A personal reflection/observation/opinion by Katy-Jane Mason on behalf of Virtually Smart Ltd
“I recall it all very clearly. We had heard it on the news SARS-COV2 (Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2) commonly known as Covid19, was starting to infiltrate the UK.
I remember hearing on the radio that four cases had been diagnosed in the UK. At this point no one knew what it was, the data was not available & yet although we were all concerned, we seemed to just carry on regardless. Despite Government advise starting to filter down that a new respiratory disease was amongst us & it was already proving to be highly contagious; the advice was vague. Wash your hands more thoroughly, avoid physical contact with those you do not know & start to keep your distance from others at least two meters.
With news of more cases rising filtering across the media, a slow moving fear started to grip the UK. We remember watching cases flare up across the globe & with China (the then suspected epicentre of the outbreak) having been in a full nationwide lockdown since the beginning of 2020, we started to see other countries follow.
Slowly but surely Europe started to close down. Italy & Spain suddenly shutdown with only hours to spare for any visitors to vacate. Hundreds of thousands of people across the globe scrambled to return home little knowing that this was the beginning of a pandemic & their movements were spreading this unknown disease.
The UK media played on the fears of the UK people & fears of food shortages being bounded around on social media, saw a frenzy of shoppers buying in bulk, shelves emptied within minutes of being stocked. The insanity of the ‘toilet roll’ shortage was startling, with some shoppers actually getting into fights to try & secure products for their homes. This behaviour led to limits being put upon many items, adding to the concerns of those who were vulnerable & who had already been advised by the Government to remain in their homes.
Before we knew it France was in lockdown & as Covid19 advanced, the UK Government started to close us down. Social Distancing became the norm, restaurants & social settings were first to be avoided, then on Friday 20th March 2020 the UK Government closed all bars, restaurants & social settings. Three days later the entire country was plunged into a national lockdown.
Everyone was sent home. Schools & businesses across the UK were forced to close their doors & in the face of the now known Covid19 pandemic, we all ground to a halt.
It was terrifying at first. The general public being reliant solely on news being filtered from the Government & Government Scientists, began to live a life of seclusion & avoiding others. The only shops open were for essentials such as Supermarkets & food halls. We were all advised to stay at home as the cases of Covid19 began to overwhelm the NHS & then the death toll started to rise.
Every day the Government began to hold press conferences to advise of the status of the pandemic. The NHS & care professions were overwhelmed, PPE was in shortage, ventilators to treat the most severe Covid19 patients were in short supply, food was in short supply & so it went on & on.
I remember that in those first few days, my partner & I who run a Motorcycle Business simply went home. We took what small jobs we could work on & began to try & make sense of what this meant for our business. We had frozen our diary & all of our customers had been notified.
Despite our best efforts it was a challenge to try & repair anything in a home setting. Therefore, when the list of essential businesses which could remain open was announced & automotive was included, we went back to the workshop. As it was just us, we were not a risk to any employees & we tried to make sense of it all, while all around us nothing made sense.
Like so many other businesses we learnt very quickly to adapt. We offered safe collections of customers motorcycles from their homes. We sanitised everything which came into the workshop, offered remote payments & we prioritised our Keyworker customers.
Monday 23rd March 2020 changed us all. Despite the vast challenges the Covid19 pandemic has put upon us & irrespective of the immense backlash to the way in which the pandemic was handled by the UK Government & sadly the evidence to support the fact that No 10 did not always abide by the Covid Laws they implemented; we are forever changed. These last two years will be etched on our memories forever & yet we are still not Covid free.
The emotional, psychological & financial scars are still fresh & despite the fact that we are now encouraged to “live with” Covid19, the pandemic is still here. At the time of writing there are still areas globally which are seeing large surges in Covid cases & vast swathes of China are back in lockdowns as they see increasing spikes in the disease. Mask wearing is being reintroduced in some areas of Europe as Covid cases rise again.
Therefore, are we out of the woods yet? The answer is no. Can we learn to adapt, I feel the answer is yes given the right resources, support & accurate information all of which are an immeasurable challenge.”
A personal reflection on the impact of the first Covid19 lockdown, written by Katy-Jane Mason for & on behalf of Virtually Smart Ltd.
Note: This blog is a personal reflection & opinion from one individuals point of view & based on the information as interpreted by them. This blog does not represent the feelings & opinions of any other member of the Virtually Smart Ltd team.
