Lessening Covid-19 Restrictions in England

The British Conservative government appears to be criticised for every action it takes or does not take to reduce and overcome the dreadful effects of the Covid-19 pandemic.

A few weeks ago it was being berated, particularly by the BBC, for not making sufficient arrangements to repatriate the hundreds of thousands of people from this country who had been travelling abroad. When the government listened and repatriated about a million from countries as far apart as Argentina and Bangladesh, there was no apparent praise from the media. Perhaps  much of the criticism is best ignored by the government.

Of course after  repatriating so many from around the world, when the British numbers of people catching the virus began to increase sharply, there was no acceptance by the media that its shrill calls for repatriation of travellers from abroad, led to large numbers of Covid-19 affected people returning to the UK, thus increasing the  illness statistics here.

Much the same kind of attitude may be discerned in the media about the government's decision to ease the lock down at least in England by allowing restaurants and pubs to reopen and hairdressers to resume their work. For example the reader comments in the FT today at least those that I have read, are full of moans, whereas even constructive criticism would surely have been apt for the more  intelligent readers of that newspaper. Perhaps someone has borrowed the Covid-19 actions to take, book from the library and has forgotten to return it for Boris Johnson's government to use; absurd media comments in my view.

Taking a very early walk through Wimbledon Town centre and up through the Village to the Common, it was almost amusing to see queues of people outside barbers' shops although in some one has to make an appointment before attending. A restaurant in Wimbledon Village serving breakfast outside, was bursting at the seams at 8:30am and many more shops were preparing to open. I see too that Holy Mass is to resume at Southwark catholic cathedral tomorrow, though with limited numbers being permitted to attend. I wonder when mass with holy communion will resume locally?

An haircut for me will probably take a day or two to arrange but  I speculate whether a visit to a local pub may be the Hand in Hand on Wimbledon Common might be possible meanwhile, as there is the whole Common  at its door making social distancing pretty easy.