If "the first casualty of war is truth", the first casualty of an emergency is civil rights.
Healthy people not diagnosed with any illness are being told to turn their homes into jails and keep themselves imprisoned. Sheep-like, many do. Free-thinkers are in danger of being criminalized. The concept of personal adult decision-making is fragile, likely to collapse at the first puff of panic.
This has led to unintended consequences. Everyone has forgotten the shortage of masks due to a new shortage: ladders. People jailed at home have taken to their roofs as platforms for fresh air and a view of something other than a computer screen. To get up there, they've bought all the ladders. Suppliers are running out. Even people afraid of heights and without roofs have stockpiled some "just in case".
Unfortunately some roofs are steep and an increasing number of jail-breakers have fallen off them. Injured, they've had to be taken to hospitals where they're filling beds that might be wanted for virus patients, so Government has issued a new bulletin:
LADDER PURCHASES FORBIDDEN. TRESPASSING ON YOUR OWN ROOF IS A CRIME. TEAMS WILL BE SENT OUT WITH BINOCULARS TO FIND HOUSEHOLDERS DEFYING THIS PROHIBITION. EXPECT FINES OR JAIL TIME -- AS IN, HOUSE ARREST. (PM clarifies - sort of: You can't be sent to public jail because you're not allowed to congregate publicly. If you didn't want to be sentenced to house arrest, you should have stayed inside.)
.
.
