have to book a test. they didn't necessarily want their covid recorded. they didn't want to have to isolate from work, if they can't afford to isolate from work. so, the policy only goes so far to change behaviour. how long, then, do you think you're going to be seeing the consequences, in their many ways, of the pandemic? turning up in your surgery, or turning up on your virtual screen when you're talking to patients, whether it be other diseases that weren't diagnosed, mental health conditions as a result of the last two years? i would guess a decade, if not two. i look after refugees in my practice who are traumatised from experiences that they had in the 90s, in the 80s, and the effects of that trauma — it's a very different type of trauma — last for decades. and i think if you look at the public health of the nation after the second world war and after other big events like that, you see that it lasts.