watched through their fingers

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GoodTaste

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Does "watched through their fingers" mean "watched with embarrassment or with uneasiness"?


See the pic attached to have an impression of what is "watched through their fingers".


===================
A guide to R — the pandemic’s misunderstood metric
What the reproduction number can and can’t tell us about managing COVID-19.


Mathematicians and public-health experts watched through their fingers in May as British Prime Minister Boris Johnson unveiled a series of charts to explain how the government would guide Britain out of coronavirus lockdown. Perhaps most prominent was a colourful dial with a needle hovering near a single digit: 1.


Source: Nature July 3, 2020
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-02009-w


watched through their fingers:
th
 
That sounds about right to me.
 
I would say that both the photo and the context suggest fear or dread. Those are related to your suggestion of unease (not uneasiness) but nothing to do with embarrassment.
 
They watched in horror.
 
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