Sometime next week, I think maybe Friday I haven't been taking notes, folk will be under a legal obligation to wear a face muzzle when doing their shopping. This novelty will not apply to the staff who work in shops all day only to those who pop in for a few minutes to pick up a newspaper, a pint of milk, and a loaf of bread. Shop staff seem not to catch whatever it is that is supposed to be going around.
If the store is large enough to have a cafe or restaurant attached then those eating do not need a mask, however they will need to wear one between the front door of the shop and the cafe and, of course, upon leaving they will need to cover their ugly gobs on the way out; should they need to use the rest room then it's masks on but not while actually in the rest room. If you want to sit all day in a pub getting sozzled you can do so without encumbrance. I did a brief survey whilst out and about and saw no-one wearing a mask at all, not one; usually there's been one or two but today nobody. Why folk would suddenly choose to obey this stupid decree I can't imagine. Many stores say they will not police this (it not being their job to annoy their customers) and the actual police (or rather the London Metropolitan Police) have said they do not have the resources to police it either (meaning they have better things to do) so we'll see ... Anyhow, I do not intend to participate in this pointless, infantile parlour game.
I should note that we are some four or five months into this Government inspired fear-driven fiasco, and even in Hull no-body is bothering to die with this alleged virus any more though, of course, testing is picking up some cases (the tests however are utter rubbish), the current situation clearly does not come close to an epidemic.
It has been noted that the death figures are wrong, that is to say folk are counted as dying of this thing even if they got over it months ago, in England you can never be free of Covid-19 and no matter how gruesome or mundane your death it will still be a viral demise should you ever have tested positive for this wee sleekit cowerin' timorous beastie, much as I foretold for Poor Sam. So Public Health England ("We exist to protect and improve the nation’s health and wellbeing (sic), and reduce health inequalities.") have been overstating the mortality figures (why ever would they do that, do you think? what could possibly be their game?) which means that this thing (whatever it is and that is far from clear) is even less of a risk than previously thought and previous thought had it as a mild flu/bad cold sort of event that happens most years and nobody notices ...
I note the following also because it needs to be noted. The reason for the lock down was to "Save the NHS": now that slogan was quietly dropped some time back in April (I think) when it was apparent that the outbreak had peaked and the NHS was not (and never came close to being) in any danger of collapse. So is the NHS back up and running? What do you think! A visit to the dentist involves more rigmarole than open heart surgery, GP appointments are now triaged over the phone, GPs have made millions fewer requests for medical tests and assessments, cancer patients are dying in their thousands with many thousands still undiagnosed and heading for an early grave. If you break your arm or have an accident that requires an X-ray you now have to make an appointment before approaching the A&E department of your local hospital before you simply turned up and pointed at your dangling limb and got an X-ray. There's more going on, no doubt, but this is enough for me. I do not for one minute think these restrictions will ever be lifted. The relationship between the people and the NHS has switched from it serving them to them serving it and this cannot be good.
But, finally it is not all gloom and doom; the Fat Controller says he hopes it will all be over by Christmas and since he started it he can finish it any time he likes; I suppose getting him to say he was wrong and was all a big mistake is too much to ask.
The somewhat scruffy mail box is on Park Avenue and has been there for a century or so and is merely decoration for this rambling post.
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