Assessing the effects of regulations is a tricky business & there was a time when the Cabinet Office produced some rather sophisticated guidance manuals on how to go about it. That has all been largely abandoned or subverted now, perhaps because of the tendency of the analyses...

... to illuminate sometimes large gaps between intentions and effects (the road to hell is paved with good intentions and all that). Now it is the season for opinionated prejudices, devoid of any analytical or evidential foundations.

It's galling to keep reading commentary that claims 'We should introduce regulation X to reduce infections', or 'infections have fallen thanks to regulation Y', without any serious attempt to undertake the causal examination that is required to warrant the assertions.