Will life ever be normal in a post-Covid world?

After over two years of dealing with the deadly Covid-19 virus, we are finally reaching the light at the end of the tunnel. However, what we are moving towards isn’t the same life as we had before the global pandemic. 

Covid-19 is the most life-changing thing that has happened to current generations. Looking back at when we first started to understand the virus, we went into a nationwide lockdown during March 2020 with an approximate 33,000 cases in the England.

Thinking that would be the worst of it as we followed the rules, fast forward to the present of March 2022 and we have seen just over 19,530,000 Covid-19 cases just in England alone, with 162,700 deaths.

As the pandemic declines, England is seeing 40,000 daily cases compared to the highest level which was 270,000, but as a nation we still have not switched off from the lifestyle that we have been living. On public transport it is almost an unwritten rule to sit well apart if possible, masks upon every face in public spaces, it almost seems as if our lives will never truly go back to normality.

Are the reasons given by those who are still playing it safe justified? Take a look at those vaccinated: around 38,400,000 have had all three doses of the in the UK and comparing that to the 68,500,000 population of the United Kingdom we see that only 56% of the country has been fully vaccinated.

Covid-19 becomes a bigger threat to those who have not been vaxxed, and the unvaccinated become a potential threat to those who have been vaccinated. This is a reason for those who still wear masks; the vaccinated and the unvaccinated.

‘If we are not cautious we could get someone who is high risk very unwell and that is something nobody wants’ – supermarket worker Brook Cross

We have not just seen a change in the public but also in everyone’s home life. Although the rules have changed on self isolation, making it no longer a legal requirement, a lot of schools, businesses and other organisations still require you to self isolate if you test positive.

Your own home not being safe will bring fear into those who believe that we should all be vaccinated and those who disregard the vaccine, but the affect that it has had on peoples home life is unmeasurable and it was something we have not seen before.

Josh Comber, a home owner in south-east London, lived with three other people during the pandemic and had to self isolate while the other people in his property were clear of Covid-19. “I felt disconnected from my own family, I couldn’t do anything, I could even travel downstairs because we were so worried,” he recalls.

Would Josh self isolate again now? “I would love to just say ‘no’ but it is not as easy as that. My family are my priority and to keep them safe I would stay isolated but I would also be much more lenient on what I can and can not do.

“I fully understand that people will always follow these rules, but me? maybe not for much longer.”

Other people cannot afford to ease up on Covid-19 rules and restrictions due to their area of work. Brook Cross who works in a supermarket in south London, says handling food and other items that facilitate passing the virus on.

She told me: “We all have to wear masks, when dealing with food we must wear gloves and we all must take a Covid test once a week, if we are not cautious we could get someone who is high risk very unwell and that is something nobody wants.”

Brooke added: “I don’t feel comfortable with not wearing a mask or gloves like some of my colleagues and this is because of the risk I put myself and and other people at. As they say better safe than sorry.”

These contrasting opinions show that although there is a divide in the nation there is sound reasoning behind both viewpoints.

We will get a huge mixture of those who are becoming impatient with the abnormal life we are having to live and others who have made peace with what is occurring in the world and trying to be as safe as possible.

Will we ever live in normal world after the pandemic? I think it is fair to say we will never go back to what we used to know as ‘normality’. Instead, we are moving towards an era in which we will remains a bit more cautious, however we will not follow the rules as strictly as we used to do during the peak of Covid.

Feature image by Pavel Danilyuk from Pexels