Jostled by others on a packed commuter train, or crowding into a noisy pub, it’s easy to forget that recent inflection point when the world pressed pause on normal life. It is scarcely four and a half years since the UK Government, along with others globally, imposed the first national lockdown to reduce the spread of the coronavirus. But, in some ways, the trauma of that time was swiftly forgotten. We moved on with relief, and shudder today at those distant, bewildering memories of social distancing.
