Mr Dingwall said people's fears would ease if they 'get used to Covid as an endemic infection that sits in the background' rather than the 'catastrophic threat' it was last spring
Fear and anxiety brought on by the coronavirus pandemic will take 'some time' to subside, a top sociologist warns.
Robert Dingwall, professor of sociology at Nottingham Trent University, said the concerns which have arisen over the last 15 months would take time to subside as people get used to living with Covid-19 as an infection which circulates in society.
'I think we have seen the consequences of the levels of fear and anxiety that have been generated in the population,' he said on Sky News.
'I think the situation that we’re dealing with now is really more of a psychological one than an epidemiological one,' Mr Dingwall said. 'Over the last couple of weeks the data haven’t really changed, the science hasn’t really changed.'
The number of coronavirus cases in the UK has skyrocketed 28% in the last week, with nearly 230,000 new cases reported in just seven days.
And while deaths remain low, the latest data show the number of hospitalisations from Covid has nearly doubled in the last week to roughly 3,000 - an increase of 1,114.
The number of coronavirus cases in the UK has skyrocketed 28% in the last week, with nearly 230,000 new cases reported in just seven days
Mr Dingwall said people's fears would ease if they 'get used to Covid as an endemic infection that sits in the background' rather than the 'catastrophic threat' it was last spring.
He urged the government to shift to more 'positive messaging' regarding the pandemic.
'The message that Covid is now generally a mild illness, that it rarely requires people to go to hospital, that this is something that we can get on with our lives with (it) in the background, and that almost every situation that you might find yourself in carries with it
