With non-essential shops due to close this Friday the obvious is happening, everyone is hitting the high street now. Shopping centres are full and there are queues outside many car parks and shops. Now I imagine retail welcomes the boost in the trade but I don’t think it is the best way to reduce transmission.
The behaviour of some people is truly bizarre. I witnessed a huge queue of traffic to get into the ASDA car park, even though supermarkets will not be closing. A client who sells electrical appliances has been inundated with customers instore, even though they offer free home delivery.
I am not sure if they have a behavioural psychologist amongst the many thousands of civil servants up at Stormont – if they don’t it might be an idea to set up some kind of nudge unit to war game out how the public will react to changes in rules. Or as the wife pointed out – just use your common sense.
Mind you, I have been pondering getting an extra freezer to stock up for the anticipated Brexit food shortages, so maybe none of us is immune from the panic buying impulse.
Photo by JillWellington is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA
I help to manage Slugger by taking care of the site as well as running our live events. My background is in business, marketing and IT. My politics tend towards middle-of-the-road pragmatism, I am not a member of any political party. Oddly for a member of the Slugger team, I am not that interested in daily politics, preferring to write about big ideas in society. When not stuck in front of a screen, I am a parkrun Run Director.
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