Our first meeting of a WISE lockdown group was on Human Rights and the effect of COVID. Six of us met, in real life just ahead of the November lockdown, and Celia led the conversation.

The Equality and Human Rights Commission has reported on the impact of COVID restrictions on life and the figures are directly relevant to Human Rights such as: Right to life, Right to family life, Right to education. Women have been especially affected, taking on more social care, more child care and home schooling; with more women than men changing full time to part time working. Personal security is also affected, with a 50% increase in calls to the violence helpline in the second week of the first lockdown. Food bank use has nearly tripled.

We discussed the balance between Life, Liberty and Livelihood that the government must make when setting COVID restrictions and how this could be best managed. We also discussed the balance between personal privacy and track and trace technologies.

Finally, we discussed the issue of trust in authority and the way rules are applied. Interestingly, South Korea, after the SARS outbreak, held a referendum to establish the population’s attitudes to rules and regulations affection privacy and everyday activities for use in future pandemics.