One of my earliest memories, from when I was very, very small, was watching my Mum type at an old BBC computer. She worked from home, typing the abstracts for old medical research papers. Now that I come to think about it, the number of papers mum must have read over at least a decade of doing that job, then after in her subsequent job in medical journalism, must range into the tens of thousands: she must be one of the most knowledgable people in the field there is. Thus I think we should take this very seriously indeed.

It is a change.org petition, flagged up by my Mum on Facebook, to keep the wearing of face masks in supermarkets and shops mandatory after 19th of July. As I wrote a couple of entries ago, the pandemic is far from over and it is only by working together and keeping our discipline that we’ll ever be able to get past it. Mum knows better than most – far better than any Tory itching to let their rich pals get back to exploiting the rest of us – how essential it is that we keep our faces covered wherever possible. If she thinks it is necessary to link to a petition like this, I assure you it is nothing to ignore.