People Ignore the Lockdown

I am less than convinced of the utility of this lockdown thingie. Shopping with one of my sons last Sunday we both noticed that the amount of traffic on the roads looked pretty much like the amount of traffic that you get on any given Sunday. The local community green which consists of a children's play area that is surrounded by benches for the adults to sit on was full of people taking the air and enjoying the bright spring day. It was true that fewer people were walking around along the main roads, but the side streets that cover my estate had the usual numbers of footsloggers on them.

That son of mine works as a security man and he was hired to do a shift at the Chinese consulate. Give the diplomats credit, as they fitted him out with a mask, goggles and latex gloves, which is a good thing as his job was to check the temperature of anyone who wanted to access the building and he was given strict instructions that anyone who was running a temperature was to be knocked back.

One fellow arrived and registered a temperature of over 100F degrees, which is pretty eye-watering. He claimed that he had felt a bit chilly that morning so had used the heater in his car, but the lad knocked him back and he went off, muttering in Chinese, about the unfairness of it all.

Last weekend the supermarkets introduced a policy of restricting the number of people who they let in at any one time, with the result that massive queues formed outside. At that time, getting a slot for a click and collect purchase was fairly easy, but then people began to order their groceries online and by midweek you couldn't get a slot to pick them up to save your life. At the time of writing, Tesco in this area has no slots available until next month. Looking on the bright side, last night I breezed into Tesco, bought what I needed and then paid at an otherwise empty checkout with no trouble. The checkout girl was so bored that we ended up chewing the fat for five minutes or so.

We will have to see what happens if the death rate does climb to around a thousand a day, as it is expected to do this coming week. However, as things stand, the people seem to have decided that the cure is worse than the complaint.