As citizens become more fearful of coronavirus, experts need to ease fears over lifting the lockdown

For weeks we have been pounded day after day with frontline reports about funeral homes, wards and bereaved families, writes Sean O'Grady. Are we really surprised that people are frightened to go out?

The public is nervous about the lockdown ending (Getty)

I’ll spare you the bad language, but the rumours coming out of government is that their “comms strategy” has scared people so witless that the authorities now worry that, even if lockdown is gradually relaxed, people won’t want to leave their homes.

The fear persists of catching this terrifying highly infectious disease, whether on a bus, in the workplace or down the pub. The messages about staying indoors to protect the NHS and save lives – we all know the mantra by now – have been so rammed home that there are many now unwilling to venture out, or send the children back to school. People can recite how long coronavirus can survive on different surfaces, understand how it affects different groups, and realise what “R number” means. And such knowledge has not been reassuring them. Rightly.

The latest polls bear this out. While there are plenty of examples of those willing to defy the social distancing rules as soon as the sun peeks out, there are also many who would prefer the lockdown to continue, virtually indefinitely. Ipsos Mori says that 60 per cent are uncomfortable about going to bars or restaurants, 40 per cent are reluctant to go the shops, and 30 per cent concerned about going to work or meeting friends. Of course, we have not yet got to the point where most employers will have to insist people come back to workplaces because the government support schemes are being wound down, but that will come. Many more will be forced to take a risk with their lives to pay the rent or the mortgage and support a family. The economy will need to restart; but who cares about that when you’re frightened of not being able to breathe?

Which brings me to the role of the media. For it is not so much the official comms strategy that has made us fearful, but much of the recent media reportage. This of course merely reflects the appalling realities of this disease, but the reports from inside the intensive care units are especially distressing.

One particularly detailed example was broadcast last week on Radio 4’s Today programme. Brilliant specialists were interviewed who basically said they’d never seen anything like this “medieval” disease, with accounts of extreme oxygen starvation, kidney failure and lethal “sticky blood”.

I could hardly face the day. The accounts of Boris Johnson’s time in hospital – recently and distressingly updated by The Sun on Sunday – add to a sense of powerlessness in the face of coronavirus. If the doctors had to prepare for the prime minister to die, what chances does that leave for the rest of us?

The medical researchers know more about it than we did and the prospects for treating it, but mostly it’s not good news. A vaccine could be far away, and maybe not that effective. No one knows, so you fear the worst.

Being pounded day after day with frontline reports from funeral homes and wards, as well as with moving stories about bereaved families, certainly does leave me – and others – frightened to go out. Why take the risk? That is the next question they – experts, politicians, media – will need to answer.

Yours,

Sean O’Grady

Associate editor