Whilst the featured BBC article is an excellent analysis of how we reached 100,000 deaths in the UK, I wonder whether it really digs into the impact of UK society and our culture? 

We could say that we have the highest death rate in the world due to government dithering, failing to close down the country early enough and allowing international travel to continue unrestricted. Or perhaps government concentrated too early on restarting the country with initiatives such as 'Eat Out to Help Out'.  

More deeply, it may be it is the underlying inequalities in the UK, measured through both financial and health inequalities as well as the underlying precarious state of the NHS. When you add that to a cocktail of some of the highest density urban populations then we have a recipe for a disastrous pandemic.

Defenders of the UK situation may say "but look at how the economy has weathered the storm and the low unemployment levels compared with, say, the USA." But this is difficult to accept when we face this wall of grief - each death representing a family in mourning.

As we sit at home in protracted lockdown, I hope many more of us will think about what this says about the underlying values of our society. Is our love of personal freedoms and individual choice part of the problem? How many of us have an unwillingness to curb our own behaviours to put others first? Do we really value the lives of the most vulnerable in our society?  

As so many people say we are seeking out a purpose for our lives, let's hope we can influence wider society so we all understand our own personal freedoms are inextricably intertwined with the wider well-being of our communities and the country.