Covid-19 and purity spirals

Yes just wagging finger arses. (That's an arse in the right place)

Not as though we don't have enough arses on this board telling us how we we doing things wrong, guilty of thought crimes and endangering people's lives

Binterested

Maybe there are more police available because they've just asked recently retired officers to return ( have to sign up for six months plus pension deducted from salary, so basically working for nothing).

We could have more police all the time if people weren't voting for a party more interested in cutting taxes and reducing public services.

I thought it might be the dog's arse, sneaking out the door for an unauthorized pee. Police or army, which should we send?

I apparently am strongly in favor of sunbathing in parks despite having said nothing about either sunbathing or parks, other than to compliment Binterested's photo. Such are the joys of conversation with those who just really, really like arguing.

I thought you were calling me an arse

A rogue arse escsped there

So have I Isabelle.
But I am still guilty of Thought Crime because I object to shopping basket searches, Prohibited Lists and curtain twitching delights scolding me on the internet.

And arse

Ooh, just read that back and realised that it sounded like a passive aggressive dig at people going to parks and that wasn't what I meant at all.

Very pretty. I don't live within walking distance of a park so I haven't seen anything pretty like that for weeks. Because despite my despair at the Big Brother style spying, I have actually been obeying the rules.

Yes it was so cheering to see. So pointless. So lovely

Thanks for that picture, Binterested, the flowers are lovely.

We just got back from St James Park (very local to us before anyone goes off on one). So so beautiful. I stopped to take this photo.

Everyone was distancing. A few people sitting individually on the grass. I cannot get upset about that. It’s central London. Most people who live in Westminster will be in flats. Cheek by jowl with neighbours. Often no outside space. They are literally affecting Covid 19 infection rates by sitting in the middle of a park alone by 0%.

The only reason for the limitation to ‘exercise only’ is to make it simpler and easier for the police to enforce. Sitting on the grass alone is clearly no risk to anyone. I’m prepared to tolerate the police moving people on for sitting on the grass if it makes an overall policing of the lockdown easier but let’s not pretend there is any other reason not to sit on the grass alone.

The police were there in number by the way. Enthusiastically moving people on. Shame we don’t see them on our troubled main high st day dealing with the knife crime in our area. A neighbour took some pictures last year of knife mugging taking place in the middle of the day. Very clear and recognisable photos. Police apparently had no resources to make an arrest. We got our MP involved and the perpetrator - obviously known to the police - was arrested that week. I hope all of this prompts a rethink of what people want from policing.

(Curtains twitch, secret phone tip line activates)

There is no logic to the thought control policers.

It's all petty minded, envious, curtain twitching, with a smattering of Drill Sergeant

Some people also seem to know a great deal of what is going on locally, while simultaneously shielding. Must have lots of informants.

The objection to wine is because that means that some one could be, gasp, enjoying themselves for a few hours. And we cant have that can we?

You will be fucking miserable and grateful for it.

As for buying wine, I think we should all be restricted to buying essentials. It isn't fair on shop assistants or other shoppers if we all spend longer in a shop than we need to.

I honestly don't follow your logic with this. How long it takes someone to do their shop is much more dependent on the layout of the shop and the system that the shop has put in place, than on what they actually put in their trolley once they are in there. Not to mention other things such as how fast they can walk, or how good or poor their eyesight is, or even just how well they know the shop. My local huge Tesco has put a system in place where there are markers on the floor at two metre intervals and you have to follow a one way system. No one can move forward until the person in front does. If I'm standing in the wine/crisps/chocolate/cake aisle waiting for the queue to move, how can I possibly be putting anyone at risk by lifting a bottle down and putting it in my trolley?

Earlier you were objecting to people doing things that are perfectly acceptable within the current rules, such as walking in an area where other people are walking, or buying wine with their supermarket shop.
You seem to want people to not be allowed to do those things.

No, I was objecting to people going to the park for extended periods of time. Spending the day at the park sunbathing, even if two metres apart, is not in keeping with the rules. As for buying wine, I think we should all be restricted to buying essentials. It isn't fair on shop assistants or other shoppers if we all spend longer in a shop than we need to.

TheStarryNight

That is exactly my position, expressed much better than I can do.

Some of this is down to a grasp that the rules are inadequate.

With regard to running, cycling and general outside exercise, there is some evidence that people undertaking strenuous physical exertion cast droplets further than those who aren’t.

So if someone runs past you at a distance of 2m, breathing heavily, it isn’t as safe as if someone was standing 2m away from you.

There is also evidence that runners running/cyclists cycling the slipstream of others are at high risk.

www.runnersworld.com/uk/news/a32094750/coronavirus-runner-slipstream/

In crowded urban areas with limited green space, the fact that the safe distance from someone who is exercising is more like 15-20m than 2m is a real concern.

I think some of the concern about outside exercise is down to some people having an intuitive grasp of this and being unable to articulate it properly. When someone exercises, they are working their respiratory system harder, so it’s not rocket science to guess that the safe zone in that situation is larger.

Some of it is also just down to people rightly realising we don’t know the full story with the virus yet as it is so new, so better safe than sorry. Especially as recent weeks have seen people being told “It’s safe to shake hands, no, bump elbows, no stay 2m apart, hold on should we all be wearing masks?”. So something we were explicitly told was safe recently turns out not to be.

Then there is the fact that some people naturally see laws as a minimum, that being good/polite/responsible actually means you need to go further than the law, some people see the law as the limit of what is reasonable to expect and some people think that laws are there to be broken. Everyone is aware that there are other approaches to the law, and in such an emergent situation everyone feels nervous that not everyone will respond in the same way they do, the way that makes them feel safe. This is as true of people who see social fascism in social policing as it is of people who see recklessness in acting to the letter not the spirit of the law.

Sorry, posted too soon.

You don't punish the entire population to enforce the rules on a small minority who break them. It's like in school, where the whole class get detention because one person won't stop talking. It doesn't make everyone behave better, it makes everyone rebel more.

I don't see the choice. If people don't abide by the rules you either enforce them or abandon them don't you? What else can you do?

Earlier you were objecting to people doing things that are perfectly acceptable within the current rules, such as walking in an area where other people are walking, or buying wine with their supermarket shop.
You seem to want people to not be allowed to do those things.

Then what's the problem? If people are doing it voluntarily that's great isn't it but what would you want to happen if they weren't? A kind of survival of the fittest?

I don't see the choice. If people don't abide by the rules you either enforce them or abandon them don't you? What else can you do?

I'm not objecting to following the rules and I'm not advocating for abandoning lockdown. I am however, refusing to pay attention to made up rules.

And no, none of the shops where I live have got security guards forcing people to queue in the appropriate way. They have got signs up around the car park with places marked out where it is safe to stand, and everyone is doing as they have been asked.

And hundreds of shops, thousands even, don't have to have security guards to make people queue.

Really? They do here. Even the little Tesco express has security to over see the queue.

Perhaps we should just abandon lockdown completely. It's obviously too difficult to follow the rules and it's unfair to make some follow the rules and not everyone so let's just crack on then shall we? Obviously that's what you all want.

I did buy wine and face cream last time I was in Tesco's. It was for my elderly mother who's sheltering. I'll tell her next time she needs to do without for the greater good.

I'm sheltering. You don't need wine or face cream if it means someone else can't get in to buy food. My hair desperately needs dyeing. I'm not about to ask someone to buy hair dye for me though because I can get by without it.

And yes great idea. Let's tell teenagers that they can congregate in parks rather than at home. No chance of them spreading the virus and then taking it home to infect others is there? Clearly, the virus will understand that Draconian rules are tough on teenagers and so will pass them by.