THE abuse of police power, the care home crisis and an inconsistent attitude to face masks were the topics covered by columnists and contributors in the newspapers.

The Daily Mail

Richard Littlejohn went out for a walk for the first time since September after recovering from a ‘gammy leg’, he said, and recovered on a bench after his first few steps.

“Fortunately, there weren’t any coppers around, otherwise I could have had my collar felt,” he said. “Sitting on a park bench is now Verboten, by order of the Government.The most notorious incident so far came on Bournemouth sea front where a woman sitting on a bench was arrested and handcuffed. Her ‘crime’ was allegedly leaving her house for a second time that day.”

He called for some common sense approach by police.

“The most outrageous abuse of police power this lockdown has come, inevitably, from our old friends at Derbyshire Police, last seen sending up drones to spy on dog walkers in the Peak District,” he added.

He plans to make the most of being mobile again, he said, and joked ‘if I’m not here on Friday, you’ll know I’ve been nicked.’

The Daily Express

Stephen Pollard said at least 20,000 care home residents died of Covid last year.

“Matt Hancock promised on December 10 that care home residents would be vaccinated by Christmas,” he said. “A month later, that promise has turned to empty words. True, the vaccine programme is a monumental undertaking requiring a national mobilisation the likes of which we have not seen since the end of the Second World War.”

He said the failure not to prioritise care homes was a betrayal of promises made last year.

“These people are, to be horribly blunt, sitting ducks and we owe them protection.”

The Guardian

Joseph Gardner Allen, an associate professor of exposure assessment science at Harvard University, and two fellow professors said, that in the UK, the attitude to face masks has been inconsistent at best and negligent at worst.

“Masks are required in shared public spaces such as supermarkets, though many workers have complained that customers aren’t wearing them, and enforcement has largely fallen on individual stores,” he said. “In schools, the government inexplicably made masks mandatory in corridors but not in classrooms. “

He said the virus can stay afloat in the air, in a tiny drop of fluid, for hours.

“An endless cycle of lockdown and release is not a sustainable plan,” he added. “What’s needed is a consistent range of combined strategies. To keep the virus under control rather than boiling over, masks are crucial: they save lives.”