Out of lockdown, Britons are discovering other viruses still exist

THIS JUNE was the first time Ruby Bone, a 35-year-old who owns a design studio in south London, could let her son mix freely with other children. Born in May 2020, Raife had spent most of his life in lockdown. One afternoon, as they were heading to Ms Bone’s parents, he seemed a little unwell. Soon, “he was really, really sick”. Within a few days, Ms Bone’s husband was also throwing up. And then she was, too, and so were her parents. “It was really brutal,” she says. A doctor told her it was probably norovirus. After covid-19, “I didn’t even think about there being another virus out there,” says Ms Bone. It was just luck, she adds, that her 100-year-old grandmother did not catch it.