WITH the first anniversary of lockdown marked yesterday, the past year dominated the comment sections of the newspapers.

The Daily Express

Vanessa Feltz said we had used the word unprecedented, unprecedented times over the past 12 months.

“We said we’d reassess our priorities,” she said. “We promised to phone all the people we remembered to love and speak to them voice to voice. We discovered Zoom. Our wardrobes shrunk. Life shrunk.”

She said working from home was both hellish and magical.

“ Serene squirrel-watchers squirrelled away cash,” she added. “Frazzled home-schoolers juggled full-time jobs, babes in arms and algebra. Garden owners channelled Monty Don and cultivated carrots.

“Singletons wished for partners. Empty nesters rejoiced as adult fledglings flew home. Spouses fell out, reconciled and often decided to “lump” it if we didn’t like it.

“Most of us survived. None of us will ever be the same again. March 23, 2021. Happy anniversary.”

The Guardian

Toby Ord, senior research fellow in philosophy at Oxford University, said the pandemic had shattered our illusions of safety and reminded us that despite all the progress made in science and technology, we remain vulnerable to catastrophes that can overturn our entire way of life.

“Technological progress since the Industrial Revolution has ultimately increased the risk of the most extreme events, putting humanity’s future at stake through nuclear war or climate breakdown,” he said. “The UK should launch a new national centre for biosecurity, as has been recommended by the joint committee on the National Security Strategy and my own institute at Oxford University.”

He said there are concrete steps the UK can take to transform its resilience to threats and there is no better time than now.

“ Covid-19 has given us the chance to make decades’ worth of progress in a matter of months. We must seize this opportunity.”

The Independent

Julia Bell has spent much of the past year in her garden shed, she said.

“My hair thinned, I slept badly, I stockpiled, started gardening furiously, growing vegetables again for the first time in years,” she said. “I felt bad for anyone without access to outside space. We were OK in our bubble but underpinned by nagging anxiety. How much worse was this going to get?”

She said as the year wore on, we all gradually knew of people who had Covid.

“Now, it’s spring again and I’m back in the shed, I feel lucky to have it, and grateful to past me for bothering to build it,2 she said. “I can feel things easing up a little, as I could feel them closing down a year ago. At least now we have a better sense of what we’re facing, and the kids are back at school.”