In some ways, I’m almost grateful to the Mayor of Tilburg, less than 20 miles from where I live, for his recent error in judgement. He had given permission for the local football club to hold a gathering for fans wanting to watch their first European competition match in 15 years. There is an open space next to the stadium and hundreds of fans came along to encourage their team on to what turned out to be a 0-4 defeat at the hands of Rangers FC. This was some 9 days ago now.

Even though the distancing rules had been agreed and the crowd was warned in announcements over the P.A. system, there was shouting and singing and bunching up, and even a few brawls later on. Ultimately riot police had to break up the event and get people to go home.

There was the inevitable political hand-wringing and finger-pointing following that chaotic evening. The mayor has said that he would not make the same choice again if such a request for a permit were made again.

Today we have read that there is a significant spike in the positive corona test results specifically in Tilburg. This evidence is circumstantial but it is exceedingly likely that there is a link between that football gathering and the increase in the number of corona sufferers now. The timeline fits perfectly.

To my mind, if anyone still needed proof that measures like social distancing are necessary, this local incident provides just that. Fortunately it is hitting the national news and I really hope that people take note!

Unfortunately, contact-tracing here is more or less on the back burner. I would love to know how many of the new corona victims were actually at that football evening, and how many caught the infection from someone else who did go.