I'm not sure it needs to take 4 days either. Shops, pubs and restaurants each close themselves down, they will have been expecting this and are likely to have had plans in place to shut down promptly and I'm certain they won't be waiting until Monday. I just think it gives people 4 days to go barmy and have one final covid-spreading fling before lockdown. edit: AlRawdah's response sounds the more likely.
Eight months of a pandemic that saw people dropping dead - supposedly - in the streets in China... yet children are essentially immune (or at least only rarely display symptoms) and only ~300 people under the age of sixty have died of coronavirus in the UK, including those with underlying health issues. I hope all deadly viruses prove to be as benevolent as this one in the future.
Look at the graphs. The graphs show it all. Don't listen to the bumbling shagmeister. He can't add nothing to the graphs, no sirree. The graphs tell the full story of why we need to act (and act now! (Or preferably 2weeks ago)). Trust the graphs. They've got 95% confidence intervals. I love a 95% confidence interval, me.
I will be out Wednesday striking poses with arms aloft and making gestures outside the pub at 10.05 PM.
BBC The Premier League and other elite sport can continue behind closed doors during a new four-week national lockdown in England.
You have a rather simplistic view of how retail works. I supply retailers and on Friday, I prepared around fifty orders to go out to my customers on Wednesday, for delivery Thursday. My warehouse have arranged extra staff on Tuesday to receive and process the delivery, ready to send out on Wednesday, only now they can’t as the shops will all be shut on Thursday. I will now have to contact all fifty customers, find out how many will still be willing to take the goods and amend delivery addresses where necessary (those with a significant online presence will probably still take the goods, but for delivery to home addresses). I will then inform the warehouse if they need to still bring in extra staff on Tuesday or Wednesday, or if the whole thing will have to be delayed until December (if they’ll still agree to take them at all). There’ll be tens of thousands of businesses all over the country with similar scenarios, it’s nowhere near as simple as just locking doors and telling staff not to come in tomorrow.
Of course it isn't easy but does giving businesses 4 days notice really make that much difference. They need to close the front doors, but that doesn't stop the business effecting an orderly closedown in the background.
When I see the word sage I think of a quiz show a while back. A contestant was asked to name a herb which also meant wise. He pondered for a while and said he remembered watching a fox who was clever called Basil Brush so he was going for basil.
That happened in Asda up my way too....****ing riot ensued when they wouldn't take vouchers for smokes and drink!!! Of course that's by no means having a poke at genuine hardship but it's indicative of the fact that some people couldn't give a **** about their kids needs!!! I brought up 4 on a low income and fed them before my wife and I ate...That's how it was and my kids appreciate that to this day.
They should employ the South African one that did Mandela's funeral, he'll make more sense than Boris, aka Rowley Birkin Q.C.