Out of Decay

I was able to travel a bit further afield today, with visits planned to a business with an outbreak, along with other meetings with management at local supermarkets.

While out I stopped for a few minutes to make some notes and noticed this evidence of new life in the verge of one of our local roads.  It was lucky not to be under water.  Flooding was common in places across the roads in the area, evidence of the amount of rain over the last 24 hours (we hadn't had much rain in the last couple of weeks).

The Government is asking local authorities to visit all supermarkets over the next week to discuss the measures they are taking to tackle members of the public who don't wear face masks in their stores.  This is undoubtedly a reaction to the media coverage earlier this week.

The reaction I got from the supermarkets I visited is that they had initially asked people who weren't wearing masks to comply with the requirements but generally they got a lot of abuse for their trouble.  In some cases this included physical and damage to store property.  In the end, as they don't have the power to require people to do this (it's a Police function of the regulations), their head offices told their staff not to challenge people.

There may be a change coming but it requires a more nuanced solution than simply placing the responsibility on the businesses themselves.  It needs to be backed up with some support from those with the power to take action where people refuse to comply.