You're right @PerkingFaintly, I was asking questions and generally chucking thoughts around.
Like @grauduroi I am local though I don't live in Salisbury itself.
When the Skripals were poisoned that, clearly, was an outrageous act. The mood locally and this is only my summary of the conversations I had with people as the details around the incident unfolded was that it was an attack aimed directly at the Skirpals, probably as a result of Russian aggression against a former employee of their government.
As this was suspected to be an act of political terrorism, rather than a domestic one, explains why the facts of the case released to the public have been sparse.
The events of the last week have made the whole situation even less clear and more worrying. In my opinion - based simply on my own reading of this - is that the couple who fell ill on Sunday/Monday and also possibly the man who died on 14th March, were less likely to have been directly targeted and more likely to be victims of accidental cross contamination.
To add to this there is a lack of information about Novichok, this can be shown by @IrmaFayLear's post and @gluteustothemaximus, where one expert says that Novichok degrades quickly whereas one of the scientists who developed it says it lasts for a long time.
I could disappear down a wormhole of discussion about how anyone, including the people who developed it may or may not know how long it takes to degrade but my point is that there is a lack of factual information about all of the incidents.
I hope that also explains my confusion about the length of time it took for the Novichok to take hold in these most recent cases @PerkingFaintly. I was making the assumption that he had been contaminated in Salisbury and made the journey to Amesbury and then became ill. There's no train station at Amesbury so he'd either driven or taken a bus, both of which would have taken time, even more so as the reports currently suggest after he'd taken strong opiates.
Whatever the circumstances, my hope is that anyone who has or will come into contact with Novichok receives the treatment they need and recovers well.
