Half-way point in lockdown-lifting is probaby the most dangerous

It's a bit like being in prison for seven weeks and then being told you can go home for a weekend as a trial to see if you're ready for full release. So you go home for the weekend, enjoy Sunday roasts for the first time for ages and go to the pub and you start to think, why the hell should I go back to my cell. I'll do a runner. Yipee Sunday roasts for ever! So, in this virus world we have all been told that we can take as much exercise as we like, we can see a friend from another household provided we stay two metres apart, we can sit and eat pub food so long as we are in the back garden and blaa blaa blaa social distancing, we can go back to work provided etc etc etc, we can drive our cars to a beauty spot quite a long way from home, we can go to restaurants but only to take away takeaways. The point is that suddenly we can once again taste some of the things that not so long ago we took for granted. And slowly slowly there is building up inside the body and mind the feeling that it's all over and to hell with rules and regulations and government guidance. That's why this phase of the lockdown-lifting is potentially so dangerous. Give a man or woman a sniff of freedom and he/she wants more. I want more. I want desperately to go to a pub or restaurant or the cinema or theatre or the opera and go on holiday. Anywhere. The impact of the Boris Johnson easing of restrictions and similar moves made across the United States and in Germany and France and Spain and Italy and throughout Europe have raised hopes that normality is just round the corner. But it's not. And the signs are that the infection rate is going up not down as a result of the lockdown-lifting. The dreaded R for Reproduction rate has hit 1 in the UK which means that if it goes any higher, the virus spread will accelerate because every infected person will be expected to pass on the virus to more people than if the R is below 1. Germany was among the first to lift restrictions and BANG the infection rate has gone up. About two-thirds of states in the US have lifted restrictions but scientists are warning it's too soon. Maybe it's too soon for everyone. But the step had to be taken, we couldn't go on locked in our houses and flats for any longer. But if the infection rate shoots up across the globe that would be an unmitigated disaster because it would be telling us that the virus is more powerful than any government leader anywhere in the world. The virus wins. Please God that's not going to be the case. That elusive first taste of freedom has brought smiles back to a lot of faces and everyone wants to move to the next stage, not go back to square one.