A RECORD HEATWAVE
..plus month’s rain in a day!
cials in charge of Lulworth and Durdle Door in Dorset, closed roads and warned visitors to stay away.
Ramsgate Main Sands beach in Kent was “extremely busy” with high tide making social distancing difficult, according to Thanet council.
Police reported the beaches in Blackpool, Lancs, were busy, with a “larger than usual” number of children going missing.
Some tourists slept on the sand as they secured parking for the next day. Kara-Jade Haywood, who visited
Bournemouth beach in Dorset at 5.30am yesterday, said: “Every car in the car park had people sleeping in it and the beach was basically a campsite. Some people were sleeping on the sand. The car park was full at 5am.”
HM Coastguard dealt with 340 incidents across the UK on Saturday, its highest total for over four years. Many beaches were placed on red alert by councils, with the car park being closed at Camber Sands, East Sussex. Police issued a warning after a swimmer in his 20s drowned in a water-filled former quarry at Bawsey Country Park near King’s Lynn, in Norfolk.
Supt Malcolm Cooke said: “I urge people to be aware of hidden dangers such as fast flowing currents, underwater obstacles and weeds.”
A 700-mile wide plume from Spain is causing the heat. Friday (36.4C) was our hottest August day in 17 years.
There have been crowds in some bars but Leicester University professor Dr Julian W Tang said social drinking carries more risk of catching Covid-19 than travelling by plane.
He described pubs as a “perfect storm” for spreading the virus, adding: “If the air space is poorly ventilated, that air that’s full of virus is... going to linger there until the virus dries up and dies over time.”
Half of new cases in Preston, which is now in local lockdown, were aged under 30, but city centre streets were deserted yesterday as residents heeded the warnings despite the hot weather.
GOOD weather and heatwaves clearly make Covid restrictions more tolerable.
Yet in the summer sunshine, either we keep our distance or the plague will spread and lockdowns will be reimposed.
Nobody should pretend it’s easy to stay apart on beaches, parks, cafes, pubs and restaurants.
Mixed messages from the Government don’t help and most families are no longer clear on what they should and shouldn’t do.
But if we take personal responsibility, we protect to a degree ourselves, families, neighbours, colleagues and communities – whatever strategic mistakes Boris Johnson makes.