Do you wear a mask when you're out and about?

[pigamus]

Nicola Bryant cowering in the household aisle

"Just tell him I'm not here"

[steveh]

I really think the risk to healthy, young people has been overblown, and that the longer lasting economic fallout will be far more damaging, for far more people.

Some thoughts around this topic (not particularly aimed at what you wrote, just that you brought it up):

- It's still around 0.6-1.2% of populations that are dying from Covid, although survival rates have got better, with an average across age groups in the UK of 11 years of life lost. Ensuring that those in society who are less able can still have good, fulfilling lives is a fundamental moral imperative. We can't just shut people away who are considered to be higher risk, plus retired people are big spenders so they're needed for the economy.

- It's people with multiple long-term conditions where the risk of severe Covid starts to become significant. For others, being healthy doesn't especially come into your chance of getting it badly - it can strike anyone - and genetic factors seem to be considered a bigger predictor now. Young people are turning out to be the biggest spreaders and 10-20% of people cause 80% of infections so deciding on who to shut away is not simple.

- Even if you don't die of it, Covid can still cause big damage across multiple organs. 20% of people are estimated to have long-tail symptoms that last many months and a proportion of those thought to be asymptomatic are being found with some lung damage. Time off work to recover and people not being able to do things later in life because of long-term damage are going to hit the economy too.

- In the US it's been seen that places which opened up earlier had a short term boost to their economies but then suffered a slump because the virus was not really under control. If people don't feel safe then they won't go out, if people worry about the future then they will be less active in the economy. Get policies right to get rid of the virus which can be sustained and then the economy will be able to recover. Just keep firefighting and the hit will continue so recovery will take much, much longer. It's a political choice which to do.

[BlodwynPig]

Kelvin, the economic impact will be damaging if your default position is Neo-liberal, capitalist model. Granted it will take a massive amount of energy and revolution to change that - but aiming for the normality that was enjoyed by few (I mean really enjoyed) is a) difficult too, b) not the right direction in the long run.

[Sebastian Cobb]

Yes, went to get a hair cut the other day, both wore masks, felt safe. Was far more worried about the shoe shop I went in afterwards where every shoe was being handled and returned to the stands. Stuff like that is much more high risk, but I don't know the solution. I know it's not very popular to say this round here, but life does have to urgently return to semi-normality for lower risk people, to protect the economy and the lives it will impact.

I think that's bollocks. If you you look at companies with 'good information', like Google (they're mad technocrats, but in terms of information available they're doing better than most), they're punting back how long they can keep their staff out of offices as long as possible. The fact is fuck all has changed about covid, but they're sending people back because Clarks want to sell more shoes.

[MojoJojo]

I think that's bollocks. If you you look at companies with 'good information', like Google (they're mad technocrats, but in terms of information available they're doing better than most), they're punting back how long they can keep their staff out of offices as long as possible. The fact is fuck all has changed about covid, but they're sending people back because Clarks want to sell more shoes.

That's a terrible example. Google are keeping their staff out of offices as long as possible because it doesn't cost them much to do so. Their office staff can work from home. You can be sure the data centres still have rack monkeys in to switch boards around. It's nothing to do with "good information", just the cost/benefit ration being completely different.

[Sebastian Cobb]

That's a terrible example. Google are keeping their staff out of offices as long as possible because it doesn't cost them much to do so. Their office staff can work from home. You can be sure the data centres still have rack monkeys in to switch boards around. It's nothing to do with "good information", just the cost/benefit ration being completely different.

Then I think you're undervaluing low-level workers for the sake of high street chains.

[MojoJojo]

I wasn't disagreeing that it's bad for the staff of Clarks. Just that if google needed people in the office to make money, those people would be back in the office. It's not because google have some special understanding of covid that clarks lack.

[Kelvin]

My question to you all is this: what is the alternative to my suggestion? I don't ask that rhetorically, I ask that sincerely: are you suggesting that the majority of people stay in some form of lockdown until a vaccine arrives? Because we have no idea if or when that will happen. Society cannot go on hold for a year plus (maybe far longer) without a catastrophic impact on jobs, industries, homes, etc.

The risk of the virus is very real, and by returning to life - albeit with better precautions than we have now - we would be putting people at risk, no question. But the alternative puts ordinary lives at risk too, just in a very different way; unemployment, losing homes, everything else that entails. If we knew a vaccine was definitely on the horizon then I too would suggest we wait, and bear the economic impact for the longer term benefits, but since we don't have that certainty, and factoring in the risk groups and ways to mitigate infection, I don't see how extending lockdown indefinitely can be a viable answer to the situation we now find ourselves in.

The fact that many businesses want their staff back for the wrong reasons, or with insufficient protections is irrelevant to the point I am making, because I'm saying that the government should lay out very specific rules to protect staff as much as possible - and clearly if people can work from home, they should not be going in. The real question is not whether business leaders want people back to work for the wrong reasons, but whether there are other, right reason for us to return, and whether the risk to health can be mitigated and weighed against the damage done to lives by the economic fallout.

[Sebastian Cobb]

My question to you all is this: what is the alternative to my suggestion? I don't ask that rhetorically, I ask that sincerely: are you suggesting that the majority of people stay in some form of lockdown until a vaccine arrives? Because we have no idea if or when that will happen. Society cannot go on hold for a year plus (maybe far longer) without a catastrophic impact on jobs, industries, homes, etc.

It can if rich people get a good shakedown. They've already hinted they're prepared to be taxed more during recovery. The government can borrow money at such a low interest rate it can profit by leaving it sat on a shelf.

[Kelvin]

It can if rich people get a good shakedown. They've already hinted they're prepared to be taxed more during recovery. The government can borrow money at such a low interest rate it can profit by leaving it sat on a shelf.

That still assumes an effective vaccine is coming in the next 6-12 months, which we have no guarantee of. The rich should be expected to pay towards the vast economic cost we would have suffered in every scenario.

I just don't believe that it means everybody else, of every risk level, staying in lockdown indefinitely. With far more safety measures rolled out, funded and enforced, I believe many other people could return to some variation on their old lives now with a relatively low risk. The problem is that the current safety measures are not clear or sufficient.

[Sebastian Cobb]

The rich could give us space communism if, as a world, we made their lives uncomfortable enough.