Enjoy unlimited access to all forum features for FREE! Optional upgrade available for extra perks.

Economic recovery

Discussion in 'The Bar' started by keys, May 2, 2020.

Thread Status:
Not open for further replies.
  1. newguy United Kingdom

    newguy Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Dec 2009
    Posts:
    3,092
    Likes Received:
    122
    https://news.sky.com/story/coronavirus-shearings-collapses-with-loss-of-2500-jobs-11992922 Shearings the other day too. They specialise in group OAP trips and hotel stays, so that will have a knock on effect on hotels.

    It's a weird time because it's reasonable to think that things will get much worse for companies before they get better, and that while feasibly things covid-19 might be a thing of the past in a year or so (or at least not terrifying the elderly and vulnerable), so many companies will be unable to hang on for that to come about. It won't look pretty when the furlough scheme ends. So many people will be let go.
     
    • Like Like x 1
  2. Domain Forum

    Acorn Domains Elite Member

    Joined:
    1999
    Messages:
    Many
    Likes Received:
    Lots
    IWA Meetup
     
  3. websaway United Kingdom

    websaway Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Mar 2007
    Posts:
    5,336
    Likes Received:
    156

    Common sense prevails ;)
     
  4. Siusaidh

    Siusaidh Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Jun 2019
    Posts:
    1,001
    Likes Received:
    339
    I think the best policy at present is continued social distancing *and* wear facemasks in temporary situations where you might be close to people (such as if you *have* to take a journey on public transport, or in supermarket aisles).

    The facemasks policy will need to allow home-made facemasks which may reduce danger to others if you sneeze/cough, but will not prevent you catching the virus. The simple fact is there are nowhere near enough medical grade facemasks to provide everyone with daily masks. So facemasks are a *part* of an approach to try to avoid further spread, but by themselves they may not be enough.

    We are not yet 3 weeks out of the gradual escape from lockdown. So we need to see whether deaths start rising again when the new cycle begins. Further relaxation of the lockdown may then need to be measured (again, from 3 weeks later).

    Let's hope, even with localised blips, that we can keep the outbreak under control.

    I can assure you there are still many people catching this virus and suffering serious symptoms. I'm encouraged but it's not over yet.

    The other serious concern I have, as a clinician, is the near collapse of services for people with (for example) moderate cardiac problems or need for operations. The backlog is huge and no-one can deny that there are going to be significant numbers of deaths from this reduction in services.

    Part of the tail of this virus is going to be both the economic impacts on health (and the morbidities of poverty), and this trail of people who needed medical monitoring and interventions which were postponed and delayed.

    The situation is undeniably complex, but what I know first-hand is that people are still teetering on the brink of life and death with this virus, and they have to be helped, and because of all the other consequences of this virus (which I just mentioned) what we mustn't do is let this virus run away again.

    Any kind of gung-ho and macho approach to this virus will only end up exacerbating the problems (hello Brazil). I think it needs to be patient, calm, slow and steady. getting 'R' down to, say, 0.2 would make it far easier to contain outbreaks and track and trace. At that point, yes, we start to win and get back to some kind of new normal. At present the public is pushing the limits: if people think we're out of the woods and can all just mix again, I fear they are wrong.
     
  5. websaway United Kingdom

    websaway Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Mar 2007
    Posts:
    5,336
    Likes Received:
    156
    We could produce ammunition gas masks planes and tanks in the war. We could not manufacture masks to stop person to person transmission of the virus. We had all the " expert" opinions as to why we should not wear masks even though common sense told us if a mask reduced giving someone else the virus it must by definition reduce the risk of someone catching the virus by a mask wearer. And what about the economy, I don't think ordinary joe who has only been on the planer for the last 35 years or less really grasps the economic downside of this episode and the human cost to come.
     
  6. Siusaidh

    Siusaidh Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Jun 2019
    Posts:
    1,001
    Likes Received:
    339
    I agree with you that it would have been better to get people wearing facemasks sooner. It would have saved some lives.

    I suppose the counter argument that could be presented is that it would have given people a false sense of security, and as a result they might have been more relaxed about social distancing.

    The sort of facemasks most of the public will have access to (or can improvise) are not some kind of ray gun safety shield. The thin paper masks you often see people wearing are better than nothing, because if they sneeze fewer droplets will infect other people, but as a protection they reduce but do not remove the risk of catching the virus.

    Let's hope people are sensible about wearing facemasks if they do so now, and still try to keep their distance.

    I agree about the human cost to come.
     
  7. websaway United Kingdom

    websaway Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Mar 2007
    Posts:
    5,336
    Likes Received:
    156
    Terrible to see thousands packed shoulder to shoulder in parliament square today, they risk bringing the virus back to their grandparents. How irresponsible . Also risk a further lockdown, clearly only a cause matters not really lives.:confused:
     
  8. JMI

    JMI Active Member

    Joined:
    Oct 2015
    Posts:
    696
    Likes Received:
    137
    The scientific evidence is all over the place they cannot agree on anything, looks like the government is just making most of this up as they go along now.

    I can't understand why theres not more outrage.
     
  9. seemly

    seemly Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Feb 2011
    Posts:
    1,607
    Likes Received:
    493
    Because any criticism of the Government instantly makes you a liberal lefty snowflake who is trying to prevent Brexit, and that Jeremy Corbyn would have done a worse job if he was voted in.
     
  10. boxfish United Kingdom

    boxfish Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Jul 2010
    Posts:
    1,053
    Likes Received:
    90
    There are several videos on YouTube of Chris Whitty giving lectures at Gresham College over a year ago where he says that a global pandemic is imminent, it will be the next killer and he goes through the science of it.

    It's not an 'unknown situation', it's one that was predicted and the science has played out as expected. What wasn't mentioned is the economic impact which seems to be dictating the current situation.
     
    • Agree Agree x 1
  11. Siusaidh

    Siusaidh Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Jun 2019
    Posts:
    1,001
    Likes Received:
    339
    As a healthcare professional, what I'd like to know is, if it was expected, why was it not prepared for?
     
  12. martin-s United Kingdom

    martin-s Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Jul 2012
    Posts:
    3,468
    Likes Received:
    270
    Because there hasn't previously been enough justification for such over-capacity which is quite a costly insurance policy. Even over the past few months of no deal Brexit and Coronavirus preparations, the press will still attack insurance policies like this as wasteful. The Nightingale hospitals, the current over-supply of track and trace workers (insurance against a second wave, surely?), etc.

    By definition you expect an insurance policy to be wasteful, because the alternative is so much worse.

    Never before has "hindsight is 20/20" been so accurate.
     
    • Like Like x 1
  13. Murray

    Murray Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Sep 2012
    Posts:
    4,261
    Likes Received:
    432
    Problem is it could have happened now, 5 years, 10 years, 20 years who knows

    If you're a politician and you spent a lot of money "just in case" and nothing happened you would be ridiculed, called a doomsday prepper wasting money and damage you and your political parties chance of being reelected

    And how long of a shelf-life would the previsions and equipment last
     
    • Agree Agree x 1
  14. boxfish United Kingdom

    boxfish Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Jul 2010
    Posts:
    1,053
    Likes Received:
    90
    If you check this video out, posted in October 2018, the Government Adviser Chris Whitty says pandemic influenza remains the highest risk on the UK Risk Register, it's rated 5/5 in severity and 4/5 as occurring in the next 5 years, so it definitely was expected. (I know this isn't influeza per se but the response would be the same as methods of transmission are the same)

    I've linked to the exact slide, which is towards the end but the whole video is very interesting and worth a watch.



    In 2018 there was a 4/5 chance of it happening in the next 5 years.
     
  15. Siusaidh

    Siusaidh Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Jun 2019
    Posts:
    1,001
    Likes Received:
    339
    I do understand all sides of the argument. The simple facts are that there was a serious shortage of PPE.

    In this Guardian article, it's clear that the risk of pandemic was recognised and planned for. However the value of the pandemic stockpiles diminished by £325million (40%) between 2013 and 2019.

    Given the present crisis, there must be an urgent need to re-stock both for possible 2nd wave, and for any later pandemic.

    I agree with Murray that there is a problem with shelf life/expiry of equipment, and I assume what you do is build up the core, so that say a gown has a 5 year shelf life, then each year you feed one fifth out to the general NHS for use that year, and replace one fifth each year. That then becomes a rolling budget commitment.

    I don't know if the 40% fall off in stock valuation between 2013 and 2019 reflected an actual depletion of PPE (it would be unfair of me to say definitely it did). What I do know for myself and all my colleagues, is that as a fact, when the PPE was needed, in many cases the quantity available was woefully insufficient.

    Inadequate PPE leads to increased cross-infection, and transmission to healthcare workers. It also results in GP practices being under-equipped and to rationing (or even re-use, which is completely wrong) of equipment.

    My impression is that we were under-prepared for a pandemic which was recognised to be a very real possibility. So is the next pandemic too.

    Exercise Winter Willow in 2007, and Operation Cygnus in 2016, clearly pointed to the need for contingency planning. Instead, the figures suggest that if anything the stocks were run down. Regardless of the truth of that, they weren't there sufficiently when the crisis broke. It's one thing to 'clap NHS staff' but what would show most respect and recognition would be their safety - and the safety of patients.

    Obviously this involves budgets in the context of rival pressures for public money, and that involves political decisions, but I think it should not have been beyond organisational good management to set a rolling stock supply in place, with equipment 'outflowed' to the NHS for general use (so it's not being wasted) in the final year of its shelf life, and 20% replaced in the emergency stockpile each year.

    That process would not be waste, because the equipment would end up being used if there was no pandemic. Any excess could be donated to desperately poor hospitals worldwide as part of overseas aid (albeit, with one year's use left, that would not be optimal but no doubt would still be received).
     
    • Like Like x 1
  16. Admin

    Admin Administrator Staff Member

    Joined:
    Jun 2004
    Posts:
    11,120
    Likes Received:
    464
    Because of arrogant, low intelligence world leaders who sack all their scientists...... that's one reason.

    Worth a watch if you haven't, I watched this the month before COVID, this 'Pandemic' series was made last year https://www.netflix.com/title/81026143
     
  17. websaway United Kingdom

    websaway Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Mar 2007
    Posts:
    5,336
    Likes Received:
    156
    Such a shame now how disadvantaged children are the cannon fodder of the political battle going on over a return to school. Leaving 8 year olds in high rise flats all day is no way to act humanely. My heart goes out to the families that don't have gardens, single mothers who simply can't educate 3 or 4 children of different ages. It's very, very sad.
     
    • Agree Agree x 1
  18. websaway United Kingdom

    websaway Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Mar 2007
    Posts:
    5,336
    Likes Received:
    156
    Let's get our priorities right. We are facing the worst crisis since the 1970's. I don't think trying to move the statue of Baden Powell who may have been homophobic at a time when maybe 80% of the population were also homophobic and the act was even stupidly illegal and punishable by prison. When is common sense going to trump the minorities with extreme agendas whose leaders are mostly privileged young and have nothing else to do. Incidentally if a little german found us a formidable foe wait to see what the Brits can do if any extremists try to take down the statue of our hero Churchill. I am not homophobic ( never was ) I'm not racist ( never have been ) I think I have just developed a huge degree of common sense having been around the Sun a large number of times. We need to concentrate on beating the virus and saving the economy which so many many underprivileged people depend on.
     
    Last edited: Jun 13, 2020
  19. seemly

    seemly Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Feb 2011
    Posts:
    1,607
    Likes Received:
    493
    Though I will say that I do understand what you are saying, I think the timing of recent protests is obviously not ideal but I would not suggest that over 400 years of social segregation, slavery, rape, murder, poverty and inequality is of a lesser priority. Especially seeing as that same demographic seems to be effected the most from Covid-19.

    Unfortunately, happenings in the US have dictated that the time for change is very much now.

    If that's deemed a problem, maybe those in charge will be more proactive regarding implementing change that has a bigger and more positive impact than solely lining the pockets of themselves and their mates.
     
  20. martin-s United Kingdom

    martin-s Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Jul 2012
    Posts:
    3,468
    Likes Received:
    270
    Having statues of slave traders as if to celebrate their work is a bit thoughtless frankly. If the statues are to stay, we need to acknowledge the negative parts of their history alongside.

    We can't deny the UK's history, but that's not who we are (or want to be) now.
     
    • Agree Agree x 2
  21. Ben Thomas

    Ben Thomas Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Mar 2018
    Posts:
    2,621
    Likes Received:
    363
    Morgan Freeman had it right.

     
Thread Status:
Not open for further replies.