Quote:
Originally Posted by OLD BOY
Yet still the siren voices keep telling the government to implement plan B. It really is pathetic. Nice to see the government is holding firm on their current stance.
|
Everyone has their own view though on what the answer is, presumably based more on what they know.
So yes, if you ask people in the NHS what they think, they will say that you need lower levels to reduce hospital admissions so there's no-one in hospital with covid, so you need measures like social distancing, WFH, closing businesses, lockdown to achieve that. It'd be difficult to suggest how you can manage that though without having an impact somewhere else. But when you're working between 7-7 and have to do the same the next day you're either sleeping during the day or working with the other when you're not and probably don't have the schedule to go socialising in a pub nor are you aware of the impact there. They're not wrong but it's just one side of the die. And let's not forget how much there is militant unionism in these environments which don't really like any government let alone one which is right-wing by tory standards.
Ask a retailer or someone who owns a restaurant and they'll say they need more normality like no WFH, maximum table capacity, no face masks, so they're not restricted by who they can serve and don't need to reduce staffing or use furlough to cover the temporary issues. They are right too as if SD means you need to reduce your table capacity by 50% to keep them 2m apart then that's half the income you can make in an evening and also that means half the jobs...
People purely motivated by the impact on the public purse will say that restrictions cost us anyway whether it's furlough or in UC because people have been laid off, business rates holidays, less tax from alcohol sales, etc etc.
The media are jumping on this memo about invoking Plan B to the council leaders but is this not necessarily just an honest attempt to get feedback? Otherwise they might say the gov isn't listening to them. It's a case of damned if you do and damned if you don't.
But unlike a lot of the others, the government (who let's face it aren't clinicians, that's one reason why they have Whitty and Vallance) need to decide based on what everyone says on what the overall effect is, and if that necessitates within reason a trade off between the economy and controlling the virus, then they will have to decide how much each takes a hit.
Given that there is a possibility that over the next few days we may be over this peak, which I guess will naturally happen when it's ripped through enough of the kids anyway, you can see the benefit in actually sitting tight but making preparations to move into Plan B or whatever if it isn't doing that.