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I'm unsure whether the rolling back of lockdown restrictions is going too quickly, but I *am* sure that the level of doom-mongering about it from some, all sharing the same pictures of that one Soho street, is overblown https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jul/05/fears-of-widespread-disorder-prove-unfounded-as-english-pubs-reopen
In a country of 65M plus people, basically *every* weekend there will be some pocket of bad behaviour. This gets amplified out of all proportion every single time because people nervous about lockdown or angry at the Conservatives share it like crazy
Until we get a vaccine, this country and others are going to have to engage in a constant v difficult balancing act in terms of social behaviour. People freaking out & flooding social media with angry rangs about one street or one beach every damn weekend isn't going to help that
Wait for reliable statistics on overall patterns of activity from statistics agencies, police, health services etc. Watch those closely & make your judgements based on those. Don't trust anecdotes shared on a medium structurally designed to amplify behaviour that provokes outrage
Just from memory I can remember the following collective nervous breakdowns:
1. Freakout over busy London park - No uptick followed
2. Freakout over busy beaches- No uptick followed
3. Freakout about people walking too far away from their houses - no uptick followed
1. Freakout over busy London park - No uptick followed
2. Freakout over busy beaches- No uptick followed
3. Freakout about people walking too far away from their houses - no uptick followed
4. Freakout over Black Lives Matter marches (must admit I was one of those expressing worry about that) - no uptick followed.
The one substantial uptick we have had - in Leicester - seems to have originated from people working close together in unsanitary conditions
The one substantial uptick we have had - in Leicester - seems to have originated from people working close together in unsanitary conditions
Pictures of sweatshops and slaughterhouses don't go viral as they involve people from a completely different demographic from those pumping out the freakout pictures - but so far its cramming people together *inside* which appears to produce the highest risk of new spikes.
By all means express concern about the changes in rules, but if you're doing that by sharing a wholly unrepresentative picture and overgeneralising from it, you're not making a very credible argument.
