Millions of old folk across UK share councillor’s frustration and isolation
The Lisburn councillor on page four talks about the loneliness of seeing nobody between 7pm and 10 the following morning.
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Hide Ad“It’s getting me down,” says Mr Dillon, who is aged 85 and gets two health visits a day. He can “get out into [his] fields” but he thinks of “these poor people living in apartment blocks, they must be going daft”.
Mr Dillon yearns to be able to drive to the north coast or to get out to restaurants.
Millions of elderly people across the UK are feeling similarly anxious and isolated.
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Hide AdStriking the right balance over lockdown is not an easy thing for any government to do.
It has to be relatively rigid, or the spread of the virus couldpick up again. At the same time, it is causing huge damage to people’s mental health, relationships, careers and finances. Even Sir Jeremy Farrar, the infectious diseases expert, says “it’s clear that the lockdown can’t go on for much longer”.
Mr Dillon’s own council can make an immediate contribution to easing the suffering of its ratepayers by opening its city parks, as Belfast has sensibly done.
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Hide AdThe overwhelming bulk of people are behaving responsibly on social distancing so they must be able to exercise in parks for their physical and psychological health.
We also need a strategy for the reopening of schools, which is now happening across Europe, in part because the odds against a child suffering badly from Covid-19 are infinitesimally small. In fact the chance of infected under 30s dying is thought to be one in several thousand.
That is not to say there are any easy exit solutions — there aren’t. Infected young people can infect vulnerable adults. But with hope the entirety of the UK will soon agree a safe, gradual return to controlled economic and social activity.
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Alistair Bushe
Editor