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Background: During the early "containment" phase of the COVID-19 response in England (January-March 2020), contact tracing was managed by Public Health England (PHE). Adherence to self-isolation during this phase and how people were making those decisions has not previously been determined. The aim of this study was to gain a better understanding of decisions around adherence to self-isolation during the first phase of the COVID-19 response in England. Methods: A mixed-methods cross sectional study was conducted, including an online survey and qualitative interviews. The overall pattern of adherence was described as never leaving home, leaving home for lower-contact reasons and leaving home for higher-contact reasons. Fisher's exact test was used to test associations between adherence and potentially predictive binary factors. Factors showing evidence of association overall were then considered in relation to the three aspects of adherence individually. Qualitative data were analysed using inductive thematic analysis. Results: Of 250 respondents who were advised to self-isolate, 63% reported not leaving home at all during their isolation period, 20% reported leaving only for lower-contact activities (dog walking or exercise) and 16% reported leaving for higher-contact, and therefore higher-risk, reasons. Factors associated with adherence to never going out included: the belief that following isolation advice would save lives, experiencing COVID-19 symptoms, being advised to stay in their room, having help from outside and having regular contact by text message from PHE. Factors associated with non-adherence included being angry about the advice to isolate, being unable to get groceries delivered and concerns about losing touch with friends and family. Interviews highlighted that a sense of duty motivated people to adhere to isolation guidance and where people did leave their homes, these decisions were based on rational calculations of the risk of transmission – people would only leave their homes when they thought they were unlikely to come into contact with others. Conclusions: Understanding adherence to isolation and associated reasoning during the early stages of the pandemic is essential to pandemic preparedness for future emerging infectious disease outbreaks. Individuals make complex decisions around adherence by calibrating transmission risks, therefore treating adherence as binary should be avoided. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article investigates controversies surrounding dog walking and dog fouling in 1970s and early 1980s Britain, focusing on the microhistory of a series of events in a Lancashire mill town that became known as the 'Burnley Dog War.' A ban on dog walkers from Burnley's main public parks triggered a highly publicised seven-year struggle over access. On one level, the park ban served as a rallying cry for dog lovers across Britain, widening the dividing line between dog owners and dog haters. On another level, it constituted a struggle between antagonists over questions of belonging and exclusion in a town devastated by large-scale deindustrialisation. The dog war stimulated combatants to interrogate the nature and quality of their townscape and their sense of civic identity, the analysis of which allows scrutiny of the impact of deindustrialisation upon their sense of self and place. During the conflict, various aspects of the town's economic history, civic traditions, and landscapes, were alternately disavowed, recovered, rearticulated and contested in relation to its post-industrial present. As it will be shown, the Burnley dispute over dog walking and dog fouling serves as a lens for exploring post-industrial fractiousness along class lines. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A photograph of dog walkers who had their dogs microchipped on June 2, 2008, at the Battersea Park in London, is presented.