Chris wrote:Given that the aim is to stop the number of deaths increasing again, this might be a more relevant graph (footfall compared to last year)? I think we can assume this is going to keep going up.
I've yet to see a
more relevant graph than the one I posted in #814. If the hesitant / fearful / paranoid need reassurance then this is the one to stick on all the newspaper front pages and tv bulletins. (It makes you wonder why it isn't already, seeing as anyone, including journalists, can download the latest one from the ONS.) By all means contextualise it with statistics that show that weekly deaths from all causes have been below the five-year average since the week ending 19 June, and that the number of 'covid-19 associated' deaths for the week ending 3 July was a mere 5.82% of the 9140 total deaths from all causes. (If anyone's startled by the number of weekly deaths that are
not covid-19 associated, then he or she needs urgent education, not an arm around his or her shoulder.)
Forcing shoppers to wrap their faces simply conveys the message that shops are sites of contagion and the people in them are potential toxic enemies. That's hardly likely to reassure many. Especially so given that the government admitted as recently as 9 July that the evidence for the efficacy of face coverings was 'weak', and its own health officers (e.g. Jenny Harries) have since March very publicly indicated that they may in fact be harmful.
What's more it'll keep out the many sensible people for whom these places are off-limits all the while the government turns a pleasurable experience into a series of micro-managed interactions accompanied by security guards, police patrols and the assorted rigmarole of totalitarian states. It'll also turn many individuals into risk-averse comfort-blanket-chewers and others into denouncers and shamers of mask-refuseniks. That'll make for a truly suffocating future for those of us who still remember a free England.
