Surf's Up for Second Wave
The government seems to be doing everything it can to encourage a second wave of Covid-19.
The Dominic Cummings story has stripped ministers of any remaining rags of moral authority. As the police have found over the last week, the attitude now seems to be that, if the lockdown rules don't apply to the people responsible for drafting them, why should they apply to anyone else?
On the day lockdown was introduced, 23rd March, there were 967 new cases and 74 new deaths. Yesterday there were 2,095 new cases and 324 new deaths. The scientific advisers say that this is too high a rate to start to ease the lockdown. Nevertheless, despite claiming throughout the crisis that it is following the science, the government has decided to do just that.
Just before a weekend predicted to have glorious weather, the government announced that the lockdown would begin to be eased the following Monday. Inevitably, people are jumping the gun.
All this might be manageable, if there were a working test-and-trace system in place. There isn't.
Meanwhile, having decided three months too late to introduce quarantine for visitors from abroad (although not people coming from Ireland, fruit pickers, and others whom it would be inconvenient to keep out), the government's quarantine controls have proved to be an unenforceable shambles.
Apart from that, everything's going fine.
The Dominic Cummings story has stripped ministers of any remaining rags of moral authority. As the police have found over the last week, the attitude now seems to be that, if the lockdown rules don't apply to the people responsible for drafting them, why should they apply to anyone else?
On the day lockdown was introduced, 23rd March, there were 967 new cases and 74 new deaths. Yesterday there were 2,095 new cases and 324 new deaths. The scientific advisers say that this is too high a rate to start to ease the lockdown. Nevertheless, despite claiming throughout the crisis that it is following the science, the government has decided to do just that.
Just before a weekend predicted to have glorious weather, the government announced that the lockdown would begin to be eased the following Monday. Inevitably, people are jumping the gun.
All this might be manageable, if there were a working test-and-trace system in place. There isn't.
Meanwhile, having decided three months too late to introduce quarantine for visitors from abroad (although not people coming from Ireland, fruit pickers, and others whom it would be inconvenient to keep out), the government's quarantine controls have proved to be an unenforceable shambles.
Apart from that, everything's going fine.