Precisely!
“There was no detail but people won’t read the details”
There in a nutshell is the problem: there’s a bandwagon rolling to suit every negative interpretation.
It was not a great effort and the timing was abysmal: why a Sunday evening? But there’s no pleasing some folk.
I despair, Gandalf! Many folks don't heed the existing messages on food ingredients/Traffic Light scores, or the warning notices on tobacco or alcohol. What chance they will get the small print in the cov-exit strategy? The statistics below tell the story.
"4 Apr 2019 - In total, poor diet was found to be responsible for 90,000 deaths in the UK a year – around one seventh of the 607,000 fatalities annually." [Telegraph]
"Every year around 78,000 people in the UK die from smoking, with many more living with debilitating smoking-related illnesses. Smoking increases your risk of developing more than 50 serious health conditions." [NHS]
"In the UK, in 2016 there were 9,214 alcohol-related deaths (around 15 per 100,000 people). The mortality rates are highest among people aged 55-69 [4]. In the UK in 2018 there were 7,551 alcohol-specific deaths (around 11.9 per 100,000 people)." [AlcoholChange]
To be sure there will be overlaps and confounding underlying factors here - but if we speak of 250,000 deaths per annum attributable to these causes we won't be far out. This total could have been substantially reduced by public compliance.
Sadly I expect many of these deaths will be people who for some reason could be characterised as "vulnerable."
R
Roger
Edited by user
11 May 2020 07:46:21
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Reason: typo
RogerP
West Lindsey district of Lincolnshire
Everything taken together, here in Lincolnshire are more good things than man could have had the conscience to ask.
William Cobbett, in his Rural Rides - c.1830