Covid: Wales recovery still goes on since the pandemic
- Published
Tuesday will mark one year since the final Covid restriction was lifted in Wales
A year on from the lifting of the final Covid restrictions in Wales, the nation is still recovering.
While many have put the pandemic behind them, coronavirus is still very present in the world.
People are now facing new challenges, not least as food prices have surged at the fastest rate in nearly 45 years.
Over the past 12 months much has been made of the ongoing struggle to cut NHS waiting lists, but what about the rest of society?
The psychology lecturer
Dr Simon Williams says people feel that Covid was like "another life or a dream"
It will be a year on Tuesday that restrictions ended.
Swansea University psychology lecturer Dr Simon Williams said: "When we interview people now, we see that actually a lot of people feel like the pandemic was another life or a dream".
He was surprised how quickly people followed the rules during the pandemic despite the media coverage of politicians breaking them.
"The vast, vast majority of people were willing to do things that were completely unnatural to them," he said.
Life, he said, for most people has returned to normal.
"It's amazing to me how resilient people are, but also how old habits really do die hard," he said.
The long Covid sufferer
Sarah Sutton is one of nearly two million people with long Covid
Things have not gone back to normal for long Covid sufferer Sarah Sutton, 44, who is one of nearly two million people in the UK with the condition.
She first contracted the virus while working as a midwife during the pandemic. Most of her body is affected and it causes brain fog.
Ms Sutton, from Swansea, is unable to work and is often left bedbound. Her two adult daughters have moved back home to care for her.
"There is no normal for me any more, or the normal that there is is not anything like the normal that it used to be," she said.
"Is it normal for an 11-year-old to ask, 'Is there something you're hiding from me mum, is there something they've told you, that you're dying'?"
Ms Sutton thinks she is one of the "missing millions" she believes have been forgotten since the pandemic.
"To say that we're all getting back to normal now, it's a fallacy," she said.
The restaurateur
Simon Wright says watching people in hospitality struggle was heartbreaking
Restaurateur Simon Wright believes business is more challenging now than it was during the pandemic.
The owner of Wright's Emporium in Llanarthne, Carmarthenshire, he is one of the founders of the Welsh Independent Restaurant Collective.
Hospitality was hit hard by Covid, but post-pandemic business owners are now struggling with an economy in turmoil.
"At least [during the pandemic] we were being closed by government, there was an understanding that there needed to be support, we could at least talk about that," Mr Wright said.
But now people, he said, felt helpless amid rising costs and a labour shortage.
"I have an affinity for all those people who are working in our sector, and to see them struggling like they are at the moment is really heartbreaking," he said.
The education leader
Falling school attendance figures are heartbreaking, says Eithne Hughes
The Association of School and College Leaders' Eithne Hughes said the pandemic had been "dreadful" for the young.
It disrupted schools and pupils. Most children had to learn online.
As the end of the first uninterrupted school year since Covid draws near absenteeism is of major concern.
Attendance has fallen from 94% in 2019 to under 90% so far this year, external.
Ms Hughes called the numbers "heartbreaking".
She said: "The relationship clearly between attainment and attendance is an obvious point to make. If the children aren't in they can't succeed.
"That I think is a significant legacy of the Covid period."
Politics Wales is on BBC One Wales at 10:00 BST on Sunday and on iPlayer
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