Terrified Covid puritans fear reopening and human contact

It’s only two sleeps until you can hug each other again. How do you feel? A little apprehensive perhaps? Overcome by excitement?

If you are one of the people who have waited patiently for government permission to resume physical contact with your loved ones, then I hope it goes well for you. The rest of us will be carrying on pretty much as we have since Covid community transmission shrunk and vaccination deployment grew, embracing whoever we please so long as the feeling is mutual.

Such a nuanced approach is seen as subversive or treacherous, said the sociologist Robert Dingwall in a Reaction podcast this week. Even more so, no doubt, as the Indian variant gives fresh succour to the panicked, most notably, Nicola Sturgeon, who has put the brakes on Glasgow for another week in a ‘here we go again’ moment on the eve of lockdown easing.

As Britain opens up, or at least shakes off the most draconian of the coronavirus curbs, the impact of more than a year of controls is being laid bare. And what is most revealing is how divided we are, between those who seem terrified of going back to normal and those who can’t wait.

It is hard to tell how even the split is, but my anecdotal evidence suggests it’s about half and half, and not necessarily aligned by age, although hopefully the young are mainly in the latter camp. 

And, again drawing unscientific conclusions, it would seem that the people who have been using their judgement (tweaking the rules) throughout are better prepared than those cowed by the mongering of doom. “This is going to be a shock to the system,” wrote one of my friends on her Facebook page above the government list of May 17 “can and cannots”. But outdoor gatherings of up to 30 people, allowed from Monday, won’t be a shock at all to the revellers I spotted on London’s South Bank last Saturday. On a balmy evening, with indoors still out of bounds, tables, steps, and bits of wall overflowed, from Borough Market to Waterloo Bridge. There was even some hugging going on.

A feature in a national newspaper offered etiquette tips on the post-lockdown social codes, when two households, or six people, can meet indoors (devolved administrations may differ in the details). Guests could get rid of their “pre-entry anxiety” by requesting individual bowls of crisps and dips – or by bringing their own cutlery, as Scots were advised to do at Christmas. Hosts, meanwhile, should space out seats at the dining table.

If furtive dinner parties are all that have kept you sane over the past weeks you may find the above advice bizarre, but it seems that many will need it. A recent survey found that 57 per of Scots want social distancing to stay even when the whole population has been vaccinated. This may be a dour Scot thing – more than 57 per cent of my Scottish family (on my husband’s side) were socially distanced pre-pandemic.

But across the UK, support for the various lockdowns has been overwhelming, and now that the end is near, 49 per cent believe it will be hard to adjust, compared to 42 per cent who think it will be easy, according to a YouGov poll.

If, like me, you’re one of the 42 per cent, the rest will strike you as mad – mad not to crave freedom, escape, holidays, hugs and pubs, and to fret so about crowds, socialising and Covid returning. For them, the more the government has restricted their movements, the more they have lapped it up. No cafes, no licensed premises serving alcohol, no theatres, no non-essential shops.  It’s almost as if they didn’t relish going out in the first place and have welcomed the shutting down of the entire hospitality, culture and tourism sectors.

Dingwall calls this “the inherent puritanism of those who would like a more planned society,” and there’s a lot of it about. The puritans will find you – okay, us – bordering on delinquent, putting our own and their lives in danger.  They have not been on holiday since 2019 – although Europe was accessible last summer – and will err on the side of caution again this year, despite those vaccinations. Never mind the damage to the economy and the jobs that will be lost as a result.

To us, dafter than the rules are those who don’t question them or make up their own more stringent ones, letting government diktats gain entry to their homes and their heads. Until now, the two worlds, the defeated and the defiant, have barely collided as one stayed home while the other pushed at the boundaries. 

That is about to change when the lockdown lifts and the socially timid venture out again. We who relaxed when the R numbers dropped should give them space on the train and mingle more gingerly, while they acclimatise themselves.

Covid behaviour is no longer about the seriousness of the virus threat and it hasn’t been for some time, just as it wasn’t last summer when the curve flattened. Attitudes have been shaped by public health propaganda and for many, maybe the majority, only a new message will restore confidence. 

The end of the lockdown is not the end of the pandemic, Boris Johnson said, but now that we know we can live with it, variants and all, it must be the end of the fear.