LONDON, U.K. -- I met a woman in the park today who said it was her first time out of the house in 12 weeks. She might have been âshieldingâ at home for health reasons.
She had a face mask in one hand and a cigarette in the other. Trying not to judge here.
She told us her son was a scientist and when he returned from China in January he warned her that something very bad was going on.
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That would have been Wuhan, where the pandemic startedâa city of 11 million that was kept under severe lockdown for 76 daysâuntil there were zero new cases.
Tomorrow will mark 76 days since the U.K. was put under lockdown and itâs still counting as many as 8,000 daily infections.
The countryâs scientist adviser says the numbers are And yet a lot of people are acting as if the lockdown is over.
I donât even know what to call it anymore. Lockdown Light I suppose.
You might consider this as well: Wuhan recently tested 10 million people in 19 days, worried about a second wave of COVID-19.
The U.K.âs âworld-beatingâ track-and-trace system wonât even be fully operational until the autumn. Itâs been a slow start.
It appears a number of the 25,000 people hired as trackers have been somewhat idle. One of them said heâs spent the last two weeks sitting in his garden âsunbathing, drinking and chilling with my pals.â
This is the government that has now ordered people to start wearing face coverings on public transitâas of June 15.
That leaves a lot of people askingâwhy wait until June 15?
Something else to consider: A British doctor is demanding the Health Secretary retract his claim of putting âa protective ringâ around care homes. Sheâs threatening to take him to court.
That would be Matt Hancock, the same minister who banned sunbathing and kept telling us face masks werenât very helpful.
The womanâs 88-year-old father died in a care home. Sheâs angry and heartbroken.
It was âunlawful,â she says, to discharge hospital patients into care homes without being tested. Thatâs how a lot of the elderly picked up the virus.
âIâm being driven to do this by a real sense of anger about what happened to my farther,â she said this week.
âHe was in a care home. It should have been a place of safety."
There are many thousands more in this country who feel exactly the same.