THREAD: So my 1 year old son still can't go to a playground, but millions of people are being told to go back to work with no guidance on how this can be done safely. This is why govt claims to be "following the science" were always bullshit: this whole thing is about trade-offs.

Allowing more social interaction in one sphere of life means clamping down harder in other spheres. And the less the govt is willing to extend state support for the economy, the more it will want to prioritise reopening things even if it means excess deaths.

These are the choices being made right now. Whatever else they may have done, one impact of Thursday's front pages has been to obscure them, focussing the debate on minor tweaks to outdoor exercise rather than the reckless and premature reopening of large parts of the economy.

Another thing that doesn't seem to have been widely picked up on is that it seems primary schools will be opening before secondary, when experts had previously suggested the opposite might be the case, because older children can be socially distanced more effectively.

Why? Who knows, but maybe it's because there is no way parents with younger kids can go back to work without childcare - so this is entirely consistent with the prioritisation of reopening the economy rather than public safety.

But the govt could never admit this, because that would mean acknowledging the impossible position these parents are in at the moment, and then they might have to actually give them some proper support. The whole thing is just despicable.