Andy Richardson: No kidding - take the lockdown rules seriously
We’ve had wild goats in Llandudno and a herd of 100 deer in east London. Covid-19 has emboldened animals as human activity has come to a halt.
In Japan, deer have invaded a shopping area in Nara while a spotted herd also invaded the populous Uttar Pradesh region in India. In northern Italy, wild boar have taken to the streets of Bergamo while Paris has also welcomed wild boar in deserted streets.
In India, Olive Ridley turtles have colonised the coastline while closer to home, pheasant have moved into Shrewsbury’s normally bustling High Street. We await giraffes in Geneva, hippo in Honolulu and tigers in Taiwan.
Humans are not the only creatures experiencing lockdown. Gorillas in Africa have been isolated amid fears that they will catch Covid-19 from humans – as an unfortunate tiger did in at New York’s Bronx Zoo. The forests of Rwanda, Uganda and the Democratic Republic of Congo have been closed to human visitors to avoid mountain gorillas catching the deadly disease while orangutans on Borneo have also been shut off.
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Temperatures in the UK will remain warm today with 21C predicted for Easter Saturday. Vast numbers will conclude that lockdown does not apply to them as they head out and risk undoing the gains of recent week. Selfish eejits.
On this occasion, rules are not for fools and we should sacrifice Easter to stay at home. If Jesus were alive, no doubt even he would have postponed his resurrection until a time later in the year when social distancing rules no longer applied. The Second Coming would wait until Covid-19 has left town.
Drug dealers in South African townships have taken to providing a different type of delivery service. They are running a distribution network of food. Guys who normally extort money with menaces have turned their attention to free deliveries of bread and milk. The true test of their generosity will come when Covid-19 goes. Will then continue to run ham sandwiches or go back to cocaine?
A moviemaker in America has finished a low-budget movie about Covid-19. Shot in a lift and exploring racism towards a Chinese woman, it’s available to stream. The chances of anybody cheering themselves up by watching a film about the lockdown while stuck on, erm, lockdown are as remote as wild boar taking to the streets of Paris. Oh.
