A British man is starting to see people again after spending around five years in isolation since the U.K. announced the first COVID-19 lockdown in March 2020.
Karl Knights, who is from Suffolk in the east of England, has an increased risk of complications from a potential coronavirus infection due to him having cerebral palsy and being immunosuppressed, according to the BBC.
According to the National Institutes of Health (NIH), people who are immunosuppressed “have a reduced ability to fight infections and other diseases,” and this may be caused by having certain diseases or conditions.
While discussing the feeling that most people would have had when lockdowns started to lift, Knights — who is a poet and journalist, per his website — told BBC Radio Suffolk, “Five years later, I am having that moment now.”
Admitting he has only recently started leaving the house, Knights told the station, per the outlet, “It has been nice, but I am still more cautious than most.”
Recalling the “scary” moment the U.K. government announced its first national lockdown, between March and June 2020, Knights — whose doctor advised him to immediately isolate — told the station 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,” the writer said.
Knights regularly posts about COVID-19 and isolating on social media, and during the pandemic, he admitted his tweets gained “a lot of attention.”
“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,” he told the radio station, per the outlet.
“I don’t drive – I’m on buses and trains … you hear those little snatches of stories. I think I realized 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,” he shared.
Never miss a story — sign up for PEOPLE’s free daily newsletter to stay up-to-date on the best of what PEOPLE has to offer, from celebrity news to compelling human interest stories.
The writer previously told the BBC in December 2022 that he was preparing to spend his third Christmas in isolation. “Outside of the house I haven’t seen anyone in the flesh for three years now,” he told the outlet at the time.
He added that isolating for so long was “very strange, very odd, you’re in this kind of bubble, you’re on pause, watching the world go by and you’re still in place.”
PEOPLE has reached out to Knights for comment.
Read the full article here
