Before the first lockdown, it was a running joke in the Payne household that 57-year-old Janet had a better social life than both of her children put together. Janet, who was born Deaf, was constantly traveling to social balls, going on holidays with friends and attending sailing trips off the south coast of England.
Then, as the UK lockdown was announced in March 2020, things became much harder for Janet and her peers. Community groups, which are a lifeline for many in the Deaf community, were shut down completely. Socialising, as most of it moved online, became increasingly difficult for the profoundly and severely deaf. Even gaining access to government updates was irksome.
All of these things, Janet Payne told me, led to feelings of intense isolation. Primarily, she was isolated most by the government’s inaction on communicating news to the Deaf and hard of hearing. She described how the Deaf community felt “panicked” after every press conference because they had no idea what the government was trying to relay.
