When asked to explore coronavirus’ effect on everyday life, I decided the only life I was qualified to talk about was my own. So, I’ll summarise the impact the pandemic has had on myself and each member of my family.

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I already lived at home for university, so I’ve been less disrupted than others, but staying in my house full-time has brought its own challenges. I have not been outside (except for my garden) since the 15th March and the biggest struggle has been finding keeping busy and motivated in this overwhelmingly depressing time.

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I asked my sister about how her life has been changed and she said this:

“As a Year 11 student I have been impacted quite heavily. I’ve gone from full-time school to having to be at home every day. The whole concept of remote learning has been challenging, but the cancellation of my GCSEs is worse. We’ve spent five years preparing us for them, and to have them cancelled with such short notice was hard. On top of that, my final year of school was cut short with just two days warning to say goodbye to friends and teachers, which was obviously hard.”

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My parents are both working: my dad, a software developer for healthcare IT, is spending all day on conference calls at home and my mum has been redeployed as a community children’s nurse on the Covid-19 111 service. My grandma, who has been living with us since she had a housefire in September, is also living with us, has spent a lot of time sitting in the sun listening to the radio.

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It’s been bizarre having all this extra time together, eating seven lunches a week with at least four members of the family. We’ve lasted this long without hating each other too.