Poet starts venturing out after years of isolating

A man who has spent almost five years in isolation since the first Covid-19 lockdown says he is now experiencing seeing people again.

Karl Knights, from Leiston in Suffolk, who has cerebral palsy and is immuno-supressed, began shielding in 2020 due to his increased risk of complications from a potential coronavirus infection.

The poet and writer said he was now finding out how most other people felt after coming out of lockdown.

"Five years later, I am having that moment now," he said.

Mr Knights started isolating in March 2020 after he received a letter from his GP.

He said the government's announcement that people should self-isolate was "scary" and added it was the moment he knew his life was "about to change".

"For me it was one of those pivotal kind of moments, where I could sense something was going to shift, and my life wouldn't be exactly the same for a little while," he told BBC Radio Suffolk.

During the pandemic, Mr Knights said he started to use social media to talk about his time isolating and said he gained "a lot of attention".

He said: "I found that just through taking about what I was thinking about or feeling, that seemed to resonate with people who were in the same position.

"I don't drive - I'm on buses and trains... you hear those little snatches of stories.

"It think I realised very early on in the pandemic... it really brought into focus how social my work was, and I had to find a new way to write without that kind of stimulus, and that has been interesting."

Five years on, he has only recently started going out of the house, on a few occasions so far.

He said he was now having "that moment everyone had when they came out of lockdown and they could hug people again, and see people again".

"It has been nice, but I am still more cautious than most," he said.

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