditions for supplies, like we were living in the Walking Dead universe.

Our Governor announced a two week lockdown on, I think, March 18, 2o2o. I remember we all gathered at the pub and people were saying "see you in two weeks." Already, at that point, I knew that the only way to defeat a pandemic was through Test/Trace/Isolate/Repeat. I also fully realized that there was no chance of that approach every working in the U.S. So, as people were leaving, prior to the lock down deadline, I remember telling a friend "it's not going to be 'two weeks' - we'll be lucky if we're back by September." She bet me a beer that we'd be back at the pub at the beginning of April - I've yet to collect on that one.

When the first 'two week' lockdown was extended, my wife and I decided that, since this was never going to end, we were going to try to live normal lives. As she said "I've got to die of something." At that point we started to attend and host house parties with like-minded friends. On May 11, 2020, the Governor allowed restaurants to reopen - since my "pub" is also a restaurant, that meant the bar was open. So, in my little corner of the world, things really returned to normal after six weeks. The summer and winter, of 2020, were tense, as people weren't stupid - they could see an empty restaurant in front and a packed bar in back, know that maybe this wasn't exactly what the "spirit of the regulations" meant - but we survived. The Covid Police came twice, and didn't find anything, and, despite a lot of new permanent coughs, no one was hospitalized or died. Those six weeks were absolute torture for me, and my heart breaks, almost every day, as I read about the isolation many of you have maintained for over 18 months. I don't regret choosing to keep living in the moment. I hope you all have found the same peace in your choices.

Interesting and a totally different approach. I'm very happy non of you got ill and I agree with your wife "I've got to die of something.", but I would rather not catch long Covid and survive.....Now I'm vaccinated I still could get it...but it wouldn't get me that severely ill that it would be my end. I found peace in my choices.

 

[SouthAussie]

I’ve got another (sorry, but this time it’s a nice one!)

Enjoying the glorious sunshine in the garden during lockdown #1. Realising the sky was empty (I live quite near an airport) and that I could hear the church bells chime clearly every hour as there was no traffic or noise. The air felt clean and it was just sooo quiet.

It felt like we were doing a shut down and restart, and I considered the potential positives of that (didn’t think we’d be stuck on the blue screen of death for this long though…)

I recall seeing the photos of animals venturing into the deserted streets of towns all over the place. Sheep and deer and ducks wandering down the paved roads.

 

[Spy Versus Spy]

Cheers Cags.

I got a very strange feeling reading the first brief article, from the BBC, reporting a new mystery respiratory disease in China in January 2020. It struck me as if I was reading the article from the post-apocalyptic future! Very very unlike me to have such a sense.

Posted the article elsewhere iirc, will try to find it.



The first hard reality however was hearing the Buffoon Johnson in the first address to the Nation stating that we would all lose someone close to us or who we knew. It was reminiscent of the early cold war nuclear presentations.


The farce that has followed is staggering.

 

[CoverMeCagney]

I recall seeing the photos of animals venturing into the deserted streets of towns all over the place. Sheep and deer and ducks wandering down the paved roads.

Oh yes, the goats of Llandudno came down from the hill and wandered around the empty streets!

Coronavirus: Goats take over empty streets of seaside town

 

[Spy Versus Spy]

Cheers Cags.

I got a very strange feeling reading the first brief article, from the BBC, reporting a new mystery respiratory disease in China in January 2020. It struck me as if I was reading the article from the post-apocalyptic future! Very very unlike me to have such a sense.

Posted the article elsewhere iirc, will try to find it.



The first hard reality however was hearing the Buffoon Johnson in the first address to the Nation stating that we would all lose someone close to us or who we knew. It was reminiscent of the early cold war nuclear presentations.


The farce that has followed is staggering.

Earlyish report

BBC News - China pneumonia outbreak: Mystery virus probed in Wuhan China pneumonia outbreak: Mystery virus probed in Wuhan

 

[LaborDayRN]

I was in Valencia in the hotel lobby when I first saw reference to the virus in China. It caught my attention, but I didn’t look much more into it for a day or two. The next leg of my trip was to be in London for a week. I read more about the virus spreading during the flight to London. When I got to the hotel, I changed flights to return to the states the next day. The situation felt concerning and I wanted to get home quickly. The day I returned home, I stocked up on supplies from Amazon. Two weeks later schools began closing.
I have not left the country since. Though I am fully vaccinated, I am not yet comfortable enough to take that step.

My husband and I feel the same way. We are also fully vaccinated but we're not ready to travel abroad. Actually, I'm not ready to take a flight!

 

[LaborDayRN]

Sorry but what is OY VAY?

Oy vey (Yiddish: אױ װײ‎) is a Yiddish phrase expressing dismay or exasperation. Also spelled oy vay, oy veh, or oi vey, and often abbreviated to oy, the expression may be translated as, "oh, woe!" or "woe is me!" Its Hebrew equivalent is oy vavoy
Oy vey - Wikipedia

 

[Bit of hope]

Oy vey (Yiddish: אױ װײ‎) is a Yiddish phrase expressing dismay or exasperation. Also spelled oy vay, oy veh, or oi vey, and often abbreviated to oy, the expression may be translated as, "oh, woe!" or "woe is me!" Its Hebrew equivalent is oy vavoy
Oy vey - Wikipedia

Thanks. Learning something every day.

 

[MrX]

Interesting and a totally different approach. I'm very happy non of you got ill and I agree with your wife "I've got to die of something.", but I would rather not catch long Covid and survive.....Now I'm vaccinated I still could get it...but it wouldn't get me that severely ill that it would be my end. I found peace in my choices.

It was terrifying. Wife got sick in Summer of 2020 when there were no tests and our Doctor's voice mail was full and rejecting messages. We dealt with the reality of friends saying "she's really sick and I'm worried, but it's not Covid." That assessment was based on the fact that if they knew if it was Covid, they'd have to quarantine and miss work. Same everywhere, I assume. We only knew it was Covid when, nine months later, her Dr said "let's check." She was had antibodies. Maybe we are in a unique place - late 50's, early 60's and only a finite number of "good" years left. We simply weren't prepared to sentence ourselves to a life of solitary confinement.

I know our approach is very foreign to most here, and I've been told that there are other forums. The reality is that our position is very under represented. I have a very hard time on forums populated with virus deniers and anti-vaxers. I have friends that believe "2+2=5," when it comes to this. I hope that you all understand that we are not "those people." But, when I read the main thread I find myself asking "why is a potential 'next year' more sacred than the one we have now?" I hope someone can help me understand that.

 

[NoSI]

Hmm, good question. Honestly going to work and seeing that they had put up a large tent outside the ED as an overflow area. I think that is when it hit me.

 

[Snoopster]

End of February 2020. My father had a medical emergency in Toronto. I dropped everything to drive there from a couple of hours away. Just as I headed out I saw the news that the virus had spread to Italy. That's when I knew. I took one of my hubby's N95 drywall masks with me as I knew I would be at a critical care hospital in a major international city. I arrived at the hospital and there wasn't a mask in sight, including on hospital staff. I was shocked.

This was Toronto....where SARS took a toll. Hadn't we learned anything? I spent the next 2 weeks at the hospital daily. By the end of the 2 weeks, staff were now requesting that visitors wear masks if they had respiratory symptoms. My siblings had all fallen victim to a vicious cold/respiratory affliction. Was it Covid?? I'll never know.

After 2 weeks of exhausting hospital visits I returned to my job, but the office of 2,ooo had already shut down. Serious stuff. We've never been back.

 

[TGIRecovered]

I new it was bad when China started shutting everything down in early January 2020.

I was shocked when the schools and businesses in the U.S. shut down but I was glad that they did.

My city wasn't hard hit until April or May 2020.

Now, all of the ICU beds within a couple hundred miles are full again and our hospitals are opening new floors for Covid patients.

 

[Eridanus]

I keep a journal, and on my entry for Friday, March 13, 2020, I wrote that the school district my husband drives a bus for had closed as of that day. I remember being stunned by that. Also, according to the entry, that was the day I dropped my diabetic cat's insulin and broke the bottle, which was almost new. $150 bucks to replace it. I'm a retired medical transcriptionist who is now a homemaker (I call myself a household manager), and as I rarely went anywhere and already had a good stockpile of things we use all the time it didn't affect us too much at the beginning. I sewed us up some masks, but the one to cover my husband's beard was such a pain to sew that I told him, when he went back to work in September doing bus maintenance and other miscellaneous jobs, that if anyone wanted to know if I could sew a beard mask for them, to tell them, "No." We got our vaccines as soon as we were eligible, and we've been wearing masks and taking other precautions, and we haven't been sick.

 

[Teche]

January 2020- I overheard a doctor at work discussing what had not yet officially reached our American borders. He is far from an alarmist so the alarm I heard scared me. I began taking precautions. I made my own masks out of material for my household etc. I seemed to be the overreacting weirdo until they abruptly closed my child’s school in March “for up to 2 weeks”.

For me, it was March 11th when the schools closed in Louisiana and my husband and I became “teachers” to our 2 primary school grandkids and a toddler. I knew we were in the throes of it. We struggled to learn zoom. I could see the fear in my daughter's eyes. She’s Nicu NP and her husband is an ER nurse. Thankfully, now we're vaccinated.

 

[Deleted member 158085]

I bought my first cloth mask on Amazon in either late January or early February, hoping I was wrong. But I guess I knew then because I had my mother and us start stocking up on food and TP. Then there were several, "oh , this is real" moments in the coming weeks.

My entire family got together with my dad for birthdays in a restaurant the second week of February. I told my husband then that would be my last time eating out until this was over.. Afterwards, I found out a relative who my dad was living with had just returned from Italy just as things were getting really bad there. All of us kids agreed to stay the hell away from my mother (who wasn't at the gathering) for at least two weeks. We had several days to think about our entire family being wiped out, as we had been hearing of this happening to others.

Then in mid-march my workplace shut down. Then the entire state shut down and I truly panicked that day, when my husbandgot the call to work remotely as well. We had stocked up and had everything we needed, but I was still in a panic.

I mean panic completely overtook me that day.

I would have remained in that state for perhaps weeks if that Indiana hospital had not put out a plea for cloth masks about 48 hours later. Focusing on what I could do to help washed away the panic and is what made me able to survive this thing mentally and emotionally.

I have never been so grateful for a skill in all of my life. I thanked God and my Granny for that.