London Lockdown 3.0

woman in mask in London tube during lockdown 3 2021 — London lockdown 3

I can’t believe I just wrote that title, but at the same time, we knew it was coming.

Last night at 8pm, Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced a new national lockdown for England and (earlier) first minister Nicola Sturgeon issued a stay home order for Scotland. (Wales has been in lockdown already, since Dec. 20)

Summary of these full rules:

Stay home to protect lives & help the NHS
You can leave for reasonable excuses like: shopping for basic necessities or doctor appt.
Stay 2 meters apart from everyone
Only go to work if you can’t work at home
You can exercise on your own or with 1 person
Can’t meet with people you don’t live with / your support bubble
Schools are closed except for vulnerable child & kids of care workers (some teachers will rotate to go in to watch over them)
Teaching will be done online

This will continue for six weeks, until mid February

General thoughts:

Honestly, it’s like groundhog day and feels reminiscent of the first lockdown because it feels stricter than before. I think the general vibe of the population is still fatigued, though some are angrier than before because the government didn’t handle the holidays very well (which is probably why we are doing another lockdown), and some of us are peppier than usual because of the recent ‘clean slate’ of the new years. The UK is in all sorts of moods.

Personally, I am relieved because this time around. Schools are finally being closed which means students & teachers can finally take a break. My boyfriend is a teacher and he has had to mix with hundreds of people every day since September (at school and on public transport.) Yes, maybe kids won’t experience Covid as bad, but what about the teachers? As far as I’ve heard, they aren’t even on the list of people who are getting the vaccine early. I’m just relieved that my teacher-bf and his colleagues finally get a break from worrying about their health for six weeks.

I hope this lockdown does what it needs to and gets the number of people dying & getting sick to go down again. How long can this go on? (…she says in a very foreshadowy sort of way…. knock on wood)