Covid-19 has wrought immense destruction. It is not just the tragic death toll but lost access to education, rising unemployment, widening inequality and stresses on local communities. In the wake of this crisis, the demand is rightly that we build a better kind of society.
The stakes are high. While the UK’s successful vaccine rollout is helping to mitigate the health effects, the social impacts of the pandemic could cast a long shadow. Six months ago Patrick Vallance, the Government’s Chief Scientific Adviser, asked the British Academy, as the national academy for the humanities and social sciences, to consider the long-term social consequences of Covid-19. Our review, now published, does not make for easy reading.
We pull together evidence to show that there will be several interrelated, long-term societal impacts. We may be at the start of the “Covid Decade”: the effects of the pandemic on inequality, mental health and the economy could last for ten years or more.
The question is how we minimise these effects and ensure we are less exposed the next time there is a pandemic or similar such disaster. Can anything be done? For sure, there is no guarantee that Covid will lead to truly lasting reform. Collective memory is unreliable and institutional memory eventually fades. There are many examples from around the world where fundamental reform never came, such as after pandemics in the 1890s, Asian Flu and indeed the Spanish Flu.
It is not, however, all shadows: there are slivers of light, opportunities to chart a different course. The work of historians of public health such as Virginia Berridge shows us that health crises of the past have sometimes been opportunities for societal change. After the Second World War, we saw the creation of the NHS and the wider changes ushered in by the Beveridge report.
History shows us that pandemics and other crises can be catalysts to rebuild society in new ways, but that this requires vision and interconnectivity between leaders at local, regional and national levels. The Prime Minister Boris Johnson has talked about “building back better”—now is the moment to put some flesh on the bones. Senior civil servants I have spoken to want to get out of the phase of managing the crisis, to think longer term about where we want the country to go. But the danger is that these good intentions get overwhelmed by politicians’ instinct for reactive, short-term measures and by the sheer exhaustion felt throughout the entire apparatus of government.
The task is vast, but not insurmountable. Our review shows government will need a comprehensive, joined-up approach to respond to the social and economic effects of Covid-19. We need to create a more agile, responsive education and training system capable of meeting different kinds of demands.
The government should strengthen the community-led social infrastructure that underpins local resilience, particularly in the most deprived areas. There is also a need to build multi-level governance structures, to enhance our capacity to identify and respond to local needs. Though there is much to be done, the pandemic has also shone a light on areas of community strength and creativity. Covid has galvanised actors other than government: people responded with common purpose across civil society. We must build on this sense of unity.
Research by the think tank Demos, in which I took part, shows that the public does not wish to return to life exactly the way it was, particularly when it comes to the position of low-paid and key workers, the lengthy commute to the office and troubling levels of inequality. Many of us have enjoyed spending time volunteering and in green spaces.
This points to an opportunity for the government. Boris Johnson does have the chance to build back better and people do want to see change. Whether this will be remembered as a Beveridge moment, or chalked up as a lost opportunity to deal with the Covid Decade, will depend a lot on the leadership we see from politicians, civil servants, civil society and business. As we step out of the worst of the health crisis, we must now turn to building a new social fabric.
