Peak stupidity?

Derbyshire Police have been out in the Peaks filming people out on walks with their camera drone toys. They say "Some number plates were coming back to keepers in Sheffield, so we know that people are travelling to visit these areas. Daily exercise should be taken locally to your home. Under government guidance all travel is limited to essential travel only. We understand that people will have differing views about this post, however, we will not be apologetic for using any legal and appropriate methods to keep people safe".

This was greeted with a wave of revulsion on Twitter. It's a bit over the top. What's worrying about it is the government is now resorting to fining people found in breach of lockdown guidelines. Essentially it's a curtain twitcher's charter and a feeding frenzy for jobsworth authoritarians and, later down the line, council bailiffs. This has the potential to get quite ugly. 

You can, however, see where they're coming from in Derbyshire. The government announces a soft-lockdown and immediately half the population treats it like a bank holiday and heads out to the local beauty spots and seaside towns en masse. Though generally infection risk is minimal, when they take their families along, pulling in to use public conveniences, it becomes a problem. If there is now a clampdown then the public share some responsibility for that. Though I've been in self-isolation since about 2015 there still seems to be a large contingent of people who think it's all a big fuss over nothing.

Ultimately people do need to be a little more considerate. The lockdown we have is largely a  goodwill lockdown that really isn't a big ask, ie. that people minimise their exposure to other people and don't travel unnecessarily. It's not that difficult to comply with. 

But then there's the flip side of this. Now that most people have got the message that this is bloody serious, we can afford for people to exercise a little bit of their own judgement. There is nothing particularly harmful in getting out so long as they take the necessary precautions. The fact is we can reduce risk of contagion but we can't eliminate it. We still have to get things done and a total lockdown would probably cause as many problems as it solves. Unless there's going to be a door to door food delivery service we can't close shops so supermarkets are the greatest liability. It makes a mockery of Derbyshire plod spying on people up in the peak district. 

I'm broadly supportive of the lockdown measures, especially for densely populated areas such as London, and if rural forces have to put up roadblocks to stop people abusing the leeway in the current controls then I don't really blame them. If people are going to be selfish then there must be consequences. One suspects, though, when there's a "tsunami" of new cases, the public won't need any persuading to stay put - and the police will have better things to do. This time next week, nobody will be in the mood for a jolly to the seaside.