We’re back at square one... but we can’t lose hope of better days lying ahead
This has already been one of the worst years anyone can remember. Yesterday any hope of it suddenly redeeming itself was cruelly snatched away. We have already endured so much, made so many sacrifices, suffered blow after blow… and now we know for certain the end is not even nearly in sight.
The only sure thing amidst all this uncertainty is that life is going to be extremely difficult, for everyone, for the next six months at the very least. It’s going to be the winter of our discontent. Hope has thrown in the towel.
We are used to things getting colder and darker at this time of year, but usually that’s just literally – the temperature drops, the clocks go back. In 2020, it’s happening metaphorically too.
It is 204 days since Boris Johnson first ordered us all to stay at home. Back then, there was a certain novelty to it and a sense of national pride at how well we pulled together.
And as long as coronavirus hadn’t devastated you – taken someone you loved or ruined you financially – you could distract yourself from fear and anxiety with the surreal drama of it all.
But the novelty of living under restrictions wore off long ago. We have Pandemic Fatigue.
Lockdown has exhausted us, taken some of us to our very limits, broken others.
The only thing that kept many of us going was that it appeared to be working, infections were down, death rates plummeting. It seemed we were winning – maybe we’d even won – the war.
But now that battle has been reduced to a game of Snakes and Ladders, and we have slipped right down a lengthy y reptile, all the way back to square one.
It’s hard not to feel the enormous efforts of the past six months have been entirely pointless.
And that’s before we even acknowledge the tragic reality that we are being led through this crisis by a group of woefully incompetent liars, lurching from mistake to disaster, baffling us with inconsistent rules that don’t make sense, and which they only follow themselves when they feel like it.
The falsehood that coronavirus is only dangerous for the elderly, or those with existing health conditions – two groups who do actually matter, rather than being expendable, by the way – has long been blown out of the water.
WLife is going to be difficult for the next six months at least
e now know it’s not about simply whether you survive the virus or not. Many young, previously fit as a fiddle people are suffering the effects of the newly recognised debilitating condition Long Covid – lasting fatigue, persistent pain, breathlessness – and some may never recover. There is more than one way to end a life.
The “new normal” future that rolls ahead of us across winter is bleak.
Childhoods are having the joy sucked from them at every turn. Yes, kids can still go to school (if they’re not in a bubble which bursts) but that’s about their only freedom.
My son Albie’s long-planned elaborate sixth birthday party was replaced with a careful play in the park with a handful of friends, that only went ahead because we were lucky with the weather. Worse, he knew, after being stuck inside hearing our conversations, and news reports, that he wasn’t really allowed to mind.
The lives of teenagers and young adults have been even more curtailed, liberties dashed away from under their noses.
A time usually completely about hanging out with mates, finding out who you really are, striving for independence from your parents is ruined. Even if you managed to get to university, it’s a bizarrely distorted version; online lectures in your room, no socialising, all the aspects that make it a transformative experience forbidden. And then there’s the elderly, casually discussed by some cold-hearted commentators as pretty dispensable. Once again, many of them are left isolated, bored and fearful. Some feel anxious to set foot outside their front door.
I have found it agonising trying to keep my mum at a safe distance because of the virus, while holding her close enough emotionally to keep her spirits up. Many in this age bracket aren’t technologically savvy, so can’t even connect with others remotely and so become increasingly isolated in every sense of the word.
As our columnist Val Savage, 72, wrote: “Everybody’s answer is ‘ go online’. I don’t know how to go online. I wasn’t brought up with ‘go online’. I was brought up with an abacus. It’s ridiculous. Go online to do your shopping. They
don’t think of old people.” Social isolation has also been associated with an approximately 50% increased risk of developing dementia, a 29% increased risk of incident coronary heart disease and a 32% increased risk of a stroke.
Then there is the heartbreaking plight of those in care homes who cannot even be visited by husbands, wives and children. The ties which bind them to the world are frayed by the day.
Weddings and funerals have become quiet, anaemic events. All celebration for love or lives well lived, snuffed away. The most vulnerable are suffering most. Children in poverty. Those struggling with anxiety and depression. The charity Mind reports that more than half of adults and more than two thirds of young people said their mental health had got worse during the first period of lockdown restrictions.
Domestic abuse cases grew by 20% worldwide during that stage – an increase described by the UN as a “shadow pandemic”.
The things we usually look forward to have
been ground to dust. Easter was at the height of lockdown. Eid was cancelled. Jewish New Year, Rosh Hashanah, on September 18, was limited by the Rule of Six. Now Halloween, Diwali, Bonfire Night, Hanukkah, Christmas and New Year’s Eve look likely to be scrapped. Or will be flimsy, sad little imitations of themselves.
So how do we rally ourselves for a winter of this? Because that’s what we must do.
Professor Devi Sridhar, chairwoman of Global Public Health at Edinburgh University, and consistent voice of reason in this crisis, says: “We each have power to shape the future of this pandemic if we avoid riskier settings and do our part to keep numbers low. We do this for our communities, friends and families, not just because the Government tells us to.”
And so this is what we must do. For eventually this will pass. And then what will we say of 2020? “What an aberration that was. A bad memory. Now let’s get out and enjoy ourselves.”