Absolutely and well said. The preservation of life and the prevention of harm (ie safety considerations) must be the highest priority.
Suicide is the single biggest killer of men under 45 in the uk. If asking someone how they are, or asking them to sit down offends some peoples sense of personal privacy then this is indeed a very sad world.
We do, however, have to watch concepts like “preservation of life” being misused as means of exerting authoritarianism over others.
Likewise I’m always rather wary of “security” being used as a justification for things, often pretty spurious - in the same way “it’s illegal to park here” often translates to “I don’t want people parking near my house”. The infamous Acton Bridge couple are a case in point, in their case using Covid as a means of furthering their own agenda.
There’s ways of dealing with people suspected of being at risk of harm, and certainly at my workplace the guidance is for an open and friendly engagement in conversation. This is rather different from the bullish ordering around which the original poster refers to being on the receiving end of.
Having said that, Heathrow is private property, so they can essentially do what they want.
