CM’s message to youngsters: ‘Don’t be an idiot, stay home’

“Don’t be an idiot”, the Chief Minister Fabian Picardo told young people on Friday, as he lambasted those who planned to contravene the ban on large congregations of people and hold parties over the weekend.
Mr Picardo warned that failure to comply with social distancing measures puts loved ones at risk and heightened the prospect of lockdown conditions in Gibraltar.
Directing himself specifically to young people during the daily press briefing yesterday, he said: “Young people know that we’re trying to protect some of the people most precious to them - their grandparents, some elderly parents.”
“Already I’ve had reports that this weekend people are planning parties despite bars, restaurants and nightclubs being closed,”
he said.
“If we started to see that large congregations of people are continuing despite there already being a ban on those congregations,
we would have to act.”
“We would have to act to protect you and to protect your loved ones.”
“We would not want to have to act.”
“Please for a couple of weekends, perhaps longer but for now a couple of weekends, apply to yourselves the rules of lockdown even though we are not in lockdown.”
“Try and help us to help everybody in our community,” he implored.
“If you don’t do that, you’re an idiot.”
“You don’t realise how important this is, we’re trying to save lives, we’re not just trying to stop people from enjoying themselves.”
Mr Picardo said that if people do not comply with those rules, the Gibraltar Government may have to make an order to impose lockdown conditions.
“If you don’t comply with those rules and you think you’re better and you think you’re funnier, you’re a fool, you’re an idiot.
Don't do it.”
Asked about the likelihood of further restrictions on movement in Gibraltar, Mr Picardo said: “We may be closer to a potential
full lockdown in Gibraltar, people need to understand that Gibraltar is at the beginning of this situation.”
“I’m very happy to read numbers that are as low as they are but I don't think we’ll be in that happy place for very long.”
“These numbers are going to start going up and we have to ask ourselves whether we’re going to be upping the controls on movement or not.”
Mr Picardo said that should clinicians advice the government that a full-lockdown would help the situation, the Government would have to take the step of restricting movement even further.
“It’s not a step I would ever want to take lightly…at the moment we don’t envisage that but we are keeping an eye on the potential to do that.”