Yesterday, the government in the UK announced a further relaxation of lockdown measures for people in England, allowing those currently living alone to form a ‘support bubble’ with another household. This was intended to address the loneliness many people living on their own have felt during lockdown – allowing, for example, a grandparent to form a bubble with one of their children, and being able to interact with their grandchildren as normal.
However, whilst this official change in advice will be welcome to many (particularly romantic partners living apart, who have technically not been allowed to stay together overnight), there is evidence that this is simply a case of guidance catching up with practice.
At the Thomas Coram Research Unit at UCL, we are currently running a study about the impact of Covid-19 on family and community relationships. We’ve been working with families from across the UK, from all sorts of backgrounds, investigating their experiences of lockdown. Everyone in the family aged 12 and up is invited to take part in this digital ethnographic study using the app Indeemo, through which they can upload pictures, notes and videos telling the research team about their daily life.
What is clear from our study is that many people have been forming ‘bubbles’ for some time – typically with single grandparents moving into a family home to assist with childcare. One single mother in Scotland, for example, asked her own (single, retired) mother to move in to help her with childcare so that she could continue to work during the period of school closure; one other family created a ‘bubble’ with another nearby family in order to pool resources.
As well as including households that already contain a resident grandparent to take part in the study, we’ve also invited non-resident grandparents to join in. This has revealed that many of the rules around social distancing have been ‘bent’ so that families can see each other. For example, when the regulations stipulated that it was possible to meet up with someone from one other household (at a distance) many parents of small children took this as a chance to meet up with whole other families or both grandparents at once (particularly if the latter lived some distance away). Others revealed that they had already been meeting up in gardens, rather than a public space as stipulated.
What our work has revealed is that people make these decisions after a series of risk calculations – balancing the risk of infection with coronavirus with other risks such as mental well-being or social development. For many, it seems that using ‘common sense’ throughout this lockdown has felt more logical than sticking to the letter of the regulations, which were often contradictory and confusing (‘Why can’t I go for a walk with my sister for 10 minutes, and her also have her husband with her, at two metres away? What’s the added risk of him being there?’ said one participant, adding: ‘If they’re saying children can go to school on 1st June, why can’t we meet up with our family in our garden, with social distancing?’ before regulations caught up to approve this in later weeks) Several participants added that they felt they had ‘lost faith’ that the government had their best interests (rather than those of the economy) at heart. In this instance they felt that the priorities should be seeing friends and families, rather than shops or schools re-opening, and took action to that effect accordingly,
As Janice Turner wrote in the Times recently, ‘We are told policy is following science when really it is tracking the broadest consensus of what people feel is safe….In their careful risk calculations, the public is way ahead of [official] announcements’. She says that instead of the government setting the rules, they are ‘following behind us, approving the rule changes we’ve already made’. This evidence from this study so far seems to give weight to that position.
If you’re interested in learning more about the research, or taking part yourself, please see this page for more information.