Originally Posted by
wiggy
This has all the shades of the Eyjafjallajökull volcanic ash airspace closure where, having put draconic flight bans in place some of the NAAs/ governments were very reluctant to reduced restrictions, despite the evidence, because nobody wanted to be the politician who signed off on the relaxations in case it bit them in the behind.
Very close parallels. It has all been done on 'modelling'. In both cases quite rightly there was a very, very cautious initial reaction. With this nasty bug there was an increase in deaths, which fortunately was avoided with the volcanic ash. One big difference: Iceland couldn't/didn't hide the problem, so people could respond quickly. Everyone is so quick to criticise 'the government' but all governments doing much the same with a few variations (looking at outcomes, this one probably better than lots of others). Thousands of 'instant experts' doing the criticising, but no real ideas.
I have been to a few pubs and restaurants recently, all very well behaved and organised. The 'better' supermarkets are also a pleasure to go to but there is one of the 'ordinary' ones near us that we avoid due to the behaviour of the clientele, although we are happy with one from the same chain a bit further away. There is sensible behaviour from a lot of the population and appalling behaviour from some. We will be avoiding chavs for quite some time, especially the younger ones and especially in pubs and restaurants and on trains and flights. We pay more attention to the sort of clientele that a business attracts and those attracting chavs have lost our business.
I agree with infrequentflyer789's post. Employers could sort themselves out to deal with this. My wife and I have both worked at separate places that were very, very good at making early, sensible decisions.
The fundamental problem at the very beginning of all of this? We didn't get the same warning that we got from Iceland about their volcanic ash...