Is it OK to shout at strangers who aren’t social distancing? Absolutely
Is it acceptable to shout at people – not just friends and family, but also strangers – for not practising social distancing?Martin, London
Status update on me: I am spending every day, all day, inside my home with three children under five and a deranged, underwalked terrier who barks incessantly at his own reflection in the window. Am I lucky? You bet: I have a home and, so far, everyone has their health. But does my life also resemble a Channel 5 reality TV show? Maybe just a touch.
It is perhaps because of this that I spent most of the weekend wanting to shout at people. Not at the children or the dog because that would only add to the noise, and if we go up by just one decibel I honestly think we would break international law. No, I wanted to shout at the people I could see casually strolling outside as if it were just another Sunday, la la la, is that cafe open for lunch? Oh no, it isn’t, how strange, la la la, we’ll just wander around until we find some coffee, we’re too busy taking a selfie of our lovely weekend to move off the pavement and give two metres of space to that elderly woman walking past us, la la la. The ones I saw playing football in the local park when I took the poor dog for his now very hurried daily 10-minute walk. The ones shaking germ-ridden hands with careless abandon while I mentally nosedived between them in slow-motion while screaming: “Noooooooo!”
By the time a woman came up to me (while I backed up nervily in order to maintain the requisite two metres and she edged ever closer, as if we were about to break into some kind of traditional dance) and asked where the playground was, I had reached my endpoint.
“You shouldn’t be taking your child to the playground anyway!” I barked.
And then, as if to prove my kid-advice credentials, I added: “I have three children locked up at home! It’s the best way!” Realising that I had made myself sound a bit like Josef Fritzl, I reckoned it was probably time to head back to the bunker.
When it comes to failing to self-isolate or practise social distancing, surely everyone feels free to tell off members of their family. Telling each other off is what having a family is all about! OK, maybe it is about a bit more than that, but if you can’t be honest with the teenagers or older people in your family and tell them – for their own sakes and the sakes of others – to stay the frick inside for Gawd’s sake, then you really need to work on your familial relations.
Friends, too, deserve your honesty. So, if you have friends that mention they are heading to their (heretofore never mentioned) second home, you are fully within your rights to tell them to stop being selfish Typhoid Marys, bringing their germs to a little country village that is unequipped to handle a pandemic, all because they want a nice view from the kitchen.
The strangers issue is, I accept, slightly more awkward, especially in Britain, where being approached by a stranger is considered by some to be a breach of their human rights. My favourite online video at the moment shows various Italian mayors screaming at people to stay at home, per l’amor di Dio!
“I saw a fellow citizen amiably jog up and down. I stopped him and said: ‘Look, this isn’t a movie. You are not Will Smith in I Am Legend. You have to go home,’” one recalls. “I’m going to address you all,” another begins. “Where the fuck are you going?!”
Sure, we can blame the UK government for failing to give advice as clearly as Italian mayors are doing. Yes, Boris Johnson is a useless bit of lettuce who always bottles his big moment – NOT NEWS. So, it is not entirely some people’s fault if they do not know what to do. But acknowledging that does not get us very far and, the fact is, the virus is spreading. So, in the absence of the government getting the message across, it is up to us to make like an Italian mayor and tell our fellow citizens what they need to know: you are not Will Smith in I Am Legend. Go home.
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