From the Watford Observer article referred to on the COVID-19 thread, but it seems more appropriate here:
A council source said hundreds of people were gathering at the park, with temperatures reaching 15°C, to enjoy the sun and picnic, despite the government last night urging residents to stay home during the coronavirus pandemic.
and
[I am fairly sure "hundreds" refers to the gathering not the picknicking. And note the sly "were gathering" as if it was some kind of pre-meditated collective action like a rave.]
As the law does not prevent travel to exercise (this has been confirmed by ministers), then it is possible that everyone in the park arrived there legally, was being legal whilst there (not getting closer than 2m other than with household members and so on). Apart from the picknickers, obviously. You can fit a lot of people into a park yet keep 2m apart, a small group every 10m is a quite a crowd, yet there is still room for movement whilst keeping to the rule. Blaming everyone because they all decided to go to the same place is pathetic. It wasn't a pre-arranged event sake, it just happened. This is an entirely predictable consequence of the looseness of the restrictions.
More from the article:
The mayor of Watford, Peter Taylor, blasted the ‘inconsiderate’ park goers and called for people to take greater responsibility during this moment of crisis.
He said: “Not only are you endangering your own life, but you are putting the lives of other people at risk. This is an incredibly serious situation for Watford and for the country.”
Mr Taylor added: “Given the severity of this situation people need to follow the NHS advice about social distancing and only doing one hour of physical activity a day.
[Note the complete absence of any evidence that anyone present was not complying with either of those requirements. The pic-nickers were not complying with the one about only leaving home for certain purposes, pic-nicking not being one of them and not being a "reasonable excuse" as required by the
Regulations*.]
No Mr Taylor, your council and the local Police are endangering life by not using the powers you have to prevent entirely predictable health risks from occuring. There are powers to close off areas, why not just use them and be honest about why, ie say "because of the popularity of this place we are closing [it/its car park] to minimise the risk of infection occurring".
There is no need to blame people's conduct and claim such actions are only necessary because of people "flouting the law", as some kind of collective punishment for the misconduct of a few reckless fools (good story though that is). Yet there seems to be a compulsion to relate such actions to misconduct. I guess the Police and official mentality may be stuck in that kind of paradigm because most similar powers do have the risk of unlawful action as their basis, rather than the risk of infection. Possibly there is also a rather naive assumption that infection risk can only arise if there is actual breaking of the rules, so examples of the latter are needed to provide a basis for finding the former. There may have been a few naughty people there, but most people were doubtless behaving themselves, and if there was an increased infection risk it almost certainly arose from the collective (and lawful) proximity of so many people not from the unlawful actions of a few of them in eating their lunch. Making people feel guilty is going to be counter-productive, treat people like children and they will be more likely to behave childishly.
This highlights the looseness of the actual provisions and the mealy-mouthed nature of official statements. It has been blindingly obvious such incidents would occur, and they have occurred. Just repeating "stay at home" doesn't cut it, especially if accompanied by a parrotting of the various reasons people can leave home. It is the sort of evasion that gives politicians a bad name. Why not credit people with some intelligence and ask them to exercise judgment in deciding whether to go somewhere else, or go home if the destination is crowded, and close off obvious pressure points using existing powers. If that doesn't work, make the rules tighter. Blaming people for not complying with the rules you decided not to make is pathetic.
*I can't be arsed to address the barrack-room lawyers' points about the statutory wording requiring a particular reason for leaving home, so a later-acquired reason can justify any activity once you have left.
