It is unlikely to be an anniversary marked with celebrations, but on Tuesday it will be a year since the first national lockdown in England was imposed. Few could have imagined that one year on, we would only be tentatively emerging from a third punishing set of restrictions on our liberties. More than 126,000 people have died from Covid-19 in the UK, a number that seemed fantastical when first forecast by epidemiologists. At the same time, lockdowns have had a devastating impact on businesses and the economy, tipping the country into one of the worst recessions in history. They are in the loneliness and despair of those unable to

Source: The Times March 21, 2021 00:00 UTC