Shelagh Fogarty confronts caller who claims "99% of people aren't social distancing"

26 August 2020, 17:47

Shelagh Fogarty confronted this caller who claimed that "99% of people aren't social distancing", especially young people.

Caller Darren told Shelagh he finds it "laughable" that youngsters are worried about returning to school and catching coronavirus when they have been not been social distancing at all.

Darren himself has asthma and his 14 year old daughter is not adhering to guidelines, "They're teenagers, they don't care, do they? They're indestructible."

He asked, "The infection rate is so low, is it even a thing now?"

Shelagh reminded him that the pandemic has not gone away and just because his daughter no longer cares and he has not been infected, does not mean he will not be.

"Sufficient numbers of people are still social distancing, still hand-washing, still wearing masks," Shelagh said, dismissing Darren's claim that "99% of teenagers aren't doing it", while acknowledging that some are not.

Shelagh said, "Because of the way many of us are still behaving, we are suppressing the possibility of contagion. Don't forget contagion happens with human contact."

Darren insisted that generally "99% of people aren't social distancing", with Shelagh responding that we cannot possibly know that.

She reminded him that all we can do is carry on adhering to the government guidelines.