What was it for you? For me the first time was when I saw a line outside of a grocery store, mandating masks with people 6 feet apart. And a security guard at the front door to enforce.
When the neon light at the bar around the corner turned off.
That's a sad one. So many stories like this. I remember walking downtown Ann Arbor and there being nobody around. Not even any cars going by. I remember being very scared of going outside. I remember thinking to myself as a girl walked by (six feet away) that if I could smell her perfume I could probably inhale her viral droplets. There are so many examples of changes in our world, but also in how we are interpreting the world. The changes in our mental landscape. I hope the bar will get to turn its sign back on again.
Great news, tng. It’s back on! That bar has been humming since the 1930s and is one of the most beloved institutions in this town. If anyone from Hubski finds their way to this city, I’d love to buy a beer there.
When mk posted an article titled something like "You will probably get covid-19", I knew that the world was about to change. Wuhan was already on lockdown, and the fatality rate was believed to be possibly as high as 2% or so, at the time, so yeah, I figured covid would be the event that defined this era. Family thought I was crazy.
When the lady who ran https://www.flattenthecurve.com/ (Julie McMurry) quit running the site, posted on twitter about how we're doomed, and exited society. At the time that was by far the most levelheaded and reasonable site on what to do about COVID, and seeing that site turn into apocolyptia was terrifying.
I had a coat I ordered online which I didn't know at the time came from China. Months went by, no coat. Like ordered it in November and it didn't show up. At the same time I started hearing all the weird stuff in Wuhan. I eventually put it together when I saw a post on Slatestarcodex about it. Which said that masks probably work. Then everybody bought TP.
I was on holiday in Scotland with my wife, brother, and sister-in-law in March 2020. We tried to go to the Edradour Distillery and Urqhardt Castle (Loch Ness) on the same day, and both had been closed for COVID. But we were expecting that. It was when we came home that it really hit me. Heathrow > JFK > SeaTac airports. Each airport had COMPLETELY DIFFERENT protocols for handling people, and none of them made much medical sense. THAT was when I knew we were fucked, and our governments were going to fuck the whole thing up for everyone.
I remember stocking up the pantry early in February, but it was still a "what if" scenario then in my mind. "The Moment" came much later, March 13th, when all the sports were cancelled. Formula 1 decided to cancel the season premiere one hour before the first session on Friday, Indycar did the same thing, and the week after the Swedish soccer league postponed the start of the season indefinitely.
Maybe I was just more tapped in, or maybe it's just because I've played the original Pandemic game a few too many times, but sometime after things started to go south in Italy I knew that shit was bad and the world was going to change.
My girlfriend is Italian, and she was following it closely. At first I was dismissive, but as it escalated I started realising it was only a matter of time before it would spread far beyond Italy. When people in the UK were still in deep denial, I was just bracing for it.
My boss at the time was also really keyed in, so it was something that we were all talking about at work, being like "man, idunno wtf is gonna happen."