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the most over the top restrictions introduced

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duncanp

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Oh I've got a completely ridiculous one courtesy of Manchester Arndale

To comply with social distancing they have closed 30% of female bathrooms and 60% of male bathrooms.

Absolute nonsense.

I would have thought that in order to promote social distancing, they should keep as many facilities as possible open.

And why the difference in the percentage of male and female bathrooms closed?
 

talldave

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Absolute nonsense.

I would have thought that in order to promote social distancing, they should keep as many facilities as possible open.

And why the difference in the percentage of male and female bathrooms closed?
What we need is laws against such stupidity. Are the jobsworths coming up with this rubbish on a different planet??
 

Mag_seven

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They did, plenty of coffee shops that haven't been brainwashed.

Yes the petty rule makers have to realise that as well as them having the power to introduce silly rules, we also have the power not to use their establishments and take our custom elsewhere.
 

AdamWW

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Yes the petty rule makers have to realise that as well as them having the power to introduce silly rules, we also have the power not to use their establishments and take our custom elsewhere.

While I don't doubt that there are people who just like enforcing rules, I suspect a lot of this sort of thing is due to people genuinely trying to do the right thing, or at worst making sure they can't be blamed for not doing everything they could.
 

carlberry

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This is how we fight back. Friend of a friend walked out of a coffee shop this morning after being told they had to wear a mask, but mysteriously the staff member ran out after them having decided that they no longer needed a mask.
To be fair until mid day yesterday the Government hadnt actually told anybody what the rules from today really were or who they applied to (and may well change them again if Dominic tells them to anyway).
 

Howardh

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I don't know...

All these precautions can seem irritating but honestly how much inconvenience is a quick temp check (presumably with one of those IR forehead thermometers) and giving a name+number? Probably adds at most 2 minutes to the time it takes you to get in. And it's reasurring to see that they're at least trying to do something about it.
I didn't say it was was an inconvenience.
 

westv

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Absolute nonsense.

I would have thought that in order to promote social distancing, they should keep as many facilities as possible open.

And why the difference in the percentage of male and female bathrooms closed?
I've never used a bath in a shopping centre! :D
 

Howardh

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The last time I looked, the rule on VIA Rail in Canada was that if they decided your temperature was too high you were banned from their entire network (such as it is) for 2 weeks unless you could come back with a negative Covid test.
THAT is absolutely ridiculous. Notwithstanding if that happened in the UK it could prevent patients travelling to hospital by rail for standard treatment becasue they have a bit of a fever which could be totally unrelated to Covid. It also forces you to have an unnecessary test which another person could be using. Think there would be an outcry greater than the Cumming's affair if that happened here!
 

AdamWW

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THAT is absolutely ridiculous. Notwithstanding if that happened in the UK it could prevent patients travelling to hospital by rail for standard treatment becasue they have a bit of a fever which could be totally unrelated to Covid. It also forces you to have an unnecessary test which another person could be using. Think there would be an outcry greater than the Cumming's affair if that happened here!

To be fair, they no longer seem to be saying that.

Instead their employees are supposed to make a medical diagnosis on each passenger before permitted them to board...

But it is currently the case in the UK that you should not be leaving the house if you have a fever unless you've had a negative test - whether you have a medical appointment or not.
 

Bletchleyite

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The last time I looked, the rule on VIA Rail in Canada was that if they decided your temperature was too high you were banned from their entire network (such as it is) for 2 weeks unless you could come back with a negative Covid test.

Which of course is a bit easier to do if you have names on every ticket like they do.
 

Howardh

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To be fair, they no longer seem to be saying that.

Instead their employees are supposed to make a medical diagnosis on each passenger before permitted them to board...

But it is currently the case in the UK that you should not be leaving the house if you have a fever unless you've had a negative test - whether you have a medical appointment or not.
Ha! So trains staff are now fully-trained medics who can make a diagnosis on someone's health just by looking at them!! Why didn't the NHS think of that!!

Telly you what, rule of thumb...let doctors, nurses and pharmacists deal with our health, and guards, drivers and mechanics run the railways. Seems sensible to me, but then again we don't live in sensible times.
 

AdamWW

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But you'd expect that they would provide for that when building the shopping centre.
Therefore, they should not be closing a greater proportion of toilets for one sex than for another.

You would indeed. But looking the relative lengths of queues that build up, I really don't think that they do.

Ha! So trains staff are now fully-trained medics who can make a diagnosis on someone's health just by looking at them!! Why didn't the NHS think of that!!

No...they don't just look at passengers - each one has to be questioned before being allowed to board....
 

Howardh

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You would indeed. But looking the relative lengths of queues that build up, I really don't think that they do.



No...they don't just look at passengers - each one has to be questioned before being allowed to board....
No-one expects the Canadian Inquisition.
 

Bletchleyite

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THAT is absolutely ridiculous. Notwithstanding if that happened in the UK it could prevent patients travelling to hospital by rail for standard treatment becasue they have a bit of a fever which could be totally unrelated to Covid. It also forces you to have an unnecessary test which another person could be using. Think there would be an outcry greater than the Cumming's affair if that happened here!

To be fair VIA Rail's system is more like an airline than a railway - it's pretty much exclusively very-long-distance stuff. Most local services are operated by other organisations.
 

Bayum

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I've seen lots of over the top restrictions such as temperature checks to enter a restaurant and food served only in take away containers.

My most hated has to be the amount of signage at stansted airport which has all been printed on a template with "for your safety" written on it. Theres one in every toilet cubicle saying to keep the seat down when flushing the toilet to stop the spread of covid-19. In addition to them dotted all around the terminal advising to wear a mask, not to sit on certain seats, to keep your distance etc (all for my safety).

What ott restrictions have you seen ?

You might think this is OTT, but leaving toilet seats up whilst flushing contaminates the immediate area and room with faecal bacteria and other glorious nasty microorganisms. I never ever flush a toilet that has a lid without putting it down first.
 

AdamWW

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To be fair VIA Rail's system is more like an airline than a railway - it's pretty much exclusively very-long-distance stuff. Most local services are operated by other organisations.

Depends what you mean by very-long-distance.

The vast majority of their services are not overnight trains, but the (relatively) frequent 'corridor' services on the routes between Quebec City and Windsor.
 

Tetchytyke

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My work's company policies are also odd:
- We are not allowed to give colleagues lifts in our cars

That's not odd from a business continuity point of view. If one of you gets snared by the contact tracing it's bad enough, but if you're all sharing cars then it gets a whole lot worse as you'll all get snared by it!

On the bus, of course, you won't.

leaving toilet seats up whilst flushing contaminates the immediate area and room with faecal bacteria and other glorious nasty microorganisms

Regardless of Covid, I don't get people who don't put the lid down in domestic bathrooms where their toothbrush can catch all that lovely faecal spray!

And why the difference in the percentage of male and female bathrooms closed?

I'm guessing it's because men's toilets are a mixture of urinal and cubicle, and women's toilets aren't. If you close the urinal and half the cubicles it's a bigger proportion than closing half the cubicles.
 
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Enthusiast

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Places where you do need to wear a face covering:

Banks, building societies, credit unions, short-term loan providers,...

[From The Health Protection (Coronavirus, Wearing of Face Coverings in a Relevant Place) (England) Regulations 2020 Schedule Part 1 (3)]

Places where you do not need to wear a face covering:

Premises providing professional, legal or financial services.

[From The Health Protection (Coronavirus, Wearing of Face Coverings in a Relevant Place) (England) Regulations 2020 Schedule Part 2 (6)]
 

AdamWW

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That's not odd from a business continuity point of view. If one of you gets snared by the contact tracing it's bad enough, but if you're all sharing cars then it gets a whole lot worse as you'll all get snared by it!

On the bus, of course, you won't.

There's also more chance of being 2 m away from other passengers in a bus than a car...
 

Bletchleyite

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Depends what you mean by very-long-distance.

The vast majority of their services are not overnight trains, but the (relatively) frequent 'corridor' services on the routes between Quebec City and Windsor.

Fair point, but at about 150km that's still not a local train service to the local hospital, it's a long distance operation.
 

AM9

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Does anybody actually do the butterfly outside of elite swimming?!
I've had far more issues with front crawlers who can't swim in a straight line. Sometimes they drift across to the other side of a double width lane, colliding with those going the opposite way.
 

AdamWW

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Fair point, but at about 150km that's still not a local train service to the local hospital, it's a long distance operation.

Indeed - and GO Transit don't have mandatory temperature checks. The only thing in their rules that seems over-the-top is that they say that they will close a station immediately for deep cleaning if someone with suspected Covid has used it.

So if you get the train to work, no guarantees you'll be allowed to get off at your station on the way home... I suppose it depends how long the cleaning takes.
 

Jozhua

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Absolute nonsense.

I would have thought that in order to promote social distancing, they should keep as many facilities as possible open.

And why the difference in the percentage of male and female bathrooms closed?
There are three sets of bathrooms, so with closing one gender of each, they have chosen to do two female, one male.
 

Spamcan81

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So we have to pander to the needs of the stupid? If someone can't work out the relative effectiveness of bullet proof glass vs flimsy plastic, they're beyond help. It's the proliferation of pointless gestures that leads to more pointless gestures.

Bluewater shopping centre have a pointless one way system - allegedly to enforce physical distancing. But they've added narrow "crossing" points at which it's impossible to distance. But if you dare attempt to cross anywhere other than at the narrow crossing point, the hi-viz power-trip Gestapo shout at you. However, when you point out the flaw in their wonderful scheme, they just look at you blankly. One wonders if one of the after-effects of coronavirus is a total loss of common sense.

That is grossly unfair to those who may have cognitive impairment or simply confused by all the mixed messages coming out of the government. If the staff member in question is happy donning a face mask as reassurance to others, what concern is it of yours?
 

Spamcan81

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I'd be very tempted to avoid places operating temperature checks, as they're not hugely accurate, and how can someone with no medical training be expected to sensibly make decisions on who goes in or not? Completely OTT. If I thought there was even the slightest possibility I was ill, I'd be at home, not attempting to spread my germs in a pub.

Obviously the word "asymptomatic" has passed you by.
 
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