BY AMELIA CROSBY

It feels like forever since lock-down started and as with any turbulent or stressful moment that comes into our lives, everyone reacts differently. Analysis from King’s College London has revealed that our individual responses to the Covid-19 lock-down can be sorted into three distinct groups: the accepting, the suffering, and the resisting.

The analysis based on an Ipsos MORI survey conducted in April revealed that the UK is made up of “three broad but distinct groups of people” who are responding to the lockdown and coronavirus pandemic in different ways.

There is no “one size fits all” approach when it comes to dealing with the drastic changes in our day-to-day lives as a result of Coronavirus.  Maybe you bake sour dough bread, learn a new hobby, eat more or just try to take each day as it comes.  Within the three groups some distinct behaviours are emerging amongst people we know… here is my light-hearted list of different lockdown personalities.  Can you recognise yourself, or your friends?  As we take “baby steps” to come out of this lockdown will you emerge a better or worse person, fatter or fitter, married or divorced?

Disinfectant Denise

Denise fits into the category of “Sufferer”; she has done her utmost to follow lockdown procedures, kept her teenage children at home and supervised them during the one hour of exercise outdoors. Her husband thought his luck was in when she told him to strip off at the front door after work – only to find out she wanted to place his clothes into the washing machine to eliminate any cross contamination of germs from his work into the home. Denise is forever wiping down surfaces in the home and car. Her must-have fashion accessories these days are a handbag size bottle of alcohol sanitiser, face mask and latex gloves. 

Lonely Luke

Luke enthusiastically accepted the lockdown conditions and looked forward to some “me time” away from his nagging girlfriend who is stuck in Wales with her parents.  It initially seemed fun as he could remain in his PJs all day and do whatever he wanted while on furlough. However, two months into lockdown it does not matter how many facetime sessions he has with his girlfriend or online gaming sessions he has with his mates – it is not the same.  Every time he hangs up the phone, he feels lonely and isolated.  In addition, he has realised that it is not as easy as he thought to help his parents with their healthcare issues and their surgery over the phone. Luke is starting to regret remaining in London as it’s no fun not being able to go out and be stuck in a one-bedroom apartment, day in day out. 

Productive Polly

Not fazed by lockdown, Polly is working from home and she has planned that shaving of the daily commute will allow her to pursue new hobbies.  She enjoys an hour of yoga and meditation plus a healthy breakfast before she logs on to work.  No rushing from the station to work with a bacon roll and coffee from the station coffee shop, or late nights in the office and a takeaway meal on her commute home.  Polly has written a “To Do List” of activities and jobs around the home she plans to complete during lockdown.  She signed up for a drawing course online as soon as lockdown was announced and bought a selection of expensive pencils to pursue her new hobby.  Polly is quite happy to be in lockdown until a vaccine is found and hopes this new way of working from home becomes permanent as she has proved she can carry out her work efficiently from home.

Home Schooler and Hoarder Hector

Hector prepared for lock-down before it was officially declared, as he had been following coronavirus news around the world and it felt inevitable to him that the UK would follow. Hector’s barn is stocked with two months’ supply of groceries and plenty of toilet tissue – he is glad he did not have to endure shortages in supermarkets when lockdown began.  He is also rather pleased that he pulled his three children out of school two weeks before lockdown as he was not satisfied that it was safe for them to attend with a pandemic on the doorstep.  He is enthusiastically teaching his children from home and believes he is doing a better job than those leftie teachers. His children, however, prefer to attend school as they miss their friends, detest the extra work that he sets and do not understand why he makes them wear their school uniform at home. Hector is worried about government plans to re-open schools as he is not convinced measures are in place to safeguard his children.

Lazy Laura

Laura does not follow Covid-19 news or any news, but she feels cheated that nearly everyone she knows has been furloughed whereas she is expected to work from home with her seven-year-old lad to home school.  She is struggling to get up on time to get her son started with his schoolwork and log herself on at work – her manager often finds her in her PJs during video calls.  She has not been following lockdown rules strictly and often has a couple of friends over in the evenings for drinks as she feels she has worked hard during the day and is not going to miss out on the fun her friends are having being off work – she is drinking a lot more and wakes up with a hangover.

Conspiracy Theorist Clive

Clive is that bloke on your Facebook timeline who sometimes shares some casually racist post from some dodgy-looking, sweaty group. Clive is now filling the timeline with paragraph after paragraph of theories about how coronavirus is from 5G however, he is anti-lockdown as it has impacted on his freelance consultancy work.  Clive is registered self-employed and furious that the eligibility tool at HM Revenue & Customs’ rejected him for the Self-Employment Income Support Scheme – which leads to more rants on his Facebook timeline.

Zoomer Zoe

Zoe accepts the need for lock-down, but she will not allow her busy social calendar to fall by the wayside.  She attends every Zoom Zumba, Pilates, and Fit Steps lesson on offer.  She seems to be thriving – baking and icing a beautiful cake one day, fixing up the plants in the garden another and even learning to make pasta from scratch. She hosts weekly cocktail and dinner parties via Zoom and gets all her friends to dress up for the occasion.  Zoe believes anything is possible to replicate real life once you put your mind to it but has no sex life. She is doing her best to make her life seem as close to normal as possible – of course while updating her Instagram feed regularly.  But maybe Zoe is only doing it to feel and look as if she has everything under control and that she is not wasting her time, in a situation where pretty much everything is out of her control completely.