Wednesday, 29 April 2020

Relaxing the rules

As we come to the end of our 5th week of level 5 lockdown, there has been much speculation about how the rules will be relaxed as we move to level 4 on Friday.

With the announcement, originally scheduled for Tuesday afternoon, delayed until this evening, we have now learned that, aside from the changes which allow more commercial and industrial businesses to restart operations, there will be very little change as far as individuals are concerned.

We will now have to wear cloth face masks whenever we leave the house and are still only allowed to go out for essential shopping and medical needs. In addition, they have imposed a curfew from 20.00 to 0500 every night.

As far as exercising outside, they have conceded that we can go out to run or cycle within 5 km of our home between 06.00 and 09.00 every morning - which will be challenging for many since sunrise tomorrow morning will be at 07.18. I guess there'll be lots of runners and cyclists on the road when it gets light!

We already knew that we would have to wait till we reach level 3 before we could replenish the wine and beer stocks, but they have now changed their minds and continued the cigarette ban as well.

So, the bottom line is that the change in lockdown is purely an economic measure which will make almost no change to our daily lives.... Ho, Hum....

On the positive side, the lockdown has certainly flattened the infection curve - there have only been 93 deaths across the country out of a population of 57 million -  and the community screening programme has now screened nearly 7 million people with around 200, 000 having been tested. 





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