First steps out of lockdown should help to ease the pressures on mental health

It might over time indeed turn out to have been an over-reaction, but based on the information that we and other countries had, it was a logical precautionary step (although Sweden, bravely, charted a different path).

When Boris Johnson announced lockdown on March 23 cases of Covid-19 were ballooning in Italy and Spain.

Since then, the world is slowly learning more and more about coronavirus, and about the impact of lockdown.

There is now enough information to make an easing of lockdown not just desirable, but a necessity.

The economy is expected to have collapsed in a way that is without historical precedent when data on the second quarter, April to June, emerges. Covid-19 is now known to weak havoc in vulnerable groups but cause little damage to most of the population, and almost none to people aged under 35.

But one thing that we have learned is not surprising: that lockdown is causing a mental health disaster.

It is thoughtless for any person to say that they are happy with lockdown without thinking about its wider impact. A happily married couple in a house and garden and with a generous pension or good salary while they work from home might be content for restrictions to stay in place indefinitely.

But Professor Brendan Kelly of Trinity College Dublin, writing one page four, says negative emotions been “amplified by spending large amounts of time at home”. And John Conaghan of the charity Inspire Workplace says that the “situation is having an impact on mental health and wellbeing”

The News Letter recently reported that 40% of calls to the Samaritans mention Covid-19. This is a tragedy.

Stormont has an unenviable decisions to make but some first steps out of lockdown, such as allowing greater social interaction, access to churches and garden centres should all help in alleviating the pressures on mental health.