For nearly 12 months, single people have been unable to form new relationships. With their chances to start a family or find love slipping away, many are now ignoring the rules

Last summer, shortly after the first lockdown was relaxed enough to allow strangers to meet outdoors, Rosie, 35, an editor based in London, joined a man for a first date on Hampstead Heath. “He said: ‘I brought some wine with me, but the glasses are in my flat, round the corner.’ I’d only met him for an hour. Even in normal times, I wouldn’t be up for that.” She can’t be entirely sure if he was suggesting an illicit drink or a very quick-off-the-bat shag, but it wasn’t a dilemma, at least. “Maybe people’s pheromones have gone funny,” Rosie says, “or maybe I secretly have Covid and can’t smell anyone properly, but I’ve had more smouldering frisson at the supermarket than I have on a date. I’ve had sex just four times since March.”

For nearly a year, give or take the odd month, the rules introduced to fight the spread of coronavirus mean that, in England, sex between single people, or established couples who don’t cohabit, has in effect been either illegal, or against regulations, or only allowed outdoors. To give that a sense of scale, 40% of people – rising to 71% among 16- to 29-year-olds – don’t live in a couple.