"continue to allow Americans to use the service. That is technically operating in the U.S."
Operate in the US at arm's length with a local franchise.
32780 publicly visible posts • joined 16 Jun 2014
"It that sort of abuse of power if they do start doing that, that will stop people being behind the police during this crisis.
No it's much worse than that; public support for the police generally will be withdrawn and may / will take a long time to recover."
It's also possible that public support for the government might be withdrawn during the crisis. In the longer term, of course, that's not a problem, it's democracy; but it does need to be able to maintain support in a crisis.
In addition to the drive-through coronavirus testing facilities we're now starting to see drive-through blood-testing facilities for those who would otherwise have to visit surgeries for routine tests.
It looks as if the NHS sees being partially enclosed in a car as being safer than parking the car and walking up to the testing centre.
After writing the above it occurred to me that had you been our daughter's neighbour* you might have made a similar comment about her going in her car this morning. In fact she was going to collect her mother's prescription. We're of the generation that was told to stay at home and have stuff delivered a week earlier than everyone else and, despite the airy comment about deliveries the pharmacy delivery service is hard pressed.
It may well be that your neighbour is actually providing some voluntary service of that sort. Even if he isn't, you could, so why aren't you?
* In fact, they know better because she shops for them as well as us.
"currently repaving and refencing his front garden"
So this, at least, is being done at home and at least some of the materials, wooden panels, are those on which viruses don't survive well.
"going out several times a day"
Not, as said elsewhere, against the current SI although maybe contrary to advice.
It sounds as if he has a coping strategy. It sounds as if you don't.
Some time ago I read a comment from someone who said if he and his young son were to cycle from home it would have to be on a busy road. By putting the bikes in a car and driving half a mile they could cycle in safety. That seems sensible risk analysis to me. The problem with hard and fast rules is that they don't necessarily fit well with reality and reality is where our problems lie.
"go out with the police and watch what they put up with instead of sniping from behind a keyboard"
Let me deal with that one first: I have done that very thing in that back in the 70s & 80s I sometimes needed a police or even army escort in NI.
Now to get onto present times:
I'm in the over 70s so anything that presents an actual risk of catching the virus concerns me. We over-70s have actually been under lockdown for a week longer than the general population. Mostly it's been our daughter doing shopping for us. I've driven short distances to my sister-in-law to pick-up, from her doorstep without meeting her or er husband, our share of her Tesco delivery. So, yes take this seriously.
I also live within walking distance of a National Park. Given the amount of space there, a huge number of people could easily disperse into it and maintain separation. There are a couple of local car parks with quite limited amounts of space in them. Even if they were filled with cars the density of walkers they could bring would be negligible. Looking at it from my strictly selfish but naturally sensitive point of view, if the 2metre separation is safe I would be ultra-safe in those circumstances. Nevertheless from quite early on TPTB blocked the car parks off to prevent visitors; this only makes sense from two considerations. One is if it were the journey to get to the car park that represented a threat of contamination and I've not seen even the faintest attempt to show that.
The other is that groups of visitors would disregard the recommended spacing. Unfortunately people do not have to come out into the countryside to do that. The Beeb news site this morning has a report that the Greater Manchester Police have broken up 660 parties recently. Greater Manchester does include a lot of rural areas but there was no indication that the parties were rural, especially as s great number were described as house or street parties or gatherings to play sport. If people are going to be idiots they're at least as likely to do that at home as visit a National Park. From a country dweller's PoV my main concern is that they don't come here and let dogs loose, start fires or the other usual behaviours.
Similar arguments apply to urban parks. If people are allowed to visit the parks they can spread out to a much greater extent than if they're not.
It seems to me that one factor which has been forgotten by the present government is public morale. If the population is going to be locked down then every measure needs to be taken to maintain morale. This is not something that was lost on wartime governments but I think it is partly lost on this one.
In what way are they new? Are they newly discovered or newly introduced with the previous updates? Neither is encouraging. The one good aspect of this is that while the planes are grounded they're not doing any harm. What with being grounded until recertified and the economic effects of the pandemic, will they ever fly again?
"Security software costs money and authorization takes people (who also cost money) and time."
Don't worry, money and time will be found for cleaning up and paying the fines after the incident. It's just that money now has greater value then money in the future for the beancounters.
All this prompts a slightly OT thought.
A commonly expressed view is that mobiles have been replacing PCs because "they can do everything people need". Suddenly working at home arrives and when real work is to be done laptops or even desktops are needed for Real Work. Could there be a shift back to PCs?
This idea such obvious bollocks that it could only be believed by celebrities and the utterly stupid (I'm not claiming there isn't overlap). It's a conspiracy by HMG to identify the utterly stupid so as not to waste resources on treating them when they go down with the virus.
You heard it here first. Spread the word.