fussballclub-
A short summary , and massively paraphrasing with the benefit of hindsight, is that in the early days of the 1st wave I was approached and asked if I would be happy to to make myself available to be "deployed" to help with the NHS response to the pandemic on the basis that they were contacting all former NHS employees with hands on pandemic planning or emergency planning experience.
I got to listen in on some London-specific meetings and heard a lot of discussions about the risks around cycling. The two main concerns were police inability to enforce lockdown if they had to deal with cyclists a long way from home and the unknown around how airborne the virus actually was at the time (various authorities were warning that the viral plume could be up to 30 feet behind a cyclist). The local policing team in my local area were also expressing frustration on lack of clarity on how they should handle a cyclist who was out on a long ride and whether it was acceptable or not under the guidelines back then.
In the event, the decision to bring former NHS pandemic staff back was shelved and I was never used. And nothing ever came of the conversations about curtailing the distance/time that cyclists would be permitted to exercise.
Without trying to figure out the forum search, I assume I relayed the above with a tone of authority that was totally unwarranted and on the basis that I could not provide a source for my info, I was quite rightly criticised for it. Especially so as it never happened in the end. Tensions were high, nobody knew what was going on, after a few days of snarky remarks from people on here I apologised and everybody seemed to move on.
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Stonehedge
I assume that if @Clever_Pun heard this in a meeting he can't quote his source.
When I relayed on here what I heard in a multi agency emergency planning meeting at the start of the first wave, and couldn't relay my source, I got a lot of flack. Although it did turn out to not happen in the end (ban on recreational cycling), so people are right to be sceptical I suppose.