Boris is sending his subjects back out to war as a social experiment

[Monty27]

I'm still not too keen on getting cov19 .
Anyone?
Social experiment might be slightly dramatic but more people will become infected and I think he's putting the economy before us. 😔

"Have public employees been furloughed?"
They are not allowed to be. Their pay comes from the government in the first place.

are you completely self sufficient, or do you rely on an income from work or other sources? Unless you produce your own food, electricity, water supply, wool for making clothes, never travel anywhere, never need doctors or schools, and much more, then you are part of this "economy"

Exactly. I love how people talk about the "economy" as if its something that has nothing whatsoever to do with them! The economy is what pays for NHS, police, fire services, ambulances, education/schools, roads, bin collections, etc etc
Imagine no NHS, police, or schools? THAT is what happens when there is no economy so take your head out of your arse and start realising that the economy is what pays for all of the things you take for granted and seem to think just magically appear for your benefit. These things dont just appear from nowhere- they are paid for out of our taxes. If there is noone working, there will be NO money to pay for them and they will disappear. That will cause a total breakdown of society and will make the virus seem like a walk in the park in comparison.

If easing lockdown restarts the economy, why has Sweden’s economy taken a large hit without even having a lockdown & where cafes and bars are still open?

I think they can be furloughed without claiming furlough pay, iyswim? So there's nothing to stop public sector bodies sending their staff home and not asking them to do anything whilst still paying them, but they won't be able to get any furlough grants to do so. They'll just be paid the same way and from the same pot as they would've been before all this.

The aim of lockdown was to 'protest the NHS'. The NHS is doing fine, so the lockdown can be eased.

And kit needs to be, for all the reasons others have mentioned.

Remember, if we all die, then there will be very few workers, and they will command high wages in comparison to their overlords. Boris and his chums don't want that, so they do have an investment in protecting the country as best they can.

why has Sweden’s economy taken a large hit without even having a lockdown & where cafes and bars are still open?

What an an obvious question, can you not have a little think yourself what happens when we’re faced with an unprecedented emergency and how that impacts consumer confidence?

The better question is how badly their economy is affected compared to countries with long lockdown periods.

Autocorrect doing a fine job above (it isn't), 'protect' 'it'

LaurieMarlow Well do answer your better question then

I definitely think there should be more than two weeks between starting half-size classes in 2 or 3 year groups and brining everyone back to school.

If there's going to be a spike it would take 3 weeks to show, by which time we've already piled more fuel on the fire. Way to make it uncontainable.

You'd think the people setting the timetable didn't understand incubation periods - or that they were deliberately flirting with an upsurge.

Yes BlackBerry, except they arent furloughed. You are only furloughed if receiving furlough pay, which they arent.

Eyewhisker, I'm under 45, I've had this damn virus for over 9 weeks. It's ok saying there is minimal risk, but what happens if you go back to work for 2-3 weeks, catch it then be off again for weeks or months. Yes things needs to get back to normal but very very very gradually.

My point was that there were savings to be made if publicly paid employees who were not working received 80% of pay like everyone else who doesn’t have work. We need every £ we can get!

Sweden relies on exports and their internal market for income. They have predicted a fall in demand for goods and services. Their supply chains are linked to other countries, just like ours. They are part of a world economy, just like us. Their economic outlook isn’t much different to ours for these reasons. Partly confidence driving down demand and partly just being dragged down by everyone else!

In that case I'd ask why other countries - Italy, for example - see nothing like the same dips and spikes over the week. Granted there'll be some, but not like this I think that in a year or so we will know the full answer to that. I suspect we wil find that the ONS and other data here is a lot more speedy and real time accurate than many other countries. The ONS is quite a remarkable organisation and is, as far as I remember from when I first started using it, a world leading data collection model.

It is even more swift to self correct now that the community death reporting procedures have been made more like hospital ones... daily reporting is now possible for most. I am not sure how many other countries have the same rapid response time.

But I also think that this accurate data is part of our problem. A lot of people have never had to get their heads around stats so the confoudning variables, outliers and all those other term, mean very little. The bald numbers are scary and ours may be amongst the most accurate.

That and, as I think others have said, we have a high morbidity rate for many flus, pneumonia every year. Climate, age and vulnerability of the population, etc all play into that. It may be that when the excess mortality rates are fully analysed that we find that our COVID death rate is comparable to our pneumonia death rate... as in we just happen to live somewhere that makes us more vulnerable to such infections.

But we won't know for a long time yet!

I know tabby, that was my point. They can be placed in an arrangement that meets legal and dictionary definitions of furlough, but it won't be funded through the coronavirus furlough scheme.

I want to send my child to school. I want to see my friends and family again. I want to go to the shops and book a holiday to Cornwall.

I want to do all of that without risking lives. So yes, I am furious at the Government for instituting a massive herd immunity experiment based on "reasonable employers and common sense", instead of testing and tracking like other countries. As it stands, our success will be predicated on the number of hospital deaths in two weeks time, instead of test results like South Korea and Germany.

That's how bad it is. We are literally waiting for people to die.

Before anyone moans about furlough - I am self employed and I am juggling home schooling with work.

Social experiment might be slightly dramatic but more people will become infected

OP, did you mean 'social experiment'? Or do you mean a scientific experiment, as in to see how many people catch the virus if they do x?

Are you specifically talking about the social/psychological side of easing lockdown and suggesting that's what the government is interested in here? (E.g. how many people will comply if we tell them to do x?).

Or do you mean that the government is using the electorate as guinea pigs to see what happens in a given scenario and that the risk of infection to individuals is a secondary consideration to their data-gathering?

There seem to be all sorts of local government services that are withdrawn and people are not working on public facing roles but are still getting full pay. So what are they doing?

Housing officers are still dealing with tenant/estate management issues, making emergency provision for the street homeless, finding places for people fleeing domestic violence etc, planning officers are still processing planning applications, social workers are still doing safeguarding work and placing old people into care homes, finance people are still processing payments in, approving invoices for payment and running payroll, pensions teams are still doing their normal work and staff working in member services have been making sure that the council/cabinet/committees still meet to make decisions, albeit doing so electronically (which took a lot of work to set up). The bins are still being emptied, recycling collected, roads being mended, traffic signals and street lighting maintained etc. My DSS, a tree surgeon employed by a local authority is still working normally. Trees don't stop growing or getting ash die-back because of Covid! Only this morning, council workmen were cutting the grass in a park near me, and doing the verges on a nearby estate.

Off the top of my head, in my area. the only services that are not currently running are the leisure centres (run by a private company under contract to the council), the tips (ditto, and re-opening next week anyway) and libraries, who are still maintaining online services.

Many staff have been redeployed onto Covid related work. Here, there are huge numbers of people, some redeployed from other organisations, who are keeping in regular telephone contact with the most vulnerable people, arranging food parcel deliveries etc.

A lot of NHS staff are working. CPN's are delivering support to patients by telephone and monitoring their MH (and responded very promptly to a concern I raised about a mutual client yesterday), my friend who is an HCP in a GP practice is still working as are the community nurses based there. The secure MH services are working normally, they haven't just let the dangerously unwell MH people out to roam the streets! And many of their finance and other support services will be working normally, if from home.

Just because offices aren't open to the public doesn't mean people aren't working. I don't think you realise the enormous number of "back office" staff it takes to keep complex and varied public services running.

I don't think you realise the enormous number of "back office" staff it takes to keep complex and varied public services running.

Definitely LAs and HAs are very much still working. Over the last 7 weeks I've worked with about 6 different ones (it's my job) and whilst there is disruption, they are very much open for business, just not bums on seats in the offices.

There seem to be all sorts of local government services that are withdrawn and people are not working on public facing roles but are still getting full pay. So what are they doing?

I've interacted with various local authority departments during lockdown and their staff are all still working (bar a couple of medically-trained ones who've been redeployed to the front line) - sure, there have been some logistical issues as many are now home-based but they're definitely earning their pay!

Likewise, all those operations and outpatients appointments that are queuing up - apparently 7 million of them. It’s not true to say that all these NHS staff are working on Covid wards, so what are they doing on full pay?

Again, lots of medical staff are still working in their own fields and are available if you need to contact them. My DS has medical issues and is under various specialist teams, and they're still available and working - babies are still being born with the conditions he has so someone has to be dealing with new patients that need medical assistance and with older children who are having issues. Yes, doctors appointments are having to happen by telephone now, but lots of public sector workers are still working, even if you can't see them.

Again, lots of medical staff are still working in their own fields and are available if you need to contact them.

I wish that was the case for mine, over 8 weeks now the team I use has been shut down.

If it’s all work as normal, why are over 7 million people waiting for operations and appointments? Everyone knows it’s shut down for lots of non Covid patients. Not everywhere but there are many reports that it has.

Country parks are closed. Recycling has been closed. Planning departments even further behind. Housing isn’t done by councils here. School services not being used as schools are closed. Libraries are volunteer run here but are closed. Care homes are mostly not council run either. Social services visits stopped. Lots of services are accessed by email query. No contacts are answering. It’s a skeleton service at best.

Bubbles perhaps look back at years of underfunding for the NHS and ask your question again.
Fact is if the service, was funded properly then the NHS could have coped with the COVID workload AND all the other stuff.
The fact that to cope with covid 19 has meant shutting everything else down is a disgrace and shows how badly the service has been decimated.
All staff are being deployed elsewhere.

The fact that to cope with covid 19 has meant shutting everything else down is a disgrace and shows how badly the service has been decimated.

So glad you've said that and I totally agree with you. I have said this before on here and to people I know and have been slated. They have all said that it's down to the pandemic, which in my opinion is not the case. It's 2020 and the NHS should be in a position to cope.

Yes governments have been to blame, but the NHS does have to take some flack for the endless levels of management and inflated management salaries.

I fully expect to be flamed for saying that.

login public service/local authority staff have been redeployed, some public facing roles are now making up boxes to be delivered to vulnerable people that are unable to leave the house, redeployed to deliver the made up food boxes to vulnerable people, telephoning vulnerable people to check on them and make sure they have a conversation with a human if hey wish, help out on call centre calls - as more people phoning councils rather than visit in person so more call handlers needed
registrars still working as deaths being registered have gone up
council tax still working extra demand so others helping
housing benefits still working extra demand so others helping
housing departments still working extra demand so others helping
rents still working extra demand so others helping
social care still working
finance still working
carers still working

just to name a few

Perhaps counselling would help ?