Covid: 5 Years On

Hello and welcome to my new blog 'Covid: 5 Years On'

This week marks 5 years since the UK's first Covid 19 lockdown. This prompted me to write a blog, which hopefully will be viewed by generations to come and give them a first person perspective of life in lockdown in the UK. This post will be talking about pre lockdown and the announcement of  lockdown #1.

       Pre Lockdown: The Rumours

In the first days of 2020, things seemed perfectly normal. Although to me, it didn't really feel normal. A  new virus had been discovered in China, which I had seen posted on Facebook a few times but hadn't taken much notice of. However, these posts became more and more prominent, and when I saw the BBC wrote a news article in February 2020 saying scientists were concerned if it would spread it could be deadly, I started to take notice. Sure enough, later that day I saw an article saying it had been detected in the UK. Now I am beginning to worry, as I had just started working at a railway station as a ticket gate attendant, and could easily catch the virus from any customer at any time. Quickly, the rumours started spreading about where cases of Covid were detected, and before long my colleagues and I were all being encouraged to wear masks, use protective gloves and carry hand sanitiser with us.

As we come into March 2020, rumours that the UK would go into complete lockdown were starting to gather pace. Pictures of hospitals that were already at capacity well before the virus was discovered becoming overwhelmed by patients being admitted with Covid were circulating online, and the majority of the country was now getting worried about the virus. As March goes on, the situation only gets worse, with schools, pubs etc closing and everyone asked to stay at home, which takes us to the next section of this post.

 March 23rd 2020: 8pm

"From this evening I must give the British people a very simple instruction - you must stay at home.

Because the critical thing we must do is stop the disease spreading between households.

That is why people will only be allowed to leave their home for the following very limited purposes:

• shopping for basic necessities, as infrequently as possible
• one form of exercise a day - for example a run, walk, or cycle - alone or with members of your household;
• any medical need, to provide care or to help a vulnerable person; and
• travelling to and from work, but only where this is absolutely necessary and cannot be done from home.

That’s all - these are the only reasons you should leave your home.

You should not be meeting friends. If your friends ask you to meet, you should say No.

You should not be meeting family members who do not live in your home.

You should not be going shopping except for essentials like food and medicine - and you should do this as little as you can. And use food delivery services where you can.

If you don’t follow the rules the police will have the powers to enforce them, including through fines and dispersing gatherings."

These are the exact words that Boris Johnson (then the Prime Minister of England) said during his speech that evening. I watched this announcement, live on TV with my parents, whom I lived with at the time. Shortly afterwards, I posted in a facebook group chat with my friends "Looks like we're going into lockdown now lads." I was working an early shift the next day, so my colleagues both messaged me (the ticket gate attendant team at my old work literally was just 3 of us) on our group chat to find out what was going to happen with our work. I phoned the evening manager at work who advised me to arrive at the station as normal at my start time (6am by the way) and that I would recieve further instructions when I arrived.

That wraps up this evening's post, so make sure to come back next Friday for my next post: The First Weeks of Lockdown. See ya soon :-)