Daisy Fancourt, Psychobiology, Epidemiology

I suppose that having an ability to be self-reflective, and to keep in mind the sorts of things that people have gone through is part of what might help people to capitalize on this positive change.

I think it’s really crucial as this pandemic continues that we try and maintain a sense of social cohesion. We saw that very strongly early on in the pandemic. But over the last few months, there started to be a lot more social fragmentation within different societies and certain countries, such as the UK, starting to be more blame about the virus, or more realization of the differences between different social groups’ experiences. But it’s really crucial that we try and overcome this if we want to try and preserve that community spirit moving forwards. In the UK, we’ve certainly started to see less and less trust of the government and people really not actually placing as much confidence in the rules they’re coming up with and statements they’re making. And this has consequences beyond the pandemic, as well as. We might start to have less respect for that institution. And this is quite concerning moving forwards for what that means for how we function as a democracy.

In the UK, we’ve certainly started to see less and less trust of the government and people really not actually placing as much confidence in the rules they’re coming up with and statements they’re making. And this has consequences beyond the pandemic, as well as. We might start to have less respect for that institution. And this is quite concerning moving forwards for what that means for how we function as a democracy.

I think it’s going to be really important that people feel they’ve got a role to play that they feel like they’re not just dependent on higher authorities to make statements or to define rules, but they feel that they can affect change themselves at local levels. So I think there’ll be a huge role for community groups, voluntary associations, and grassroots organizations so that people feel that they can make a difference from the ground up.

I think it’s important for people to identify what factors of their lives mean the most of them are meant the most to them before the pandemic, and to almost use this to reprioritize how they live as we move forward. For some people, that might have been a greater appreciation of the value of family or friends. For others, it might be about hobbies, or leisure activities that give them a sense of purpose or help them to cope. And for other people, it might also be that their work has changed in terms of its importance to them. And I think people are going to have to think very carefully about these priorities and their lives in order to redefine what things they focus on and prioritize as we move forwards.