After a national lockdown put the world on standstill on and off for almost 2 years - what are the long term effects on us as humans and a society? 

 

Living in lockdown meant switching from workspaces and a collaborative method of teaching to being stuck behind a tiny screen for hours, days and weeks on end. In the blink of an eye, the country seemed to switch from an interactive and bustling society to a barren silent one and not one of us seemed to see it coming. 

 

We all know the obvious effects of covid: people lost their sense of smell and taste, many were left with permanent health conditions and millions lost their jobs and businesses to this virus. However, have we ever thought about the effect of the lockdown on the uninfected? 

 

Although covid has now been socially accepted as the new flu, there has been an enormous effect on the human brain and body and the way it behaves and interacts in our “ normal” society due to the impact of surviving in lockdown. Many call this the covid effect. 

 

For example, when studies compared “covid babies” - babies and toddlers who went through their prime learning years in lockdown to children who had passed through their basic education, it was found younger children who had studied the years 1 2 and 3 online had suffered the most with their grades dropping by approximately 25 % after covid. This disruption in learning was damaging for the younger students who pick up key skills and knowledge during these years in primary school. Students as a whole now have a shorter attention span and now struggle to focus on the task at hand for an hour in a lesson as due to shorter and less interactive lessons online during lockdown, students found it easier to get distracted by mindless activities due to them experiencing a cognitive overload of how much they needed to digest in a lesson. 

 

However the “ uninfected” also include our key workers who while the entire world was glued down to a seat and a desk, were out wearing layers of ppe protection and were out there everyday helping to run the country. After interviewing an employee  from a Bupa nursing  home Mrs Upadhyay  claimed  that it “ was a life changing experience for her to go through. She described covid as “ death hanging over the home  like a dark cloud” as particularly for the elderly, as covid hit them the very hardest with so many passing away during 2020 and 2021. They as a home tried their very best to try and connect their residents with their loved ones but one of the most heartbreaking things she felt was that many residents with dementia could not  recognise their own family members . “seeing that realisation dawning the family member was one of the hardest things ive ever had to watch” 

 

While covid has affected people in the short term health physically and mentally, it has imprinted a huge impact in our behaviours and minds for years and generations to come. Covid really has left its mark in human history.