Covid-19 Pandemic Thread

[LowlifeDes]

Got my uniform today [thumbsup]

attachment=0]Nurse-Joker-the-joker-8887464-479-529.jpg[/attachment]

[JohnToo]

Legal and within the spirit of the regs.

It's legal to go outside with a reasonable excuse. A reasonable excuse is to shop for food. What else you do at the same time is up to you.

The objective of the regs is to ensure that physical contact between people is significantly reduced to minimise the spread of disease. A secondary, largely unstated, objective, is to ensure that viable business continues so that economic activity isn't completely destroyed and so that people continue to have jobs.

For what it's worth, my reading of the very limited evidence is that the UK version of lockdown is about as effective at suppressing transmission as the much more Draconian versions in France, Italy or Spain. We're now at the stage where deaths are only increasing by 15% a day, and we've got there a bit sooner than I'd expected. You don't need to suppress all transmission to control an epidemic, just enough to stop it in its tracks.

I’d agree that it’s legal and within the spirit of the regs. I shall be doing some planting this weekend. We’ve already got the compost (although no fine potting compost but I have a plan for that involving the mini food processor) and the seeds/plants.

Thank you both but I respectfully disagree. I think the legality is ambiguous. You can go outside for a purpose that constitutes a reasonable excuse, and common sense says you can do some other things at the same time (I have posted a letter while out for my permitted exercise), but common sense also says it's not a licence to do anything you want while out of the house.

In terms of the spirit, I think it's fairly clearly against. The spirit is that, in person, we do essential shopping only. I can't really see any way in which finding a loophole that permits us still to do our non-essential shopping is within the spirit.

I would also, though, agree that it doesn't actually create any significant extra risk to me or to the rest of society. But is it actually up to each of us to substitute our personal judgment of risk for the rules that have been imposed on society? Isn't that a bit like a motorist saying it was OK to break the speed limit because it was an empty road and good visibility?

I am very wary of my middle-class tendency to come up with justifications of why the rules that apply to everyone else don't apply to me. "He stockpiles; you bought a bit more than you really needed; I made prudent provision for my family."

[ransos]

John, is there any additional risk created by buying compost as well as your essential food?

[JohnToo]

John, is there any additional risk created by buying compost as well as your essential food?

Not directly, or not significantly so. But nor would there be by my taking two sessions of exercise each day, or by driving to a National Park for my exercise, or by visiting my second home (were I to have one, which I don't), and doing any of those seems to be frowned upon as contrary to the spirit of what is being asked of us all?

[Rutabaga]

Not directly, or not significantly so. But nor would there be by my taking two sessions of exercise each day, or by driving to a National Park for my exercise, or by visiting my second home (were I to have one, which I don't), and doing any of those seems to be frowned upon as contrary to the spirit of what is being asked of us all?

Surely all those alternatives that you list involve you being out and about for longer and going further afield, increasing the likelihood of contact with other people - thus increasing your, and their, risk of infection? Buying an extra item when you're out shopping does not.

[JohnToo]

This would be travelling farther, to a different shop, which was able to supply only some of my essential groceries, so slightly different to sticking a luxury or two in the basket as part of my normal Sainsbury's shop.

But you may very well be right, that a risk assessment shows that this is an acceptable activity. But then the people who drove to the Peak District for their exercise may likewise have been right in their argument that is was safer to exercise in a deserted spot rather than a crowded city. My concern is whether we have the right to substitute our personal risk assessments over the advice provided to society, and whether we apply the same standards to ourselves as we do to other people.

[Rutabaga]

Well the only information you gave us was that the farm shop was a mere 4 miles away, so I'd say you've moved a goalpost there. But if it's a mere 4 miles, and you would be supporting a local business rather than contributing to the bloated profits of Sainsburys, I honestly don't understand what you're concerned about.

[Iris]

Until and unless it's tested in the courts the legality of anything will be ambiguous.

http://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2020 ... ion/6/made

It's lawful to go and buy "supplies for the essential upkeep, maintenance and functioning of the household". It's not too much of a stretch that that includes gardening supplies.

It doesn't say that thou shalt be a martyr and only shop at thy nearest supermarket from their basics range. Or, if we're making it a class thing, that the cheap takeaways that dot city centres need to close.

Section 5 of the regs further says that (almost) any business can supply (almost) anything by delivery. I think it's entirely within the spirit to let people pick up a reasonable range of goods while they're lawfully out and about.

Curiously, the same section explicitly makes it legal for churches to broadcast worship services, which makes Welby look a bit of a numpty - although I'd agree with Mr P (and not just on aesthetic grounds) that gathering a group of guitarists from different households is outside the spirit.

[LowlifeDes]

It doesn't say that thou shalt be a martyr and only shop at thy nearest supermarket from their basics range. Or, if we're making it a class thing, that the cheap takeaways that dot city centres need to close.

No but, reading between the lines, it does say that you can expect your neighbour to be a martyr.

[Rutabaga]

Thank you both but I respectfully disagree. I think the legality is ambiguous. You can go outside for a purpose that constitutes a reasonable excuse, and common sense says you can do some other things at the same time (I have posted a letter while out for my permitted exercise), but common sense also says it's not a licence to do anything you want while out of the house.

In terms of the spirit, I think it's fairly clearly against. The spirit is that, in person, we do essential shopping only. I can't really see any way in which finding a loophole that permits us still to do our non-essential shopping is within the spirit.

I would also, though, agree that it doesn't actually create any significant extra risk to me or to the rest of society. But is it actually up to each of us to substitute our personal judgment of risk for the rules that have been imposed on society? Isn't that a bit like a motorist saying it was OK to break the speed limit because it was an empty road and good visibility?

I am very wary of my middle-class tendency to come up with justifications of why the rules that apply to everyone else don't apply to me. "He stockpiles; you bought a bit more than you really needed; I made prudent provision for my family."

Back in the distant days when Esther Rantzen used to brandish hilariously misshapen vegetables on prime-time telly, there was a tale of a philosophy student who sent back to the manufacturers an empty packet of KP Nuts, asking for a refund under their stated terms because he could not say that, having eaten them, he was ABSOLUTELY satisfied with the experience. Was that you?

[JohnToo]

Well the only information you gave us was that the farm shop was a mere 4 miles away, so I'd say you've moved a goalpost there. But if it's a mere 4 miles, and you would be supporting a local business rather than contributing to the bloated profits of Sainsburys, I honestly don't understand what you're concerned about.

Sorry - no intent to move goalposts. We normally shop at Sainsbury's not because of any specific desire to boost their profits but because it is our closest and within walking distance, a bare half mile. And also, notwithstanding what one thinks about Sainsbury's corporately, our local Sainsbury's has a good track record of employing people with special needs of one sort or another.

[LowlifeDes]

The phrase people often use in work for evaluating why we do something is "dominant purpose". Does what we are doing further that purpose, or is it straying from it?

[Iris]

Remarkably, the autocratic Home Sec has confirmed that you are allowed to buy general stuff, by slapping down the cops.

https://www.northwichguardian.co.uk/new ... secretary/

Thinking about the legal position a bit more - and IANAL - I believe I am correct that it will be for a notional court in the future to write the case law that clarifies what really is allowed. But I also suspect that they will take into account the guidance given in public by .gov.uk, and probably to a lesser extent by ministers in interview. The interesting cases will come where some of that guidance directly contradicts what is in the regulations.

[LowlifeDes]

Remarkably, the autocratic Home Sec has confirmed that you are allowed to buy general stuff, by slapping down the cops.

https://www.northwichguardian.co.uk/new ... secretary/

Thinking about the legal position a bit more - and IANAL - I believe I am correct that it will be for a notional court in the future to write the case law that clarifies what really is allowed. But I also suspect that they will take into account the guidance given in public by .gov.uk, and probably to a lesser extent by ministers in interview. The interesting cases will come where some of that guidance directly contradicts what is in the regulations.

I reckon it is unlikely that any case will go so far as to make case law. When the crisis is past everyone will be glad to forget all about it.

[Iris]

I reckon it is unlikely that any case will go so far as to make case law. When the crisis is past everyone will be glad to forget all about it.

I agree!

But there are some very grumpy lawyers - supporters of the Tories - who are having a damn good go.

https://e1a359c7-7583-4e55-8088-a1c763d ... ehAd3k9haA