Manners and morals face severe test when legal restrictions end

Pandemic likely to cast a long shadow over our lives as society sets it own rules on ‘living with the virus’

IT’S a funny old world. Just as the Metropolitan Police set about feeling a few collars in Downing Street, the Prime Minister announced that the rest of us would soon be free to do as we please, even if infected with SARS-CoV-2.

“Providing the current encouraging trends in the data continue, it is my expectation that we will be able to end the last domestic restrictions, including the legal requirement to self-isolate if you test positive, a full month early,” Boris Johnson told MPs.

If the legal requirement to isolate does, indeed, end a week tomorrow (February 21), it will mark a big moment for the UK. Without legal strictures to fall back on, we will have to navigate a whole new world of coronavirus etiquette. Our manners and our morals will be our tools – tools that some fear may have become a tad rusty over the last two years.

“I do think disagreements are going to become more common,” says Tricia, a 27-year-old accountant from Reading. “People at work have opposing views on whether ending self-isolation is the right thing to do. Some feel very strongly that it’s now quite mild and we should treat it like the flu. Others think that’s absolute madness.”

Our social lives, too, will be affected. “If I went to a social event where someone knowingly had Covid but went anyway I would find that selfish and frustrating,” says Lucy, a 25-year-old press officer from London. “Although I think it becomes more complicated if that means missing a holiday, a life event or something expensive.”

In Denmark, one of the world’s top pandemic performers, the legal requirement to isolate has been dropped in favour of guidance that asks people to isolate for four days after a positive test, or until their symptoms subside.

There, the authorities launched a televised “Stand Together” advertising campaign before the change as they attempted to soothe social tensions.

A man angrily demands in one of the advertisements: “You have all this space, and yet you choose to stand right there?”

“La la la la la,” shrieks his adversary, her fingers in her ears. Eventually the pair agree to disagree. “Let’s agree on what divides us,” they propose.

Michael Bang Petersen, a professor of political science and an advisor to the Danish government, says the country’s health authorities have focused “on the need to put conflicts to rest and create room for everyone’s different approaches”.

“We can already see different groups navigating this in different ways – the elderly, for instance, had very low social contact throughout January and my expectation is that will continue for a while,” he said.

“We all handle our corona fatigue differently,” adds Søren Brostrøm, the director of the Danish TV advertisements. “But we must not let disagreements come between us.”

A note from the Scientific Pandemic Insights Group on Behaviour (SPI-B), the behavioural insights sub-group of the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (SAGE), revealed UK authorities had similar concerns.

“If the legal requirement to selfisolate upon testing positive is lifted and becomes an item of public health guidance, it is likely to lead to further ambiguity among the public about the need for strict adherence,” it said.

“This will disproportionately impact vulnerable sections of the population, for example those who face greater pressure to work outside the home when ill because of financial hardship, precarious employment, or caring responsibilities.”

Unlike the authorities in Denmark, SPI-B has not commissioned a national advertising campaign – unless one has been kept under wraps.

However, it does recommend that ministers should “seek to mitigate potential economic and social harms to those identifying as clinically vulnerable and those from deprived socioeconomic and minority groups”.

Without legal strictures to fall back on, experts predict that “social norms” will shift decisively – but only after an initial period of ambiguity and experimentation.

Prof Ivo Vlaev, a professor of behavioural science at the University of Warwick, said groups would move in different directions, at first. Social norms would only change once a “tipping point” has been reached. “We know society won’t move as one big lump, one cohesive group,” he said. “There are wide differences in risk tolerance levels from different groups, shaped by personal experience during the pandemic, plus factors such as health status and age.”

As the Prime Minister was reported to have received an email from the Metropolitan Police on Friday regarding “partygate”, Downing Street was at pains to make clear that the new approach should not be interpreted as a free-for-all.

There would be “guidance” forthcoming from the UK Health Security Agency, Mr Johnson’s spokesman said – and, in the meantime, people who have Covid should not go to work.

‘Some feel very strongly that it is now quite mild and we should treat it like the flu. Others think that’s madness’