‘A new normal’: inquiry’s key findings on how Covid changed UK society

The final module in the long-running Covid-19 inquiry has concluded, marking the end of public hearings that began almost three years ago.

While other sections of the inquiry have focused on specific areas of the pandemic, such as the care sector, economy, vaccines and political decision-making, module 10 had a broader remit, looking at the overall impact on society and the legacy left behind.

“This module is about making a permanent record of the impact of Covid-19, lest people forget, and about recommending improvements for the future,” said Heather Hallett, the inquiry chair, at its outset.

Here are some of the key things we learned:

Mental health

Experts talked of how demand for mental health services soared overnight when the lockdown hit, with people who had never previously experienced problems contacting charities such as Mind in huge distress after statutory services closed. Reports of suicide ideation, self-harm, eating disorders and compulsive behaviours all increased.

“One of the most astonishing factors we saw, especially with children and young people, was the impact of the rolling news, the constant noise about what was happening, that sense of crisis and emergency,” said Dr Sarah Hughes, CEO of Mind.

“Every time there was an announcement by a minister, all of the helplines would experience a significant spike in contact with people who were deeply anxious.”

Hughes added that its legacy was still being felt today – people’s inability to grieve or hold proper funerals for their loved ones during the pandemic had led to complex grief and post-traumatic stress disorder that “we still as a nation are not really understanding”.

Key workers

The inquiry heard how key workers across many sectors of society felt ignored and undervalued for their contributions during the pandemic, and that many experienced high levels of abuse and intimidation as they tried to enforce social distancing rules.

John Leach, assistant general secretary of the RMT union, which represents transport workers, said verbal and physical abuse was “exacerbated” by the pressures of Covid, and this had continued.

“It normalised itself. People were threatened with being spat at on a very regular basis. Bus staff, station staff, train drivers, cleaners, maintenance workers – they became fair game, and it continues to this day, I’m afraid,” he said.

The case of Belly Mujinga, a 47-year-old railway ticket office worker who died of coronavirus after being spat at while on duty caused outrage in the early months of the pandemic.

Joanne Thomas, general secretary of the Union of Shop, Distributive and Allied Workers, said workers felt “very regularly dehumanised, and that’s an awful feeling when you’re trying to do the best for society”.

Homelessness

The inquiry heard how the pandemic had a significant impact on housing and homelessness, particularly through the Everyone In initiative, in which councils were asked to house everyone at risk of sleeping rough, often in then empty hotels.

The long-term consequence of the policy is that housing people in hotels and B&Bs as emergency accommodation has become normalised.

St Mungo’s said the pandemic “normalised temporary accommodation that we’ve never got away from. It increased during Covid-19 and I don’t think we think of that as a short-term blip, it’s the new normal.”

Shelter said people were “having terrible mental health crises” in hotels with skeleton staff. “Hotel staff were dealing with people who wanted to take their own life, having severe reactions because they couldn’t obtain drugs or alcohol, and they were completely untrained.”

Experts urged that the housing and homelessness sector should be incorporated in emergency planning for future pandemics or national emergencies to prevent similar mistakes.

Disabled people

Witnesses said the combination of social care services “disappearing overnight” and the atmosphere of fear created by the virus, meant people with disabilities – who were more vulnerable to Covid – were “in a vacuum” without support.

Lara Wong, from Clinically Vulnerable Families, said that “extended shielding, repeated disruption to healthcare and prolonged exclusion from everyday activities meant risk management became a constant feature of daily life”.

Experts said that as restrictions were lifted, disabled people struggled to return to their normal routine, and the loss of trust has continued. “We found people were very frightened of going out, of non-masked people infecting them, of going to healthcare facilities,” said Prof Nick Watson, chair of disability studies at the University of Glasgow.

“When people see messages that there are deaths, but ‘it’s OK; they had underlying conditions’, they feel devalued.”

Watson also told of an incident where a young woman with a learning disability had become so anxious that she washed herself every day with bleach and ended up in hospital with scars. “This is the result of high anxiety building up and nobody to talk to,” he said.