After months in lockdown, working from home and teaching the kids, life for Family Edwards, as for many, has been slowly groping its way back to ‘normal.’ For us, there have been two main step changes. Firstly, we were fortunate to have children in year groups that were allowed by the UK government to return to school on 1 June 2020. This meant that the adults in the house could once again work during daylight hours, rather than patching together the work day through a haze of caffeine and poor diet choices - See below.
The second step was the start of the school holidays at the end of July. At this point work hours were once again restricted due to looking after the children, but it’s summer. We put together five days of family fun that had been unthinkable to us just a month earlier. Mini golf, the beach, a theme-park based on a porcine cartoon character, a meal outside of the home, my first pint since February... everything seemed extremely normal.
Except, all the time, it was hard to shake the sense that our freedom was a house of cards, one that had been painstakingly constructed over many weeks but could now come tumbling down at any moment. For me, this caused a somewhat paradoxical response over the rest of the summer. From doing nothing for five months, I suddenly wanted to do everything that was allowed and to hell with Peter from May! My personal Covid-19 risk sensitivity went from ‘Level 8 - Crossing the road to avoid lone dog walker’ to a measly ‘Level 2 - Chinking pints with mates (but not sharing chips).’
As a result of letting down our guard a bit, during August the family went back to the beach (three times), went swimming (twice), visted a major London visitor attraction (never again!), took advantage of a generous government incentive to eat in restaurants and somehow ended up at a food festival. I was even allowed by the powers that be (Mrs Edwards) to spend a very enjoyable morning down at the go-kart track. All extremely fun, but note that, replicated across large numbers of people, this kind of relaxation has inevitably caused further cases. There is evidence from a number of countries that greater testing has led to greater detection of cases that previously would have gone unnoticed, but the much maligned government slogan ‘Stay Alert, Control the Virus, Save Lives,’ maybe has a point to it after all - Keeping a lid on things.
Now that autumn has hit, the mood has changed once more. As I write, all schools in the UK have just returned to full time, socially distant teaching. This is by far the most dramatic relaxation in lockdown rules so far and a critical point for any country that wants life to return to something that looks remotely normal. The economic costs of not opening schools are clear. Without schools, pupils are stuck at home missing out on their education. Their parents are inevitably involved in their care and teaching, which prevents them from working to the best of their abilities. This, goes the conventional wisdom, cannot go on indefinitely in the light of falling numbers of Covid-19 deaths. Indeed, some are keen to point out that a few deaths from Covid-19 every day are inevitable, like heart attacks and the flu, and that we risk becoming obsessed with a single cause of death. After all, the number of deaths from heart attacks, cancer and road accidents are not constantly brought to our attention on the evening news.
On the other side of the coin it is impossible, having seen the gaggles of secondary school pupils (11-18 years) mingling freely on their way back home today, to believe that there will not be further spikes in cases as a direct result of schools reopening. If an outbreak passes from households with kids and parents (under 50 years) to their parents (age 60+), we may suddenly be back to square one and a full blown national lockdown.
And that’s why I think I was so keen to make use of the freedom we were allowed over the summer. We packed a lot in and perhaps we needed to. So, without trying to be preachy or morbid... If you are willing and able to do whatever it is that you want to do - and it is safe to do so - do it now! A new lockdown may be just around the corner.
