Britons continue to express their love of lockdown, with a poll revealing almost half will struggle to adjust to a life of freedom after restrictions are lifted.
After spending a year under various forms of restrictions or lockdowns, 49 per cent have admitted that they will find it hard to “adjust back to how life was before March 2020”, with 42 per cent responding to the Thursday YouGov poll saying they would find it “easy”.
By sex, women in the majority said they would struggle (56 per cent) compared to 43 per cent of men. Younger people were the most likely to find it difficult, with 56 per cent of 18- to 24-year-olds saying they would struggle, compared to just one-third who said they would find it easy.
Of the general population who said they would find it hard, most, more than one-third, said they would struggle with “Being out in public with other people/crowds”, followed by 16 per cent who said they would have a hard time socialising. Just five per cent said they would find it hard to stop worrying about catching the Chinese coronavirus.
A separate YouGov poll, also published on Thursday, revealed what Britons would miss about the lockdown, including there being “less traffic and fewer planes, and cleaner air and streets” (11 per cent), “time with family, partner, pets and/or bubble” (eight per cent), and “having more time/A slower or simpler life” (seven per cent).
Two per cent said they would miss social distancing, while others said they would miss feeling safe (two per cent), not working, working less, or being furloughed (two per cent), or being able to avoid seeing people they did not want to see (two per cent).
Just 37 per cent said they would not miss anything about lockdown.
The polling company described how some people had enjoyed not feeling “FOMO”, or the “free existence with no social obligations”. One person said: “There’s something quite calming about knowing that nothing is going on so you aren’t missing anything.”
A poll from early March found that a majority (55 per cent) of Britons said they would miss lockdown with around 39 per cent saying they would not miss it.
Polling in the past year has largely found Britons supporting the government shutting down society, including harsher punishments for alleged rule breakers and tracking quarantined people, as well as backing mandatory vaccines in employment contracts.