In England there is no new legislation to protect workers’ safety, and remarkably little to enforce workplace lockdown, despite what the media tells you.
Everyone agrees we’re in lockdown. Coronavirus has “shut down the whole economy”, the BBC’s Coronavirus Newscast told us last week.
The BBC’s World at One contrasts the situation in the UK, with that of a “different approach” in Sweden, where “not all businesses have closed”. The only debate now is between the hawks and doves on when we allow “a partial reopening of businesses”, the national broadcaster’s daily news email told me on Monday.
Meanwhile Britain seems headed towards the worst death rate in Europe.
Undoubtedly part of the reason for this is that we moved too late to enforce a “lockdown”.
But the other reason is that we don’t actually have a lockdown. The government has allowed people to continue to go to work – and allowed bosses to make people continue to go to work – far more than we’re being led to believe, and far more than most of the media seem to have noticed.
