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By Emily Bryant


April 07, 2021


 


Lockdown has been a continuous reality for most of the world. Over the past year, the pandemic has forced much of the population to stay indoors, be away from family and friends, and conduct social events through screens. We’ve embraced mask-wearing and social distancing and accepted the drastic changes to our daily lives. So, after a turbulent year, perhaps it is time to reflect on our experiences of lockdown and how the world has reacted to it.


Shutting Down

Between December 2019 and March 2020 we saw the whole world shut down in attempts to reduce the spread of the virus. When it began, many of us had no idea how significant and impactful this shutdown would be on our lives. In my case, everything happened rapidly: one minute I was living freely, then suddenly everything around me closed down and I was told to remain at home. We all retreated from the outside world for calls of safety and compassion, some places much faster than others. The world locked down all at once, with no real knowledge of when it would end. For some of us, it never truly has. The COVID-19 Government Response Tracker programme by Oxford University, which measures the strictness of governmental restrictions in over 180 countries on a scale of 0-100, found the following: as of March 24, 2021, approximately 30 countries were recorded as 50 or higher on their scale. These measures have, for many of us, remained a staple part of our everyday lives. Whether such restrictions will remain long-term is unclear.

Staying at home was not the only measure encouraged. Millions of businesses across the globe were forced to close their doors to combat the virus’s spread. For many independent or smaller businesses, this became a permanent fixture in their lives. Findings by the Federation of Small Businesses (FSB) estimated that 250,000 small businesses could close permanently this year in the United Kingdom alone. And it’s not just small companies that have struggled; larger retailers like Debenhams and Sir Philip Green’s Arcadia Group went into administration over the past year, needing to be bought out by other companies and investors or closing their doors completely. Online retailers like Amazon saw boosts in sales across the pandemic, with the net worth of CEO Jeff Bezos increasing to $185.1 billion as of April 3, 2021. The stark contrast between businesses that have suffered and soared in this pandemic allows us to see how the high street, as well as many other businesses, have retreated during the pandemic and online shopping has risen to overtake it.


Online Living

The internet has become the home to more than just our shopping during the lockdown. People all over the world have been encouraged (and in some cases forced) to conduct their work or education online. Software programmes like Zoom have been implemented worldwide to connect people for meetings, classes, and conferences from within their own homes. Such ventures into web-based living were introduced steadily across the pandemic and have seen strong successes over the past year. Online education was embraced globally, as last year more than 1.2 billion children were out of school. In addition, remote work has been accepted as normality, with approximately 35% of workers worldwide in 2020 working from home. The pandemic has imposed on us the need to adapt our work and education systems, to maintain routine around the ever-looming threat of the virus. Considering the current prominence of online work and teaching, it is entirely possible that these web-based endeavors may become part of our lives for years to come.


That being said, discussions of remote life remind us of the emotional hardships the pandemic brought upon the world. Millions of people worldwide were separated from their families and friends for months at a time, with the internet and social media often being their only source of contact. Loved ones were lost, and those left behind were forced to mourn in isolation from each other. Many young people who studied abroad were stranded in a foreign country, away from family and friends. Communities were cut off from one another, limiting interactions to waving over garden walls and from front porches. The world has collectively experienced loneliness and isolation that seemed indefinite.


As time has progressed, circumstances surrounding the pandemic have changed. Vaccines have been developed in record time to combat this disease, which has already reached millions of people. So, one year later, perhaps there is light at the end of this long, dark tunnel.




Emily Bryant

Emily is an English Literature student with a love for writing. She is passionate about writing on women’s and LGBTQ+ experiences and issues, providing well-researched ideas and concepts for any readership. She is currently based in South Wales and enjoys photography, writing, and playing tabletop role-playing games.
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