This ‘cure’ for the virus is a curse

LIFE gets tougher. The suicide rate is up, people are dying for lack of hospital treatment for conditions that kill more than Covid, the nation is turning to drink and winter is on the way.

There’s a pandemic of loneliness and depression, fuelled by all of the above, plus the feeling of frustration and abandonment when you can’t get through to your GP surgery to book the flu jab you need. I’m one of many trying for three weeks now.

Then there’s the testing scandal. A young friend’s little daughter, two days into school in London for the first time, had a tiny little cough. Naturally, her parents thought she should be tested.

After 36 hours of hunting one down, an email came offering a test in Inverness. And we are supposed to keep sane?

Now let me share an innocent moment. We live on a farmhomestead, our house plus three cottages converted by previous owners from farm buildings. One is the holiday let my husband runs (empty all summer, of course).

My son’s cottage contains the four of them and adjoining it is the home rented by my daughter-in-law’s close friend Sarah, a divorced mum-of-one.

It was a beautiful afternoon, so I strolled up to chat to the two girls outside Sarah’s door. With the three children playing there, we immediately made six. Ten minutes later, a car pulled up and out stepped their chum from the village, all smiles to see me, full of warm (socially distanced) greetings.

At that moment my husband, gardening nearby, stepped up to say hello, too. So we became eight. So friendly in the sunshine . . . yet we could be reported to the authorities by any busybody peering over the wall, as if this were Communist Romania, terrified into submission by the Securitate.

That’s where we are. A deluge of emails responding to my article last week rejecting the ‘rule of six’ and its possible impact on family Christmases dubbed me a hero and a zero. I remain firmly convinced the ‘cure’ is a curse.

Bel answers readers’ questions on emotional and relationship problems each week. Write to Bel Mooney, Daily Mail, 2 Derry Street, london W8 5TT, or email bel.mooney@dailymail.co.uk. Names are changed to protect identities. Bel reads all letters but regrets she cannot enter into personal correspondence.