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Coronavirus - the new strain XII

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tiggers said:
This is absolutely what people need to get their head around. We are going to have to learn to live with the virus and our society will change because of it. I am all for shoring up the economy while we work out how to live with it (if only our 'progressive' government had yet realised this is what we need to do), but as you rightly say some jobs are never going to be viable again, in the medium term at least. People need to accept that as hard as it may be.
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Define 'viable'. Sunak, our warm cuddly Chancellor was the one who started off down this rabbit hole.

The counter-argument is that these 'unviable' jobs are the things that fundamentally support our quality of life, and help with the glue that binds our society. Hopsitality - meals in restaurants, drinks in pubs and bars, or just a coffee in a cafe; entertainment and the arts more generally. These are not, as this question of viability seems to assume, simply optional accessories we can easily do without. So a better question is: 'what does it take to make them viable, and are we prepared to fund it?'. If you can accommodate fewer people, then the price per head has to go up. If you go beyond a certain level, affordability and accessibility drops, so you need to consider subsidy. Problem is, subsidy comes from the pockets of the wealthy, and we know how averse they are to that. They prefer the rest of us to pay more tax, so they don't have to.
 
Sue Pertwee-Tyr said:
Sean's point was that it's always the poor who pay. Sad that you think that's unavoidable.
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I not sure it's unavoidable, but I think it will take a bold and imaginative politics to avoid it. I've not noticed anyone proposing thought-through, fully-baked, ideas about that.
 
Sue Pertwee-Tyr said:
Define 'viable'. . .

The counter-argument is that these 'unviable' jobs are the things that fundamentally support our quality of life,
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Define "fundamentally."

Sue Pertwee-Tyr said:
the glue that binds our society..
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This is something I've been thinking about a lot recently, without making much headway. Human beings managed to come out of caves because people worked together to create a context where people could flourish more. It's no longer safe to come together to create, to make. The cream of our youth can no longer go to universities, debate in seminars, argue in bars, experiment in labs. Zoom is our only hope of avoiding backwards evolution, my experience of it for learning is disappointing . . .
 
mandryka said:
Yes it is and it's disturbing and it probably goes quite deep into the zeitgeist -- just like there are people who believe in flat earth and QAnon. I'm not sure what to say about it myself yet, it's as if the concepts of truth, scientific method have been relegated, demoted.
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Endarkenment.
 
Sue Pertwee-Tyr said:
Define 'viable'. Sunak, our warm cuddly Chancellor was the one who started off down this rabbit hole.

The counter-argument is that these 'unviable' jobs are the things that fundamentally support our quality of life, and help with the glue that binds our society. Hopsitality - meals in restaurants, drinks in pubs and bars, or just a coffee in a cafe; entertainment and the arts more generally. These are not, as this question of viability seems to assume, simply optional accessories we can easily do without. So a better question is: 'what does it take to make them viable, and are we prepared to fund it?'. If you can accommodate fewer people, then the price per head has to go up. If you go beyond a certain level, affordability and accessibility drops, so you need to consider subsidy. Problem is, subsidy comes from the pockets of the wealthy, and we know how averse they are to that. They prefer the rest of us to pay more tax, so they don't have to.
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Sorry, but this is one of the problems with where we are. Everyone is banging on about job protection, but how long do you protect jobs for? Let's take an example here. Live music for example. If we don't find a vaccine or effective treatments or even if we do and yet we can't eradicate the disease (and this is a very likely scenario) then we have two options - let live music happen as before and those wishing to take the risk can go or try and introduce socially distanced live music. The former will inevitably result in less people going to live music and the latter will inevitably result in less people going to live music and therefore there won't need to be as many venues or people working in the industry. This is a fact, live music is going to change. Now multiply that up to all the other industries where people are in close proximity e.g. sport, bars, restaurants etc. All, at best, are going to experience less trade. Another example, more people will work from home so there will be less need for all those office district cafes and sandwich shops. This is not me being political, these are facts and at some point we need to start looking at how we move forward like this rather than being reactive. People need to accept this is going to change society in a huge way and hoping instead that things are going to go back to how they were is futile and a waste of time!
 
I totally agree with this. Things have changed. Just take the working at home thing. People will work at home more than they did. Not necessarily totally but definitely a mix of both. This must give some opportunity for businesses. I don’t know what. Local takeaway delivery. Local delis. Better local markets. I don’t think this will make up for what was before but humans adapt and by implication so do markets and economies.
 
gavreid said:
If you caught Starmer he actually said 'at least two weeks' at lot of people took that to be two weeks - not me... I told you yesterday that the circuit breaker would have to be a couple of months long
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That's certainly not what Rachel Reeves said today on Marr.
 
2 to three weeks and then 28 days slipped out of her mouth.

Gove said something interesting about Test and Trace -- what do you make of this?

blah blah blah It's not that the [Test and Trace] system is slowing down it's that the virus is accelerating fast. If you do have an increased incidence in infection then any test and trace system of whatever kind has less utility, because a test and trace system is specifically designed to be at its most effective when you're bringing infection rates down blah blah blah.
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gavreid said:
It's Friday, they run two days behind. I guess people have more support at home at the weekends so try to tough it out...
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What I mean is I think the figures are bad even for what i would expect to be released on a Sunday.
 
Brian said:
What I mean is I think the figures are bad even for what i would expect to be released on a Sunday.
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No sign of the kind of thing in the last few week, Sundays have been high points - we's have expected probably more than 850 hospitalistions in yesterdays figures so 632 almost looks unreal. Maybe they're making it more difficult to get into A&E...
 
gavreid said:
Some Manchester hospitals, Stockport, Salford and Bolton are already full

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/oct/18/revealed-some-manchester-area-hospitals-already-full
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Yep and in a couple of weeks many others across the whole country will be heading that way, the national lockdown U-turn will have to come but unfortunately Boris being the monumental cockwomble that he is will now be even less likely to do it sooner as it will look like Burnham was right... which of course he was!
 
tiggers said:
Yep and in a couple of weeks many others across the whole country will be heading that way, the national lockdown U-turn will have to come but unfortunately Boris being the monumental cockwomble that he is will now be even less likely to do it sooner as it will look like Burnham was right... which of course he was!
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What do you think a two week national lockdown in a couple of weeks will achieve exactly?
 
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