I have, ever since this pandemic began, been saying that the eventual reopening of business when lockdowns ended would always be harder than the lockdown phase, always assuming that the government would supply the support business needed to ensure that commercial companies had a chance of making it to the other side.
I maintain that view now. As we are seeing, supply chain disruptions and chaotic labour markets, both also disrupted by Brexit, have already hinted at enormous difficulties and strains to come. These will punish business cash flows, and it is always stressed cash flow that kills businesses in the end. Just as all people die when their hearts fail, so too is it true that businesses fail when they can no longer pay their creditors.
But, what I had not imagined was that the government was going to make the difficulties business was always going to face in this situation so much worse. Remember, the furlough scheme is now winding down, taxes are now becoming due, furlough loans are now having to be repaid, and to top it all the government is winding all lockdown restrictions at the time that it acknowledges that Covid infections are going to reach all time peak rates exceeding 100,000 (and maybe much more) a day.
The Guardian and FT both include forecasts today that this summer it is likely that maybe 2 million people will simultaneously have Covid, and maybe 10 million should be isolating at any one time.
For those thinking that vaccinations will, protect them, Israel is finding that Pfizer jabs are only 64% effective against it. They are also now aware that the effectiveness of early Pfizer vaccinations is rapidly wearing off. It is unlikely that AZ is much better, if at all.
And if people want to think this is now a minor illness, ask Andrew Marr, who clearly found it otherwise. Or simply ask my son, who has now had Covid twice, and is finding his second bout very hard to recover from, but is at least doing a lot better than his university friend who spent two weeks in ICU.
The scale of business interruption from Covid this summer is going to be unprecedented. Employees are going to get sick. Once it is appreciated how dangerous unlocking is really going to be the scale of voluntary lockdown by those wanting to take reasonable protective measures against the risks the government is deliberately exposing them to is going to be very high indeed.
And in this immensely stressful environment the government is ending Covid support for business. It cannot, it seems to think, afford that support any more. Or maybe, with the logic of Ayn Rand now flowing freely from the Health Department and Treasury, it has decided that it is simply time for us to learn to stand on our own two feet, until we can't of course, when it will be time for us to bear the consequences of what will not be our own fault.
Whatever the reasoning, businesses without support, with uncertain staffing, without customers who will be too frightened to spend and whose wallets will undoubtedly be going into lockdown in the face of such uncertainty, will fail.
Clearly I can't say how many will. I am not clairvoyant. What I can at with certainty is that it will be many more than would have done if the government had not decided to simultaneously withdraw Covid support and unleash Covid infection mayhem on the country at the same time.
It takes a special firm of incompetence to deliberately create maximum possible business risk for the UK's private sector but this is what this government is doing. It's the sort of incompetence that should have culpability attached to it, but that never seems to happen.
What I do hope is that people will appreciate that the loss of businesses and jobs that are likely to flow from the catastrophic decisions the government is now making will be entirely its responsibility. The resulting stresses will have been chosen by the government. The costs will be deliberately incurred. The damage, which will take some time to recover from, will be significant.
Meanwhile, there are still those around government who think we are facing a rapid recovery where inflation is the risk. How wrong can they be?
And we have an Opposition who does not seem to understand that the consequences of unleashing exceptional levels of Covid infection extend far beyond the risk that the NHS might collapse, which most linked to it now think very likely.
Joined up thinking should not be hard. Apparently it is. We are in trouble because politicians seemingly aren't good at it. But the risks that will make this summer economically ugly, on top of all the health concerns that will arise, are plain to see for those that will look. This is not going to end well unless some very big changes in government policy happen very soon. I am not expecting that to happen. Instead I predict many tears before this is over.
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A colleague at work told me that a relative who had had AZ had been tested locally for anti-bodies by her local GP surgery and had been found to have NONE !
A national program to check for anti-bodies is surely needed if that is the case.? How many more of us are walking around thinking that we are protected?
All we need now is a victory in football to put the icing on the cake of this really difficult summer. We’ll just get totally carried away I fear.
Totally agree about your view about our politicians – useless – but that was always the intention of Neo-liberalism wasn’t it – to tie them up in knots?
This is not uncommon – vaccines do not necessarily work
No one knows how this will pan out – even the government admits that.
At a personal level, how will my behaviour change? The key data for me are vaccine effectiveness and the likelihood of encountering the virus…. and it does not look good.
I will be reducing my activities from now on. A week or so ago I attended a cricket match at the Oval on the basis that (a) I was vaccinated with 90% chance of it working (b) everyone else at the ground had either been jabbed or tested negative (c) the virus was not that prevalent so the chances of an encounter with the virus was small (d) the ground was half full and I sat in the open (d) the public transport to the ground was not crowded and everyone was wearing a mask.
On all counts, the position is getting worse. Will I go again in early September…… at this rate I will give it a miss.
Anecdotal and small scale? Yes…. but I think Andy Haldane’s predictions of a massive bounce back are looking a bit silly.
Furthermore, I am lucky – I have a choice; my daughter, working as a chef does not – she has had one jab and is worried. Worried for her own health, worried that she might infect her grandmother given the possibility that her jab is not effective.
The government’s only defence of unlocking is “if not now, when?”. My response would be when ALL adults have had the opportunity to be fully vaccinated and daily level of infections is low (1,000 ish) and falling.
Agreed
“For those thinking that vaccinations will, protect them, Israel is finding that Pfizer jabs are only 64% effective against it.”
Why not tell the whole story instead of cherry picking information?
“Vaccine effectiveness in preventing both infection and symptomatic disease fell to 64 percent since June 6, the [Israeli] Health Ministry said. At the same time the vaccine was 93 percent effective in preventing hospitalizations and serious illness from the coronavirus.”
As all wise people agree, it’s hospitalisations ands serious illness that matter. No-one has ever claimed the vaccine would be 100% effective, 93% seems pretty good.
You are scaremongering.
You clearly have no clue about long Covid and its impact
You’re in denial
I am telling the truth
Two colleagues at my sons place of work who have been double vaccinated with the Astra Zeneca version have contracted coronavirus and are now self isolating. I think PSR’s suggestion of independently assessing antibodies is very sensible.
I agree. How does one do this?
Richard, as Ann Rand continues to get plenty of mentions on this blog – and rightly so given the prominence of her ideas amongst some of the leading members of this government – I thought it worth mentioning that Adam Curtis (the documentary and film maker) devoted almost an entire programme to her in his 2011 BBC series ‘All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace’.
The whole series is worth watching (again) but the episode that features Rand is Episode 1, ‘Love and Power’. Available on BBC iPlayer, though you’ll need to manually scroll through the A-Z of documentaries as the search facility doesn’t seem to want to find it (you get the most recent series instead, which is also excellent).
Thanks Ivan
Well, did Johnson not notoriously say “F–k business” ?
The 64% figure might understate (or overstate!) efficacy somewhat as the analysis is pretty basic and doesn’t take into account various confounding factors. Hopefully, the actual efficacy will remain closer to the higher numbers calculated from studies in the UK and elsewhere. Here’s a useful twitter thread examining the Israeli numbers:
https://twitter.com/ShalitUri/status/1412424696491089926
This isn’t to say that VE against infection won’t fall as antibody levels wane, but I think we’re probably close enough for to the vaccination dates that most people will still have pretty good protection. The most important think is that all evidence available so far indicates that the high efficacy against serious disease should remain for a good amount of time and that is most important in reducing the worst outcomes.
This should hopefully mean that the death rates and hospitalisations won’t get too close to the numbers from the previous waves as for the shambolic ‘policies’ of our government are implemented in a couple of weeks or so. This isn’t to say that things won’t be bad, just not as terrible as they might be and it won’t help the potentially hundreds of thousands of children and young adults who are left with long Covid symptoms for many months or longer. Hopefully, those young adults who have received a single dose will be less at risk of long Covid, but that remains to be seen.
With the mask mandate gone and a large chunk of the population who will idiotically refuse to wear them, I expect we’ll see plenty of retail and hospitality locations quickly forced to close during August as most of their workforce becomes ill at one point or another. Makes it all the more bizarre that the spokespeople for the hospitality industry are railing against the requirement for isolation of close contacts of those infected! Unless they think they can just keep on ticking over by drafting in new staff as the others fall ill?
Many epidemiologists with sound track records will disagree with you
I use them as my sources
I think there will be a deliberate suppression of anything negative related to all of this and an excess of anything positive related to anything be it the weather, sport, celebrity – designed to keep as many people in the dark as possible so that they are unaware of what is actually happening. So, nothing on business failures, health, new variants of Covid, struggles of people and business to pay bills but loads on (so-called) celebrities, the royals, soaring temperatures and so on.
Lies are halfway round the world whilst the truth is just making its first brew of the day.
Craig
This is why we have an increasingly flourishing alternative press, one which doesn’t simply repeat and embellish govt propaganda. Pay it heed!
I already do.
This was interesting to say the least
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-57643063
Today I watched The People’s Covid Inquiry.
https://8af63893-64e5-4532-9576-b3c3794cd188.filesusr.com/ugd/360851_bb74025ab3da4b6884e8f77823ac6e2b.pdf
Their preliminary findings. Worth reading and watching. They had press asking questions. The only three questioons were from Adrian Goldberg, Byline Times. someone from the Medical Legal Magazine, and Richard Hurley from the BMJ. No MSM although they had been invited. The inquiry has no legal standing, but was run by Michael Mansfield. They had 39 people giving evidence over 18 hours from February, many of them experts in epidemiology and Independent Sage.
Their evidence should be spread all over the MSM, but won’t be. Unless some on here can spread it.