Nobody plans to get rescued, yet many mountain rescue teams were out most weekends before coronavirus happened. Fortunately, there is a massive reduction in rescues at the moment due to people staying at home and not travelling to the hills. I'd also point out that there are more rescues during spring/summer/autumn than winter, due to higher numbers of walkers, many of whom are less competent. Finally, with workplaces and gyms shut, there would be a higher than usual number of inexperienced walkers about (if travelling to the countryside to walk wasn't banned).
Not necessarily. Most people tend to follow a small number of popular footpaths from the same start points.
Not on the journey, but it's no good to arrive at your destination and find that everyone else had the same idea. This happened at Malham on the weekend of the 21st/22nd March, and in Snowdonia on the same weekend, as well as many other places.
Rural communities (many with vulnerable populations) could do without people travelling there and spreading the virus. Don't do it; it's not clever.
Oh come off it - the number of people “on the hills” is tiny, far smaller than normal. With literally miles of footpaths then people on them are much further apart than they are walking around town. Especially as you can always move well to the side to pass - which you can’t do on all but widest of pavements.
Rescue numbers are also tiny - the scope for infection spreading by rescues is so tiny as to be utterly irrelevant.
Travelling to the countryside, if you are in or near the countryside is not banned.
This is pure and simple beggar thy neighbour envy, “why should some people do their walk in a nice place, or sit on the ground to get some sun, when I can’t/choose not to”.
What is needed is enforcement of numbers and gatherings - not carte blanche closures and bans.
I have a yard I can sit in, and I walk around town, combining that with my supermarket run (I don’t use the car for that so load carrying capacity is necessarily limited). It is what it is.
I see parents out with kids going via the park with a ball, and I’m never going to criticise then for that, not least as I take the park in on my route.
But carry on winding yourselves up to ever more restrictive bans on other people, blind to the reality of their existence.