I’m a victim of unjustified inner-city mask rage
The current rules don t insist on a face covering outside and yet an unsettling encounter with an angry woman made me question everything
22 January 2021 • 7:00am
I’m no snowflake but I do get a bit upset when strangers shout abusively in the street, not least because they might have a knife. Joking. Not joking; inner city gentrification only extends so far.
“Go home!” yelled the woman. I was so clueless I whipped round to see which malfeasant she was addressing. It turned out to be me.
I was walking along a residential road, returning from my daily exercise-cum-dog walk, when the unsettling encounter occurred.
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Fixating on the R number isn’t real science
on data drawbacks
“I’m not sure of the precise alchemical reaction that occurs when a set of conversations is converted into a data point, but what I do know is that they often calcify into something that brooks less dissent. The R number is a snapshot of a set of data-based judgment calls, no more, no less. But for a while it became the apex upon which jobs and lives hinged. Happily it seems the government has started to go cold on scientism. The decision about when to end lockdown will now be based on. well, No 10 hasn’t been entirely clear about that. This is frustrating but it is also a fairer reflection of the scientific reality, which remains far more clouded by doubt than a single data point can portray.”