a 6am re-open for pubs tomorrow is stupefyingly daft isn't it?
starting on a Saturday was odd enough, but people are going to be in a state with no chance of acting responsibly?
They're doing as much as they can to set up the public to take the blame when it all goes to shit. I can't see what else the strategy can be.
My guess is that they figured if they said they could re-open from some point in the afternoon or evening (or even lunch) then a large crowd would congregate just before opening time.
Opening from 6am means people entering and leaving at different times.
A similar logic to getting rid of last orders but to try and distance people rather than because of drunken behaviour.
If that is the case then I don't understand why they wouldn't choose a random mid week day to do so.
And I also think it severely over estimates the general public.
- - - -
What will be interesting will be the extent of any second wave.
Historically and analytically the fewer people who get infected in the first wave the more will get infected in the second.
But we've never had this level of communication and technology before, we haven't had a pandemic on this scale for a long time either.
- if the second wave is negatively correlated to the first wave then the government's action could take on another perspective.
The analysis suggested that the second wave would be 'due' pretty close to flu season - if you could kick start it early, then we could be in a downward trend when flu season kicks in and spread out the burden on the NHS.
For what it's worth I don't think the government are any where near smart enough to strategise this.
I think, at some level, they decided that the general public were going to increasingly start breaking lockdown restrictions after 3 months anyway so they might as well try and control how it's eased rather than leave it to the whim of the mob.