Tuesday the 23rd of March 2021 marked one year since England went into its first lockdown due to the spread of covid 19. This caused the shutting of schools, businesses and in person interactions with anyone outside your household were banned as everyone apart from essential workers were told to self-isolate at home. Covid 19 changed the world, bringing people together to support and clap for the NHS, raise awareness of important issues such as BLM, women's rights, and mental health. Sadly covid 19 also caused an increase in mental health issues, as people were forced to isolate, missed education and exams, caused many to lose their jobs and an increase in hate crime towards Asians. 

Since the 23rd of March 2020, England has been in and out of lockdowns with the first lockdown beginning to ease during June 2020 with the eat out to help out scheme starting on the 3 of August 2020. However due to a rise in cases a new 3 tier system was put into place on the 14th of October in hopes of slowing the spread of covid and England was put back into its second national lockdown on the 5th of November. Unlike the first lockdown the second lockdown only lasts a few weeks ending on the 2 December with England entering a stricter three-tier system and later on the 21 of December a four-tier system. Despite the restriction's cases continued to rise overflowing the NHS so England was put into its third lockdown on the 6th of January for two months with restrictions being eased on the 8th of march with children returning to school and the government creating a ‘roadmap’ to lead England out of lockdown. 

Children and parents alike were impacted massively by covid 19 during 2020 and continue to be impacted with rules changing frequently. When asked about how she’s found the year of lockdowns Rose Kempt, 16, said “I’ve found things very difficult since the beginning of the year considering a lot of things were uncertain for a while. Plans were always uncertain and difficult to make as they could be changed or cancelled very quickly as we didn't know what was going to happen.” Rose continued to stay positive though by adding “despite this however it's a little better now as hopefully these new stages out of lockdown will work, and it a bit easier to think ahead about the future and what we could hopefully be planning to do over the course of the remainder of 2021” 

No one will ever forget what happened during the years of 2020 and 2021 or the 86,265 people who have died due to covid in England. We can only hope that as time goes on the cases will go down allowing people to return to school, work, and interact with friends. Hopefully the important issues that have been raised throughout lockdowns will be continued to be talked about and people can recover from the toll of lockdown.