//…are we in the midst of a pandemic or is it a bad dream ???//
Yes, you are dreaming.
Upwards of 60 passenger flights a day are arriving at Heathrow (and no doubt there are some at other airports too). Some of the passengers are UK residents returning home. Many are not. Some are people who normally live in places such as Iraq, Iran and China. Many of them are here to visit people. One chap was interviewed by a journalist and declared he was a carpet salesman from Tehran here to sell carpets and after he had concluded his business here he was moving on to Sweden. Meanwhile Carpetright along with all the other carpet stores in the UK is closed and I cannot buy a carpet. I should obviously have contacted our Iranian friend as he disembarked at Heathrow. A friend of mine returned home from Europe last week to Heathrow. Neither he nor anybody else was questioned about their point of origin; nobody was asked why they had come to the UK, where they had come from, where they intended staying or what they were going to do when they got here. Meanwhile I cannot visit my sister-in-law who lives two miles down the road. Along the South coast more than 800 people (that we know of) have arrived this year in rubber boats, conveniently towed into a safe haven by either the RNLI or the “Border Farce” (sic). They have mainly come from living in extremely insanitary conditions in Northern France. Some were tested for the virus (a test not available at the time for health professionals). Those who were not were not held in quarantine but released into the “care” of the immigration authorities (loosely translated as “sent on their way”). Meanwhile I cannot head down to the coast for a paddle.
Now, as noticed, people are beginning to go out. They will do so in increasing numbers, especially if they take the trouble to learn about some of the above. By the end of May if the lockdown has not been officially ended or at the very least some restrictions are lifted, it will simply fade away
I have made my views on the efficacy of the so-called lockdown known on other threads. We are told that things would have been much worse without it. If that’s the case they would have been much better if it had been properly enforced and if we hadn’t allowed many hundreds of people to arrive in the UK from the rest of the world only to allow them to drift off into the sunset. You cannot expect people who live here to remain indoors when people who don't are allowed free rein.