Michael, a 35-year-old university lecturer from Sheffield, barely speaks to his brother nowadays. For years, they had been drifting apart over political differences such as Brexit. “He hates my leftwing, liberal beliefs as much as I hate his way of looking at the world,” Michael says. “We used have a pint together occasionally, or go to a match.” But coronavirus was the final straw.
Even before masks became mandatory in English shops, Michael always wore a face covering when he went shopping and did his best to maintain social distancing. His brother did not. “He says he doesn’t care if he gets Covid-19 and has flouted all the rules,” says Michael. “He loves the conspiracy theories that it came from a Wuhan lab, or that it doesn’t really exist. I am incensed by his selfish and unthinking approach.”
Almost 150 miles to the south, the pandemic is putting another family under strain. Beth, 76, lives alone in Slough, Berkshire. “I have not seen friends as much as I would normally,” she says. “Once a week, I’ll walk with a friend. I meet others in our gardens. My son, however, thinks that I should not leave the house or meet with friends or do click-and-collect orders from shops. He thinks that he is looking after me. I think that he is being patronising and treating me as a senile idiot who is incapable of managing her own life.”
Arguments such as these are very common, according to the family therapist Kitty Hagenbach, who has seen demand for her services soar during lockdown. “Even in ordinary times, a great amount of discord is from everybody thinking they know better, or how anybody else should live,” she says. With the stakes as high as they are, coronavirus has only made that worse.
While millions of Britons worry that the lockdown and social distancing could cost them their jobs, others are fearful that too little is being done to bring the virus under control. A YouGov survey conducted in the middle of May found that 54% of British people thought restrictions were being lifted too soon; even as lockdown ends, many individuals and households are choosing to keep their own safety measures in place by, for example, wearing masks and avoiding non-essential indoor places such as pubs and restaurants.
It does not help that mixed messages – on everything from masks to public transport – are coming out of Westminster or that different rules apply in England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. Meanwhile, high-profile refuseniks such as the journalist James Delingpole are posting photos or videos of themselves flouting the law about wearing masks.
John, 46, a computer programmer from Somerset, says that social distancing has been a “big, troubling issue” for his family – in particular, trying to “rein in” his 16-year-old daughter’s urge to socialise. “My daughter’s friends seem to have far more freedom than her and have been going out for weeks,” he says. She understands that there must be limits on her freedom because her two brothers have health conditions that increase their vulnerability to Covid-19, but she struggles to understand why politicians would ease lockdown if it was not safe.
“We try to explain that there are political reasons and that’s why we won’t be easing lockdown as quickly as the government is encouraging. But it isn’t a recipe for happiness – and a teenage mind is not always logical.”
“Families aren’t used to being together all the time,” Hagenbach says. “And some children are quite frightened about what’s going on and what’s happened to the world. That doesn’t mean children should make individual choices. Parents still need to take charge. But whether the science says you must stay in or you can go out, it all has an emotional and psychological impact.”
Alexandra, a 31-year-old medical researcher, lives in Liverpool with her husband. They have been extra cautious, as her husband previously had heart disease. “Most of our family have been very respectful and observant. However, my dad and his wife just want to follow whatever Boris Johnson does; as soon as any restrictions are lifted, they think we are hypochondriacs for maintaining stricter rules,” she says.
“When our baby was born, family and friends came to the window to safely view her. My dad and his wife didn’t think it was worth the trip and decided to wait until Johnson lifted the restrictions. But we don’t trust him or his government.”
Alexandra says that, as a scientist, she has been able to understand the data and research herself, but that her relatives don’t respect her wishes – “or if they do, they will do so reluctantly”.
Similarly, Amina Minhas, 34, a nurse in London, has stuck to “science and fact” in her approach, which involves masks, visors and gloves, even when relatives disagree. “The rifts have arisen from different interpretations of easing of lockdown rules,” she says. “Some are continuing to socially distance for the foreseeable future and others listen to the advice of Johnson, and so believe that is an extreme view.” But despite the contention, Minhas says her family have remained close. “Lockdown has made everyone appreciate each other a lot more and has really demonstrated how precious life is and how quickly things can change.”
Prof Edward Cartwright and John Rose from De Montfort University in Leicester have been studying attitudes toward lockdown. They have found that women are more likely to comply with rules than men, as are people aged 60 or older. This may be because older people know that they are more vulnerable to the virus. “But we didn’t see a young-person effect,” Cartwright says. “There’s a belief that young people were more likely to break the lockdown, but we didn’t see that in our research.”
What they did find was that people whose relationships or health had been strained were more likely to break lockdown, as were those with a key worker in their home. “My take on that is that if you’re living with someone who is ‘breaking’ the rules anyway – because they’re a key worker – you’re as good as going out, too,” Cartwright says.
Cartwright and Rose also noted an uptick in people saying they would break lockdown because they did not agree with it in the week that headlines were dominated by Dominic Cummings’s trip to Barnard Castle in County Durham.
Andrew, 68, a gardener in Sussex, is old enough that you might expect him to worry about coronavirus. But he takes a fatalistic line. “Everybody’s got to die of something,” he says. He does not wear a mask and says that social distancing is a “load of nonsense. If people want to stay indoors and lock themselves up, then cool. But I don’t.” He believes that the response to Covid-19 is “overstated” and that the virus is “like flu”.
He says that people are not seeing the bigger picture by focusing so much on Covid-19. “People need to think about mental health. Domestic violence is on the up. People aren’t going to the hospital to get treatment they really need because they’re afraid of the virus.”
Why is he not afraid? “I keep a healthy lifestyle. I’m a vegetarian and I’m out gardening, so I get plenty of vitamin D. If I get the virus, so be it. But I am not intending to sort of crouch down and be timid.”
For the most part, Andrew says his family and friends feel the same; where they don’t, he is always respectful, understanding that they “do it with good reason”, such as having a health condition. He says he always keeps a distance when asked and in shops. “I’m a happy, easy-going person and I respect the different opinions this has brought to the surface.”
Leyla El-Moudden, 38, takes the opposite approach to masks and distancing. She is the head of marketing and education at a health brand that specialises in nutritional supplements; she works primarily with immunocompromised people. Although she was initially “blase” about wearing a mask because she was “maintaining a healthy immunity through nutrients, herbs and lifestyle”, she now wears one outside at all times, as do her husband and children. “My kids” – who are eight and four – “are proud of themselves and feel like they are being little superheroes.”
What made her change her mind about masks? The way that Covid-19 struck “terror” into the hearts of some of her immunocompromised clients. “They are terrified to go outside and panic at the sight of unmasked people. I ordered masks the same week I spoke to three clients who either had cancer or were caring for someone with it. It really hit me, what immunocompromised people are going through. The mask is not just for us, but for others.”
Other families are not so much divided by this issue, but fragmented. “Dad is a borderline dictator, questioning why I would come down from London [to his home in south-west England] to visit and spread the plague despite me adhering to social distancing and staying outside when visiting,” says 26-year-old Katie, a management consultant. “He’s only been out of the house a handful of times since March, besides walks. Meanwhile, my mum was incredibly anxious back in March, but now pretty much anything goes.
“Then there are my brothers, who have been weekend pub visitors; my stepdad, who forgets a pandemic is happening; and my stepmum, who berates everyone she sees outside on social media from her privileged position of a large house in the countryside.”
Like many people, Katie says she is “somewhere in the middle. I have been really anxious and suffered the occasional panic attack, but also I believe that some evaluated risks are worth taking to see family.” But, in the end, faced with navigating all those familial differences, she says it is “easier just to stick to myself in my London flat”.
For all the arguments about science and policy, there will be many more that come down to hurt feelings – and the subtext that relatives are using Covid-19 as an excuse. It is something that Reg, 35, a London-based art director, admits to. “I am strict when it suits me,” he says. “I love to say to my partner: ‘Oh, sorry, I would hang in the park with your friends, but I can’t because of Covid.’ Coronavirus is a great cover for misanthropic tendencies.”
Is there a silver lining to lockdown and the unease over its relaxation? Yes, says Hagenbach. “We’re seeing people take more responsibility for the family life – children especially. A lot of modern kids are very spoiled,” she says. “But this has been an opportunity for people to come together, work together and realise that life takes a lot of effort. It’s down to how well families communicate with each other and how well they allow the other people to have their own independent feelings. You can’t all feel the same as a family.”
Some names and details have been changed
