Clear about the rules but confident you are right to ignore them? You must be a high earner

There are those who think that living in an affluent neighbourhood is its own vaccine, writes Kate Devlin

People swab themselves at a Covid-19 testing site on Clapham Common in south London (Reuters)

How far did different groups of people comply with the restrictions on daily life caused by the latest lockdown? And why? These were some of the questions a research project by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) set out to answer. The results are fascinating, not least because they suggest the downsides of living in an affluent neighbourhood.

Why? Well, the ONS found that high-income earners had a “unique” perspective among all of the groups looked at. “The most unique attitude of this group was that many seemed clear about what they should be doing but were confident in arguing that they had good reasons for ignoring the guidance or that they had assessed and minimised the risk,” they found.

What makes this all the more astonishing, perhaps, is when the survey was carried out.