Click on the month below for the headlines, day by day. This page has a summary for each month.
A brief explanation why I started collecting these headlines:
In March 2020, my friend Az went on a Buddhist retreat, which meant that she switched her phone off, and knew nothing of what's happening in the world. However, when she returned from such retreats, she was sometimes confused by being in the middle of news stories, so I tend to keep a record of what's happening in brief, and tell her after the retreat. However March 2020 was not normal... After she had returned, I thought that what I had noted already was interesting, and perhaps I should continue. We were all rather shattered by the pandemic, and so it took me a little time to decide that perhaps I should put this on the web, for anyone else to see. I have added the occasional comment from my diary, plus cartoons and fun things that amused us during the pandemic. I have also lifted stuff from my husband's website Timeline of coronavirus regulation changes in England.
Please note that these headlines refer to UK, or often just England alone. The different parts of the UK often had different rules.
The graphs are made from official figures supplied by Public Health England. However, their rules changed from time to time, so not necessarily 100% comparable! But good enough to get a feel for what's going on.
I have included some politics on these pages, because it was fascinating, wasn't it!
March 2020 (and before) - Covid strikes - first lockdown - Boris Johnson gets Covid
April 2020 - Queen's speech - Boris Johnson in intensive care - Captain Tom - clapping for NHS
May 2020 - allowed to meet a friend in the park - masks may be beneficial - problems with PPE - Dominic Cummings row - "track and trace" system
June 2020 - 14-day quarantine for travellers - masks compulsory on public transport - Colston statue - non-essential items shops open - UK trials of potential vaccine
July 2020 - UK third highest Covid-19 death toll globally - recent virus surge in Leicester - England reopens pubs, restaurants, hairdressers and cinemas - WHO says virus can spread through particles in the air - face masks will be compulsory in shops (but not offices) - Moderna entering final testing phase for its vaccine
August 2020 - tests for Covid-19 that can give results in 90 minutes are to be rolled out - "Eat Out to Help Out" - UK fallen into recession - Facebook and Twitter penalise Donald Trump for "harmful Covid misinformation" - rising cases in Europe - A levels row
September 2020 - 5-10% of cash paid out on the furlough scheme was wrongly awarded - Rule of Six and Operation Moonshot - testing problems - disposable masks 'causing enormous plastic waste' - Israel first country to reimpose second lockdown later this week - UK numbers are doubling roughly every seven days - 1/4 UK population under strict Covid rules
October 2020 - Trump tested positive, in hospital - SNP MP travelled when positive - students self-isolate in accomodation - three-level alert system for England - Manchester row - Marcus Rashford free meals - 12 min test - 20% population under highest tier (3)
November 2020 - second lockdown - results for various vaccines - new tier system to come into place after lockdown - Covid Christmas: 'Avoid board games and sleepovers'
December 2020 - Debenhems closed - new tier system - Pfizer vaccine gets UK approval - First vaccination in UK - new strain of the virus in UK ('Kent variant' then Alpha) - so travel bans from UK - Kent lorry chaos - tier 4 introduced (inc. Cambridge!)
January 2021 -third lockdown - Pfizer, Oxford, Moderna approved in UK - another variant spreading in South Africa (Beta) - Brazilian variant (Gamma/Zeta) - AstraZeneca row with Europe
February 2021 - Captain Tom dies from Covid - UK hotel quarantine - Local elections to go ahead in England (bring your own biro) - Businesses > 50 employees can access lateral flow tests - waiting lists in hospitals growing
March 2021 - Brazil variant appears more contagious - UK's tax burden is to rise to its highest level since the 1960s - government recommending a 1% pay rise for NHS staff - children return to school - Test and Trace appears to have failed - AstraZeneca blood clots - Rule of six - Vigil for Sarah Everard
April 2021 - black British adults Covid hesitancy has halved - twice-weekly free lateral flow tests available - Prince Phillip dies - Queen alone at funeral - "bodies piled high in their thousands"
May 2021 - regulations being relaxed - hugging is also back - Indian variant (Delta) increasing in England - urged people not travel in/out areas hardest hit by Indian variant - Dominic Cummings being questioned by MPs
June 2021 - no UK Covid deaths for the first time since the pandemic began - tutoring sessions for pupils - Delta variant is 40% more transmissible - four-week delay to the lifting of all restrictions - vaccination of all adults - third wave is under way - around two million people in England may have "long Covid" - Matt Hancock's kiss (so resigned)
July 2021 - Masks will become personal choice, except on London's transport - "confusing" rules on face masks - bonfire of regulations - NHS Covid app - "pingdemic" in UK meat processing industry - airports having their busiest weekend since Covid
August 2021 - France has Beta variant - Barbie doll of vaccine designer Prof Dame Sarah Gilbert - 89% had first dose vaccine, 73% had two - fall in vaccine hesitancy - nightclubs open - A levels top grades reach record high
September 2021 - Pupils return amid Covid fears - BBC survey suggests most people do not believe workers will return to the office full-time after pandemic - children aged 12 to 15 in England and Scotland are also now able to get a Covid vaccine - Covid could be more like a common cold by next spring, leading expert has said - lorry driver shortage - furlough scheme ends
October 2021 - Proof of vaccination for nightclubs - Get the jab or another job, Javid tells care staff - 1.1 million people in the UK had long Covid in August - Wolverhampton laboratory Covid testing gave wrong results - UK Covid cases higher now than this time last year - calls for Plan B - AY.4.2 (Delta Plus) - Rishi Sunak says the UK economy is "firmly back on track"
November 2021 - global Covid deaths top five million - Van-Tam said we are in "half time of extra time" in the pandemic in the UK - but the final whistle hasn't blown. But he expects "calmer waters" by the spring - WHO warns Europe once again at epicentre of pandemic - Omicron variant (discovered in South Africa) - masks required on public transport, shops and banks
December 2021 - Omicron could become the UK's dominant variant within weeks - Partygate! November and December last year, No 10 Christmas quiz, wine and cheese in the No 10 garden May 2020 - plan B
January 2022 - Face masks to be worn in England's classrooms - 1 in 15 people in England now have virus - how rapid tests changed the pandemic - Partygate rumbles on - staff held two leaving parties in No 10 on the eve of Prince Philip's funeral - Covid cases seem to be falling across England - Sue Gray report - Front-line NHS workers must be fully vaccinated
February 2022 - government written off £8.7bn on PPE - Canada trucker protest - fallout over lockdown parties - Queen gets Covid - all coronavirus legal restrictions end in England
March 2022 - People with Covid in England no longer legally required to self-isolate, but still recommended
April 2022 - Free testing ended - Record 4.9 million people have the virus in UK - police issuing Partygate fines (including Boris) - I get Covid
May 2022 - Sue Gray publishes report - Covid infections continue to decline in UK, with one in 60 people now affected
June/July 2022 - number in intensive care has reached 217 in England (January 2021, there were more than 3,700 people) - Nearly three million adults in England have still not come forward for a Covid vaccine
August/September 2022 - Queen dies - Covid-19 pandemic is over in the US - Joe Biden
October 2022 (and after) - China abandons key parts of zero-Covid strategy
There are things to note while looking at these graphs. The scale for deaths and cases are completely different. Also, there was improved testing as we went on through the pandemic, so earlier on, case numbers might be low. I have used figures averaged out over the previous week, as deaths (and later, cases) were not well reported at weekends.
However, you can see that there are three waves of cases, the first one in March (which doesn't look that impressive, possibly because of testing problems), the second one before and after Christmas 2020 (possibly due to a new variant), and a massive peak after Christmas 2021 (probably due to Omicron variant, which was highly contagious, but self-administered tests were easily available by then, so reporting improved). The deaths associated with these peaks show first and second are equally high, but by the third wave, deaths dropped dramatically, due to the vaccine. In fact, if you consider the number of deaths relative to cases, there is a general drop in deaths for each wave. The variants seemed to be less lethal than the original virus, perhaps we got better at precautions, such as masks and social distancing and meeting outside or on Zoom, and then, of course, by 2021, the vaccines made a big difference to deaths (if not cases!)
Whether the various political scandals had anything to do with the government approach, I cannot possibly say!
Return to Covid index
© Jo Edkins 2024