Although the UK has been put under quarantine for the last three weeks the Corona virus has been known for a while. It was early January when it was one of the major headlines on the BBC that there had been the beginnings of an outbreak in China. It was first located in the Chinese city of Wuhan where there were maybe cases which at this point were only in the tens, definitely under 100. Even though hearing things like this does somewhat scare me it all seemed so far away and I forgot about it in the next couple of hours when I had more important and contemporary issues that quickly occupied my mind.

To me this would be another outbreak of a disease that would potentially catch the eye of people around the world and cause minor concern, only for it to be quickly contained and dealt with and for us to hear little about it again. I guess I thought this because in my life, being a twenty – one year old, I have only known for instances like this to be controlled. If you think about it, during my life I can only remember a few significant outbreaks such as swine – flu and Ebola. Both which worried me but we were all reassured when we heard that they had managed to limit the spread. I honestly thought this would be the same for what we now know as the COVID-19 pandemic.

I started to realise that it was becoming a more and more major topic of discussion when I began hearing people mentioning it on campus at University and at the gym along with making dark humoured jokes about it. At this point everyone kind of new about the corona virus but no one was taking it seriously, yet.

It was when I was seeing stories of how fast this virus was spreading through the city of Wuhan that I realised it was quickly becoming an epidemic in China. However the first time I realised that it was something that was going to affect almost every country was when it was said that apparently symptoms sometimes only become present a week or two after catching the corona virus. I knew this meant that the virus was almost impossible to track and contain at this point as it was extremely difficult to know who had caught it. What happened next was something that I have never seen in my life, the whole city of Wuhan was put into quarantine and eventually the whole of China were self isolating. The incredible pictures of cities in china that showed they were completely deserted was something that shocked me, like the picture above that I have included in this post.

I think everyone knew, I definitely knew myself, that this was an eventual reality for all of us. Now that I look back at it there were a lot of us who were in denial of how serious this going to become. People at my gym and tennis club were saying how things were probably going to have to shut for three weeks. But as we kept on hearing updates from the Government we all realised our fears deep down that this was going to take much longer. Although I knew at some point we were going to have self isolate I didn’t realise how quickly it was all going to happen. One Friday I was having a normal tennis lesson with my coach and the next Friday I was inside listening to Boris Johnson instructing us to stay at home with only going out for essential shopping and for one bit of exercise a day.

Although only three weeks has passed since then but it has felt like a long time and every day produces a greater eagerness for things to go back to how they were. That vision of how good it will be is the thing that I’m trying to focus on at this point in time and I think everyone is waiting for when that day comes. But for now we have to occupy ourselves and find new ways to entertain ourselves or go back to old ways. For instance I have taken up drawing again to pass the time.

What I have also noticed is how the everyday people at the front-line of the NHS and social workers are replacing sports stars and celebrities as our icons. I hope in this tough period that as a society we take positives to take into a new period when things get back to normal and that we become more appreciative of the things and people that we take for granted on a daily basis.

Thank you for reading my first blog piece! I hope you enjoyed it and please check my website for new articles and blogs which I hope to post in the near future.