“The lockdown is loosening, but life is nowhere near back to normal. As schools and businesses reopen, they are being asked to follow social-distancing rules, keeping everyone two metres apart. But is all of this disruption worth it, particularly as the pandemic recedes from view? Many are also still afraid to go back to work, to send their children to school, and to rejoin social life. Is this fear justified?
spiked spoke to Professor Robert Dingwall to find out more. Dingwall sits on NERVTAG, the government’s New and Emerging Virus Threats Advisory Group, which feeds into SAGE (Scientific Advice for Emergencies)….”
An interview for Spiked Online which allowed me more time and space for reflections on the impact of SARS-CoV-2 than the shorter formats of most of my recent media work.
My conclusion:
“We have to get back to something that looks like a productive and sustainable economy that allows people to form friendships, to encounter each other in person, face to face. You wonder how, in lockdown, young people are going to form new intimate relations that will lead to families and children. We cannot sit in our own little bubbles forever.”