The easing of lockdown is only catching up with what many people are already doing

The Black Lives Matters demonstrations at the beginning of this month made a mockery of the restrictions on then more than six people.

While the initial PSNI response to that flagrant breach of social distancing was feeble, it did later fine people. In the end, police here were less indulgent of such breaches than forces in many other places, including much of England.

Increasingly social distancing is not observed in other situations, such as after a death. This is all the more painful for those grieving people who do still try to observe the rules.

Lockdown has lasted for almost three months and it is perhaps surprising it was adhered to so widely for so long.

With churches now open and the two metre rule now, in some situations, down to one, the number of outright closures is rapidly diminishing. Hairdressers and hotels will be back early next month.

It is highly regrettable that the safest return of them all, the return of schools, is not now happening until the end of August. There should be an inquiry at the end of this crisis into the impact on education of such a prolonged closure.

When the schools do return, it needs to be a full opening, as opposed to a rotating one that could mean schools are not back to normal until well into 2021. There is much lost time to make up compared to those countries in Europe where schools have already been back months.

To call for a faster exit from lockdown is not to say all will be fine. Other nations have exited only to suffer new Covid outbreaks. That will have to be dealt with cluster by cluster, locally. Masks can help the return to normality because the wearer helps protect other people (rather than him/herself).

Outbreaks cannot be reason to stay in lockdown for ever. A risk free approach to Covid means ruin in other spheres of life, from the economy to untreated non Covid health issues.

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