The thing about the way these lockdowns are announced (and gov is getting better at this but it had a long way to go) is that they are uniquely unempowering. This has an incredible psychic cost which will show up - it is not invisible, it just takes a while to be obvious

1) reason it is unempowering is that they aren’t adequately allowing people to prepare themselves emotionally or physically - that means being honest with known and unknowns - not saying things like ‘inhuman to cancel Xmas’ before essentially doing that

2) it is unempowering because the rules are too complex, inconsistently prescriptive and changing too quickly - this means it’s hard to know if you’re following them or not. Which leads to confusion - a very unempowering state

3) is they aren’t showing their working or communicating the why clearly enough - obviously message ‘we think this is more important than this’ is unpopular but not explaining why leaves room for all sorts. As well as the space for ‘why is this being done to ME?’

4) reason it is unempowering and this has been absolutely unfair and desperately cruel from the start IMO - is there has been this stupid message that if you follow the rules good things will happen and this will all be better and over with quicker. This has never been known.

I feel heartbroken when I read those publicans or people say ‘I followed all the rules and it’s not got better - I’ve just had more restrictions’ - that covert messaging leads to helplessness or blaming others for being ‘selfish’ and hurting them. But Macron got it the other day