How we’re carrying on – Jacob’s Story

Jacob is a member of the Hear Our Voice Wednesday group. Here is the story of how the pandemic has been for him.

It has been now well over a year since we first heard about Covid and this will be my story.

Looking back at it, one of my earliest memory of the virus is a conversation that I had with my nan on the way to work. I thought that it would have passed in a couple of weeks and very few people will die because the UK is a developed country and the media was making it a bigger deal than it was, looking back on it, that comment was in poor taste. I wish that I had taken it more seriously in the early days.

For the next few weeks, the number of deaths rose, so a lockdown was announced on 23rd of march and it was a scary to me because in a blink of an eye everyday activities ceased and were not reinstated for a year, how weird is that in this day and age.  I miss the simple things like going to the railway station or visiting my family and friends

I watched the news every day and I was shocked by how this disease was taking over the world and it seemed like people was dying at a scary rate. I remember that I saw one day, Spain have lost 1800 and it was terrifying. I also remember some helicopter shots of Trafalgar square in London, it was empty and still, it was like something out of a movie.

Face masks were required outside, and queues formed outside shops, that was odd to me at first but now it is just a part of life and hand sanitizers have become the norm. I remember that toilet rolls became very expensive and there were many battles on auction sites and even one listing was going for four figures. It was a crazy time to be alive and future generations won’t believe us.

I have coped though the three lockdowns by using the internet because there is an endless range of things to watch and read. This helped to take my mind off of the real world

In this lockdown, there was two events that gave me a bit of hope which were the clap for the NHS every Thursday night for a number of weeks. The main thing was Captain Tom Moore fundraising by doing 100 laps of his garden before his 100^th birthday originally, he wanted to rise just £1000 but he ended up with 32.7 million pounds and he earned a special place in our hearts.

The first lockdown ended on Saturday 4^th July and it was a sign of hope for me that things would be alright. My summer was pretty normal, and I went back to my normal activities, but my workplace was still closed.

Over the summer and early autumn, the risk was still there but it was not as prominent as the winter. But cases went in the opposite direction and began to rise again so a second lockdown was announced on the 31st of October, but this time it was only for 4 weeks so was time limited, so it was better than the first lockdown. My memories of this lockdown are less clear because we have gotten used to it.

The next think that I remember hearing the news that a new vaccine has been developed and thinking that this was the beginning of the end for the disease and great, life could go back to normal. And more new vaccines came soon after. I had a good Christmas with a couple of members of my family.

As the clock turned into 2021, I was hopeful, but then I was told that someone that I have been in contact with has tested positive and I would have to do a test. It came back positive, and I was scared for my life because my lungs are weaker than most people.  I remember sitting at my computer stunned and I couldn’t type or do anything for a few minutes. I was living with this killer disease and wondered what will happen to me. Thankfully, it did not affect me that much, I have worst colds in the past and I am very lucky to get a mild dose of covid. We went into another lockdown and it wasn’t a big deal anymore.

I had my vaccine in March, and it didn’t hurt. Things can only get better.