Bubbles are a blessing for all grandparents — so why exclude couples?
The latest relaxation of the lockdown, the “support bubble”, is welcome. It means that families can be reunited, hug and hold one another, indoors and outdoors, or even stay overnight. Bubbles are a blessing, especially for the elderly. By limiting the benefits to single adults, however, it will be seen as unnecessarily restrictive. Grandparents in particular won’t understand why they cannot form a bubble with their children and grandchildren, merely because they happen not to live alone. Older couples have, in the main, been enjoying no more physical contact than singles. Their need to hug and be hugged is no less urgent. And because the Government’s permission to bubble does not go far enough, there is a serious risk that many more people who have hitherto followed the rules strictly will now start to ignore them.
How did the Government get it so wrong? In this case, “following the science” may have been part of the problem. The scientific model, which Sir Patrick Vallance and Professor Chris Whitty explained yesterday at the Downing Street press conference, assumes that a single adult, even living with children under 18, is likely to have many fewer social contacts than a couple. Hence by limiting bubbles to such singletons, the danger of spreading Covid-19 and pushing the R number above 1 is greatly reduced.
In the case of grandparents, however, this assumption is open to question. While widows and widowers have hardly been making merry during the pandemic, it is a mistake to equate being single with social isolation. While many single people do undoubtedly suffer from loneliness, others have busy social lives and are no less likely to pass on the virus than couples. If the reason for excluding the latter is a purely statistical one — that by doing so, the risk of transmission is halved — then that is insufficient. Too much weight has been given here to epidemiology and not enough to social psychology.
The reality of life under lockdown for grandparents has been a solitary one. The vast majority of older couples have observed the rules more or less to the letter: partly for reasons of self-preservation, partly out of the lifelong habit of obeying the law. Those with grandchildren are desperate to see and hug them, but they have stuck to the rules in the hope of eventual relief. Now that the announcement has excluded those who do not live alone, many couples will feel cheated. Having kept to the social distancing rules, staying two metres away from friends and strangers, they pose no risk to their children or grandchildren. Any risk that families pose to grandparents is roughly the same, regardless of whether they are single or not. So the new rule seems arbitrary and cruel, to no obvious purpose. The likelihood is that many will defy it. Instead of creating relatively safe bubbles, they may just take a risk.
The explanation for the Government’s failure to anticipate such a reaction may lie in the fact that the bubble idea is not intended for grandparents at all. The main beneficiaries will be young singles who can now form bubbles with boyfriends or girlfriends who live with their families. These younger people can now stay overnight with their partners without breaking the rules. At the outset of the pandemic, Dr Jenny Harries was asked about those in such a predicament. Her advice was that couples who did not live together would have to choose between forming a household or sexual abstinence. Many chose the latter, but after three months the strain is beginning to tell. The case of Professor Neil Ferguson, the scientist who invited his girlfriend to visit him and after his media exposure was forced to resign from Sage, was merely the visible tip of a large iceberg of sexual frustration. Bubbles will be a solution for many people who are missing their partners or, indeed, are looking for a new one. Indeed, the Government may have unwittingly given the green light for a resumption of dating and all that goes with it. For the young lovers of England, the advent of the bubble is a genuine cause to break open the bubbly. “Bubbling” could soon acquire an erotic connotation — even if that was hardly the intention of the sober boffins of Sage.
None of this is much consolation for their elders. The latter are anyway much more at risk from coronavirus. Surveys suggest that they are also more likely to still be doing their civic duty by social distancing than younger generations. Their only desire is to be reunited with their families. It is a great joy for those who live in solitude that their patience is now to be rewarded. For the millions who still live with their spouses, partners or siblings, however, that reward has been withheld. Their perseverance has been ignored, for no obvious good reason. Unsurprisingly, not a single journalist at Wednesday’s press conference thought to speak up on behalf of this enormous section of the population. Too focused on their prepared questions, as usual, they failed to grill either the scientific advisers or the Prime Minister about why exactly couples are excluded from bubbles.
Once Boris Johnson realises that he has disappointed, even infuriated, a large proportion of those who voted him into office, we can expect a rapid reversal of policy. By then, however, the damage to public confidence will have been done. It is surprising to see such a political animal let down by his antennae. Not for the first time, Boris made the mistake of trusting his advisers rather than his own instincts. In this case, the gentlemen and ladies in Whitehall really don’t know best. It is time their bubble was burst.
