At a Downing Street press conference on Thursday, chief scientific officer Patrick Vallance congratulated the British people for adhering so closely to social distancing rules. Some 85 per cent of adults said they had either not left their home between April 3rd and April 13th, or left only for the permitted reasons, and 97 per cent said they have avoided contact with other people from outside their household.
Yet with the temperature hitting 23 degrees in London and more sunny days expected over the weekend, the streets seem busier than they have for weeks. Sunbathers were out in the parks, readers idled on benches, and police said they sent people home from beaches on the south coast.
Cafes that closed last month have started reopening for takeaway services, and some small shops are back in business, although the man who runs a corner shop near me said he was open only so that he could escape from home.
“Family pressure, it’s too much. I have no staff, I have no customers and no business. But it doesn’t matter, I had to come in,” he said.
Older people are often the most relaxed about bending the rules, while the young and the middle-aged are more comfortable holed up at home spending hours online.
My friend James was dropping off some provisions to a friend the other day when she redirected him to a large house on a square in southwest London. In the back garden he found an ancient celebrity entertaining a handful of friends over tea and breakfast martinis (three parts gin, one part Cointreau and a spoonful of marmalade).
“Darling we must whisper. The neighbours, you know,” she told him.
Where James lives in prim north London one of his neighbours has posted a sign in the window with three arrows pointing towards the flat upstairs.
"My neighbour Ann directly above she keeps on having a friend round. No social distancing, no protecting the NHS. We asked her to stop. She will not. Shame on you, Ann. You are a disgrace. Shame on you. Shame on you," it says.
Frustrated
Impatience with the lockdown extends beyond the delinquent Ann to Conservative backbenchers who fear that much of the economy will disappear if there is no sign of restrictions easing soon.
They know that, as chief medical officer Chris Whitty said this week, some social distancing measures will have to remain in place until there is a vaccine or a cure for coronavirus. But they are frustrated at the government's refusal to sketch out a road map for moving from one set of restrictions to another as the lockdown is eased.
Until now ministers have limited themselves to setting out five tests for ending the lockdown. The fifth, that there should be no risk of a second peak, is on its face impossible to meet.
Scotland's first minister Nicola Sturgeon on Thursday published a document outlining her country's strategy for exiting the lockdown. She made clear that any easing of restrictions is likely to be phased, and that gatherings in pubs and at public events would be banned or limited for some time.
Sturgeon said Scotland would have to prepare for a “new normal” which could see restrictions reimposed quickly if the virus started to spread again.
“I am seeking to start a grown-up conversation with the public about the complex decisions that lie ahead of us as we look beyond lockdown. We will seek to inform the public with the best scientific advice possible, but the science will never be exact and we are in uncharted territory. So we also need to make careful judgements and be prepared to adapt and change course as we go,” she said.
Real harm
“Every day we see evidence that this virus causes real harm, but so too do the lockdown measures we are taking to contain it. This is causing harm to the economy and living standards, to children’s education and to mental health and wellbeing.
“That is why we need to try to find a better balance than the one we have now, but as we do so we cannot take our eye off the need to suppress the virus and minimise the damage it does.”
Central to Sturgeon’s strategy is surveillance of the virus through testing and contact tracing. The British government, which abandoned contact tracing in March, is recruiting 18,000 people to restart it again, but the infrastructure will not be in place until next month.
Until then the current restrictions will stay in place even if compliance begins to crumble at the edges.