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.”