Cllr Paul Donovan looks back at the Covid pandemic

Loved ones lost, long Covid sufferers, and mental health issues. The country has still not fully recovered from the pandemic.

I was in Rye as the country moved towards the first lockdown in March 2020. My brother and I sat in an empty pub as the hatches were being battened down.

Strange, to again be in Rye in the same week, five years later. No one knew back then what was to come.

At first, people were put under virtual house arrest. People obeyed the rules in the main, with government and media making great play of the few who didn't. 

Fear was openly used to control the population. Did any other country obsess quite as much as this one about the death figures? These, together with infection rates, were a daily feature of news bulletins.

Health workers were heroic, putting their own lives on the line to save others. Indeed, those people across the key services all did exemplary work, making huge sacrifices.

Pity that the shameful government, whose ministers clapped those staff, later refused the pay rises they deserved. They had, of course, also failed to protect them.

This was the same government that took the opportunity to reward its mates with lucrative contracts for vital services during the pandemic. It can never be said that Boris Johnson's government wasted the opportunities created by the crisis.

Cllr Paul Donovan looks back at the Covid pandemic Then, as ordinary people were punished for the slightest infringement of "the rules", Downing Street partied on with a classic do as I say, not as I do attitude. This really was not the government's finest hour. Although credit should be given for the rapid rollout of the vaccine.

The whole pandemic was a strange period, turning everything upside down, suspending normal life for the best part of two years.

One of the amazing things was how something that had dominated everybody's life, suddenly disappeared from the headlines- almost as if it never happened.

The pandemic, though, did huge damage. More than 200,000 people dead, two million today with long Covid, millions are suffering with mental health issues, and a generation of children is scarred.

Lessons need to be learned, such as never again to run down the health and care sectors, so that the country struggles to cope when crisis hits. Nor is it right to now be turning on people who still suffer from the legacy of Covid by cutting their welfare support.

Perhaps most importantly, the country needs to be ready for the next pandemic. Sadly, some things going on at an international level now make another pandemic ever more likely. 

The big positive to come from the Covid period was how most people stepped up and came together to help their fellow human beings.

It was the best of humanity and shows that there is always hope, even in what seems the darkest of times.

• Paul Donovan is Labour councillor for Wanstead Village ward, Redbridge Council and a blogger (paulfdonovan.blogspot.com).