Let's just take a look at where the b***ocks really is coming from!

Officers don't need to have arms 2 metres long. Many pass through the biometric booths these days. The danger exists for people who are within 2 metres of another person for more than 15 mins. That would be a rarity and for the small number involved a booth could be closed and the special facilities that exist used. These place the traveller in a room to wait whilst checks are made. Should questions need to be asked that take longer than 15 mins it could be done through a screen or window.

We could introduce temperature check points through which everyone has to pass before passport control with anyone registering a high reading being picked out for special screening by appropriately trained staff wearing protective clothing. I saw this done in Hong Kong during the SARS virus outbreak. It worked smoothly and wasn't at all disruptive.

It's really not rocket science.

For the avoidance of doubt any comments in response to a previous post are directed to its ideas and not at any, or all, posters personally.

Come on mate, immigration isn’t a reason to blame. There isn’t much immigration in northern Italy, if there was a reason to blame immigrants and there was a whiff of blame, the press would be all over it and a spread of the virus is a spread of the virus. If anything immigration can slow it down getting to you individually because the average number of people a carrier spreads it to will mean every immigrant means you’re a bit safer or delayed to get it. There will be more deaths from immigration longer term just because there’s more people, and if it’s passed through immigrants then the percentage of fatalities will take a percentage of them also.

I’m against previous immigration policies but this blame hasn’t been thought through.

You can blame border policies during the virus crisis perhaps but not immigration.

Edited by Rudi Hedman (18 Mar 2020 12.19am)

COYP

I think you see what I meant here.

It relates back to WE's post where he couldn't see an argument against immigration in respect of making the situation worse. It was just within that context.

We all know that once this virus had evolved that it would get to us eventually.

Edited by Stirlingsays (18 Mar 2020 2.36am)

'Who are you and how did you get in here? I'm a locksmith. And, I'm a locksmith.' (Leslie Nielsen)

This can’t be right WE doesn’t seem to think so

It might be many things, although I haven't heard those claims. The truth seems to be that no-one really yet knows, hence the cautious approach. I did hear yesterday that someone has suggested it could be airborne which could turn everything upside down.

Nevertheless, the current advice is to maintain a 2 metre separation from anybody you are likely to be in the company of for 15 mins or more. That I believe is based on the knowledge of the way similar viruses transmit. I am following that advice and think that unless and until it is updated we all should. If we all have different strategies then chaos could result.

For the avoidance of doubt any comments in response to a previous post are directed to its ideas and not at any, or all, posters personally.

Jeremy Hunt on Newsnight: “In retrospect I can see the cuts to social care were in a way the most silent but also the most devastating.”

If only he’d been in a position to do something about it...