LONDON — Chocolate shops and stationery stores were busy as usual. In England on Thursday, the first hours of Lockdown 2.0, as local newspapers called it, looked very little like a lockdown at all. Since the spring, when lawmakers with little dissent ordered people to stay home, the political consensus around lockdown measures has collapsed. As a result, England’s new shutdown rules were shot through with loopholes, and companies openly flouted what relatively lenient restrictions were in place. At the same time, citizens and scientists alike fretted about the virus spreading unchecked for much of the winter.

Source: New York Times November 05, 2020 20:37 UTC