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It isn't only 'essential workers' that should be on public transport though. It's also anyone who can't work from home in the majority of businesses that aren't shut down.
There also seems to be a widespread assumption that the only 'essential workers' are NHS staff when plenty of hi vis jacket roles are equally essential.
villa-ru-
It's also anyone who can't work from home in the majority of businesses that aren't shut down.
OK but did I misunderstand that the idea was for non-essential businesses that can't do wfh to shut down for the time being? Precisely to avoid having lots of people out and about that aren't really strictly necessary right now?
SwissChap
Yes, and also let's remember that there are still many many people going to work in crowded tube trains etc. Now of course a lot of those are indeed 'essential workers', but I'm fairly sure quite a few are not. See this article for example:
... and I can definitely confirm that, around here building seems to be going on as before - as just one example, we can see one of the Thames 'super sewer' building places from the staircase and while they might not be going at 100%, there are still workers on site, lorries coming and going, cranes moving. This is not something you can blame on the individual builders, they need the money too, but you can blame companies. And I'm sure there's quite a few more examples of not-really-all-that-essential work going on.
I'm fairly sure the risk of spreading the infection in a packed tube train, or even just inside a station, is orders of magnitude higher than when people go out for a walk or a run or whatever.