One thing that is often sidestepped during this crisis is the mental wellbeing of people not affected by the virus. I fully understand the need to isolate contact between humans to mitigate spread of the virus, and clearly keeping travel to a minimum is essential to this end, but given that people have to travel to buy food, then there is a risk being taken where none might have existed. Going from the supermarket that supplies food to the DIY centre next door to pick up (say) paint, can surely have some positive aspects.
I'll give you an example. My wife is an extremely social being, always out and always organising clubs / groups / gatherings. These activities now seriously muted, she finds solace in gardening. She needed some tomato grow-bags (compost bags) that are available from the DIY centre, which has a very good system of 'click and collect'. You go on the web site, order your goods, and drive to the car park where they bring your order out for you to put in your car, minimising contact with the staff. No in-store browsing, as no access to he inside. The govt here in the UK has stipulated that DIY stores are able to remain open, and that all the goods one would normally buy in any such store, are able to be sold during the lockdown crisis. This includes garden compost bags. I worried about the police taking an interest in this, as there seems to be a chasm between govt guidance and enforcement. Some police forces have been overzealous in cracking down on things that actually require no crackdown. These things are slowly working their way through the system as time progresses, and the police are tending now to concentrate on localised social distancing, and long-distance travel for non-work purposes. That said, my wife phoned the DIY centre and asked for any local anecdotal evidence of police interference with (say) buying 'non-essential' items - they are known to set up road blocks checking on travel purposes. The manager told her that the police had been by once to advise on traffic arrangement during busy periods as some cars were backing out onto access roads, resulting in a modified car parking scheme for picking up goods. He said that they realised that items being purchased were important to the mental well-being of customers and there were no objections to these purchases. On learning of this, my wife promptly burst into tears :-) The point is that there's a lot more to isolating than just trying to keep busy in one's home as is. Doing things around the house might mean buying some things to accomplish that - and we try and use delivery services mostly - but being able to continue with 'normal' life within the home, as far as it is possible to, I think is quite important. We're pretty fortunate in the UK, and I am grateful, but of course we can always do better.... -- Cheers, Cotty ___/\__ UK Shoot / Edit || (O) | <www.seeingeye.tv> ---------- _____________________________ -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List [email protected] http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
