Finding it impossible to make decisions? You’re not the only one

Constant recalibration of risk in the face of a mutating virus is causing decision fatigue, leading to binge eating and even impulse shopping

During the first wave of the pandemic, hospital workers had a great deal to say about the horrendous choices they were being forced to make on oversubscribed, underequipped wards. Why should one person deserve a ventilator more than another? How would you make that call, at speed? There was the life-or-death nature of the decisions. The pressure was unbearable.

Almost two years later, with Covid-19 still putting a strain on health services across the world, the rest of us are perhaps experiencing a more diffuse form of decision fatigue". While the choices themselves may not be as obviously acute, they are nonetheless concerned with mortality. Would you trust a rapid lateral flow test in a situation that really mattered? Is it OK to go to the gym? Which is safer, taxi or public transport?

Anouchka Grose is a psychoanalyst and the author of No More Silly Love Songs