Better to lockdown airports and boats and let us have the little of what passes for a tolerable life

Does what is happening in Wales not indicate it was inevitable that the Stormont assembly’s decision to impose the latest lockdown would result in packed shops and cafes from that moment, and just as inevitable that come December 11 we will return to the same?

And another lockdown. Would it not have made more sense to tell shop owners they could open any time from 7am to 11pm, leaving the decision to them? No politician wants to cancel Christmas, still less to have opponents blaming him or her for deaths when a vaccine is in sight.

So why not lockdown airports and ferries from December 15 to January 3?

Was that not the lesson of Wuhan in January? And let us have a little of what passes for a tolerable life in pandemic times — one in which we know what we will be able to do for the foreseeable future, what will be open and what won’t — rather than compromised festivities with the promise of stricter lockdowns in January 2021?

Five days of freedom for perhaps three or weeks of punishment seems a high price to pay when all the health experts are trying to warn us of the foolhardiness of celebrating together.

MR McIlrath, Orlock Bangor

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