they set out the impact of lockdowns on senses of well being

Premier pollsters Nicholas Biddle, Ben Edwards and Patrick Rehill, from ANU’s Centre for Social Research and Methods,  surveyed people across the country 12 times, from April 2020 to last month.

The project estimates the relationship between the stringency of containment and responders’ sense of wellbeing.

There is a mass of data on different responses by demography and geography across levels of lockdown. “We are able to show that increases in policy stringency and increases in cases are both associated with a worsening in wellbeing at the individual level, but also that the association with the stringency value seems to be much stronger,” they conclude.

why this really matters: “It is only by carefully quantifying the level of lockdown restrictions and then linking these to a high-quality longitudinal survey that we are able to accurately capture the impacts of restrictions and to think empirically about the trade-offs society needed to make during the COVID-19 period, and may need to make again in the future.

and for the future?: “There is no doubt that some forms of lockdowns were essential to helping stop the spread of COVID-19 and limit case numbers and potential deaths. However, the findings presented in this paper show that measures designed to help protect people from the pandemic also have a clear impact on mental health and wellbeing. Whether this effect is long-lasting as we abandon strict lockdowns and start to live ‘COVID normal’ remains to be seen,” they write.