Several anomalies as we deal with Covid-19
IHAD a conversation the other day with a lady whose driving test kept being delayed because of the coronavirus restrictions. She’s now found out through the Government’s website that such tests can resume on April 22. However, it is possible to have a driving lesson from April 12. But why the 10-day difference, as the act of sitting in a car with a stranger will be exactly the same for a test as for a lesson?
Sadly this is just one of several anomalies created by the attempts to deal with the Covid 19 virus. Take for instance the selling of clothes. I can go in a store like M&S or Asda and be at perfect liberty to purchase what I want. Yet I can’t visit Primark, simply because they only sell clothes, unlike those other establishments.
Mind you, who decided what is essential retail and what isn’t? I mean people might have needed a thick coat during last month’s icy spell, while children are always growing out of clothes. So I’d have thought it more important to purchase items to wear than to visit a garden centre, facilities that have been allowed to remain open. I’ve never seen any logic in letting anglers continue with their sporting activities, but not golfers. Nicola Sturgeon obviously agrees, as there’s been no ban on golf north of the border.
There again Scotland has seen the forced closure of churches, whereas acts of worship could continue in England.
Seeing neighbours in their own home has been a no-no. But tradesmen have been allowed to enter other houses, and I can’t see that the risk is any greater for us to visit a friend as long as we remain socially distanced, perhaps wearing a mask in the process. Several hundred people at a time are allowed into the largest stores, with shoppers constantly toing and froing. Yet you can’t get a similar number in a cinema or theatre, where people will be sitting down and keeping the regulation distance apart from those not in their household or bubble.
To me that’d be safer, but there you are, you can’t even gather at an outside venue despite it being common knowledge that you’re less likely to catch Covid in the open. Ah well, roll on the end of lockdown, which I hope comes sooner rather than later.