When you realise you're not ready for lockdown to be over

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The other day in the UK, some of the newspapers were briefed on our government’s lockdown exit strategy ahead of our prime minister announcing it to everyone. Either the message was garbled or the editors overegged the pudding (most likely a bit of both) but the headlines the next day screamed about freedom and hailed the return to normality.

Given the mood of my newsletter last week, you would think I would be thrilled by this. Instead my stomach dropped and I immediately thought: “I’m not ready.” It was the definition of a gut feeling and I’ve been thinking about where it came from ever since. 

First of all and to get the facts out the way, there is the knowledge that our death and infection rates here are still awful and we haven’t mastered the mass-testing needed for the trace and test phase. As a country, we just aren’t ready. But I know there is a lot more going on behind that initial gut feeling than our government’s handling of the crisis. A part of it is it now feels normal and…