Covid five years on: How the awful reality unfolded in just a few weeks

As Nigel Farage and his supporters prepared for their 11pm party in Parliament Square to celebrate Britain’s departure from the EU, reports of two Chinese nationals testing positive for coronavirus in York slipped through almost unnoticed. On the day Brexit finally happened, after three-and-a-half years of wrangling, two overseas visitors being taken ill in a provincial hotel room was always going to take second place.

How little did we know. 

A few days earlier, it had been reported that the Chinese government had cancelled its New Year celebrations, and placed the little-known city of Wuhan under something called 'lockdown'. Pictures emerged of deserted streets, and worried-looking locals peering longingly out of their windows for signs of life. But that was China, wasn't it? That sort of thing didn't happen in the free world.

On January 29,, 2020, just at Brexit supporters were preparing to party, Britain became the 23rd country in the world to record the infection, after two Chinese men were taken ill while staying in York. The news came days after the first cases were reported in Germany and France. On February 6, after another case was detected in Brighton, the Government told travellers arriving from nine east-Asian countries to check for symptoms. They were advised to stay at home, and call the NHS if they felt unwell.

And it was getting closer. On February 8 it emerged West Midland lorry driver Alan Steele was in isolation after testing positive while on a cruise ship for his honeymoon. Mr Steele, 58, who had just married Wolverhampton-based nurse Wendy in Little Drayton, Shropshire, was on the Diamond Princess which had been quarantined off Yokohama Bay in Japan. On February 28 another passenger became the first British person to die from the virus. By March 16, at least 712 of the Princess’s 3,711 passengers had tested positive. By the following month, 14 had died.

Five years ago today we were a week away from that address from Prime Minister Boris Johnson, telling us that a full lockdown was being imposed across the United Kingdom.

It didn’t come as a big surprise, yet the shock of our changed circumstances would have profound consequences for many.

The full lockdown was imposed on March 23, 2020. But the previous week the idea that coronavirus was someone else’s problem had disappeared. It was very much here and now and there was a rising sense of foreboding.

And with the arrival of Covid into this country, so began the grim daily tally of deaths that would become part of our routine for the next couple of years.

David Loughton was at home a week or so earlier on March 7 when his telephone rang. The news was the last thing he wanted to hear.

Wolverhampton's New Cross Hospital, where he was chief executive, had just confirmed its first coronavirus patient.

Lockdown was still a while away, and there still only 200 coronavirus patients in the country. But the following day, Wednesfield great-grandmother Carol Barclay became the fourth person in the UK to die from the new virus.

Mrs Barclay, who was 73, had previously worked for the hospital trust as a catering supervisor. She left husband-of-53-years Frank, 75, daughters Mandy, 52, and Katherine, 49, plus four grandchildren and five great-grandchildren.

“That day, March 7, will stay with me forever,” Mr Loughton said. “At that time we didn’t know the challenges that would face us and I could never have dreamed of anything this bad."

Despite the tragic news, early reports about the threat of a global pandemic were still met with widespread scepticism. Bird flu, swine flu and the Sars virus had all come and gone. Surely this was just another scare story?

March 10 marked the opening of the Cheltenham horse-racing festival, attracting more than a quarter of a million people over four days. 

Liverpool's Champions League tie with Atletico Madrid was also played, along with 10 Premier League matches and Rugby Union games at Twickenham and Murrayfield. 

There were dissenting voices: the Champions League tie was particularly contentious, given that the coronavirus was already rife in Madrid. 

But the events went ahead, and the crowds packed into venues as they would normally do.

Sue Smith, senior medical officer at Cheltenham Racecourse, insisted: “The standards of hand wash and hygiene at the festival were of the highest level and all measures were taken in accordance with daily updates from Public Health England.”

Prime Minister Boris Johnson issued an instruction that people should stay at home if they experienced either a high temperature or a new and continuous cough, but there was little sense of a national emergency.

On March 11, the second day of the Cheltenham festival, the World Health Organisation declared a global pandemic, but few people grasped the significance of what that would mean.

The following Monday, March 16, Prime Minister Boris Johnson chaired an emergency meeting of the Cobra committee. In the evening, he addressed the nation in what would become the first of a series of daily press conferences to update the public on the virus.

He reinforced the message that anyone with a new cough or high temperature should stay at home for 14 days, emphasising that they should not leave the house to go shopping, and should seek the help of others for their daily necessities.

He warned that the virus was about to enter a period of rapid growth.

"Without drastic action, cases could double every five or six days," he said. He urged people to stop non-essential contact, and avoid all unnecessary travel.

"We need people to start working from home where they possibly can. And you should avoid pubs, clubs, theatres and other such social venues."

It was initially though that the virus was most likely to spread through physical contact, rather than airborne transmission that later proved to be the case. People were advised that face masks would provide little protection, but were told to wash their hands regularly to prevent the spread of the virus, prompting nationwide panic-buying of hand cleanser and toilet rolls. Supermarket shelves were stripped bare as people stocked up, and profiteers began selling increasingly scarce items on the internet for extortionate prices.

Supermarket shelves were stripped bare as people stocked up, and profiteers began selling increasingly scarce items on the internet for extortionate prices.

There was an almost manic rush for essentials like toilet rolls, which some corner shops making a tidy profit as they sold their stock at inflated prices.

Handwash and soap were in incredibly short supply. As the nation believed touch was the main conveyor of the virus, so it became obsessed with handwashing for the required period of time. There were jokes in the press that people were scrubbing so hard that their knuckles were turning raw.

At this point, the instruction was very much advisory, and assumed to be temporary. 

Few people expected major disruption to their everyday lives, although there was real shock when Sir Patrick Vallance, the UK government’s chief scientific adviser, told MPs on March 17 that keeping the total number of Covid-19 deaths under 20,000 would be “a good outcome”. Surely the number wouldn’t be that high?

That illusion that Covid would be a brief passing phase proved short-lived. 

On March 18, Mr Johnson announced the indefinite closure of schools, with A-levels and GCSEs cancelled, to curb the spread of coronavirus. This was entering unprecedented territory.

While schoolchildren were initially pleased to have time our of the classroom, the situation created what has become known as the ‘Covid generation’. Schooling was hastily arranged virtually through Teams and question were asked about the impact on the education of students. There later followed huge controversy over ‘exam’ grades in the absence of an exam. Many were created by an algorithm and were seen as grossly unfair to many children. That led to a hasty U-turn and the input of teachers was allowed.

The closing in of British society continued as the week continued.

On the Friday March 20, the Prime Minister appeared before the media to announce that all pubs, bars, restaurants gyms and theatres must close from midnight.

It was a cliff edge decision. The night before, venues had been as busy as normal, serving food and drink to locals. Concerts and theatres had been operating. A couple of days earlier, young people packed into a Jax Jones concert at Birmingham’s 02 Academy, where they crammed tightly on to the danceflooor.

The Grand Theatre found its spring programme of shows ripped up overnight.

CEO and Artistic Director Adrian Jackson put out a message on its website that was defiant in the face of one of the biggest crises it had ever faced.

He said: “The Grand Theatre has been open throughout the reign of 6 Monarchs and 28 Prime Ministers. It has also survived two World Wars and with your fantastic support, the team and I will do everything we can to ensure it survives COVID-19.”

 Many responded to the impending closure of venues by heading out for one last night out. Many pubs were busier than normal as people enjoyed the privilege of ordering a pint at the bar – a pleasure in life that would be absent for many months to come.

Football and other sport also stopped. Questions were asked how the disruption would impact in leagues. The fact is that, while professional football managed to return in the higher leagues, many were simply scrapped for the year.

There were rumours that, following these drastic steps, a full lockdown was on its way.

We had watched the coverage on TV of empty streets in China and Italy, believing the island country of Britain was somehow immune, but Covid was to catch up with us and its bite was hard.

The following Monday, Mr Johnson addressed the nation again, and by this time the tone had become notably more sombre.

"Without a huge national effort to halt the growth of this virus, there will come a moment when no health service in the world could possibly cope," the normally ebullient Prime Minister warned gravely.

"There won’t be enough ventilators, enough intensive care beds, enough doctors and nurses.

"To put it simply, if too many people become seriously unwell at one time, the NHS will be unable to handle it - meaning more people are likely to die, not just from Coronavirus but from other illnesses as well.

"It is crucial to grasp this that the general threat to public health comes not from focusing too much on Covid, but from not focusing enough, from failing to get it under control. And so now is the time to take action because there is no alternative. You must stay at home. You may only leave home for specific reasons, including for education, for work if you cannot work from home, for exercise and recreation outdoors, with your household or on your own with one person from another household; 

"For medical reasons, appointments and to escape injury or harm; To shop for food and essentials; And to provide care for vulnerable people, or as a volunteer.”

This was serious. And lockdown had reached these shores.

Mr Johnson announced that all 'non-essential' shops, including those selling clothing, would be ordered to shut immediately, along with libraries, playgrounds and places of worship. 

Public gatherings of more than two people were prohibited, with the exception of people who lived together. All social events, including weddings, baptisms and other ceremonies, were also banned.

Parks would remain open for exercise, but gatherings would be dispersed, he warned. The measures would be in place for three weeks, after which they would be reviewed.

"No Prime Minister wants to enact measures like this," the Prime Minister told the nation. "I know the damage that this disruption is doing and will do to people’s lives, to their businesses and to their jobs."

He promised a huge and unprecedented programme of support, both for workers and for business. The archaic word 'furlough' re-entered the popular lexicon as the Government announced it would pay 80 per cent of the wages of employees who were laid off as a result of the lockdown, up to a cap of £2,500 a month.

Mr Loughton recalled how rapidly the situation developed. Little more than an month of the hospital's first patient testing positive for the coronavirus, the hospital was having to deal with 282 Covid in-patients.

By the time the first lockdown came up for review, on April 16, the virus had well and truly taken hold. 

The previous day, 861 patients had died in hospital from the disease - eight of them in Dudley, and four in Wolverhampton - taking the total national death toll to 13,729.Facemasks being handed out at Wolverhampton railway station as well as others like Shrewsbury.

It came as no surprise when the Government elected to extend the lockdown for another three weeks. 

The pandemic had well and truly arrived, and was here to stay. 

The only question was how long it would be before the rising number of fatalities stopped mounting - and how long before normality would return.