@urkidding
It's become a tale of two halves. The population who have to work and the people who don't care, and whose jobs are inessential. A lot of people in the Civil Service are being paid full salaries and are doing no work whatsoever. For example, the DVLA put a notice on their website saying that they will only renew your licenses if you required it urgently. Why? The whole system is computerised. There were no checks at Heathrow for South Africans by Passport Control when the South African variant was known about. (This was on BBC news.) Why are the lazy sods not working? They required only a very minimum of staff to be on duty. Why the hell haven't these people been furloughed? There has been an acute lack of benefits staff when so many people want benefits. Why? The systems are computerised. In the recent flurry of house buying, the Land Registry is full of staff who have been delaying the whole process because they haven't been around. All the systems are computerised, there is no excuse. These people are on WhatsApp groups talking about what they are baking. They should furlough these people and why the hell are the rest of us paying for them? There has been a lot of support for the health service, however why hasn't the Department of Health been more proactive? Taiwan already has great track and trace systems by January 2020. What were all these thousands of employees doing? In the meantime, there were queues outside banks, why? Small business still have cash transactions and need to pay in cash. The banks reduced interest rates to savers, however a huge number of people have fixed rate mortgages. They also stopped giving 90% mortgages to young people. My old neighbour whose pension wasn't paid in spent an hour on the phone trying to talk to the bank. The insurance sector stopped indemnifying small conveyancing companies. The fact that the Finance sector constantly cheats us and doesn't value loyalty is so prevalent that we have come to expect that we have to constantly change our insurance policies and bank accounts if we are smart. I don't believe people should go back to work in the office but those who work from home should be scrutinised. The Civil Service and the banks have failed us in this crisis.
You can also add he NHS where some staff have had to work harder and in awful conditions but others have been able to sit at home (or in remote offices) and do little more than bugger all.
Anything non covid has basically been shelved, and yes, whilst some staff have been redeployed, others havn't and have nothing to do.
It's now 2 years since I've had my "essential" yearly diabetic eye test. Why? Opticians are open, I can have my normal eye test with my normal optician, but whenever I chase the diabetic eye test done by NHS, it's a resounding "no" - "due to covid". Likewise not had a routine foot test with our GP surgery - again, "essential" to do it yearly, but their diabetic nurse is working from home so can't actually do any physical checks.
"Essential" regular dental check ups - available if you're private, but not available under the NHS. Why? How is it "safer" for the same dentist to do a private check up but unsafe for that same person to do a NHS test?
My OH has cancer. His treatment was abruptly stopped last March "due to covid" and he was abandoned completely until July - the oncology dept was shut (we went in person, all shuttered up!), Whenever he phoned, it was an answerphone and no one ever phoned back. We later found out they'd moved the entire dept to a hospital in the next town but hadn't bothered to tell their patients! Instead of restarting in July, they dithered about and he only restated the proper chemo treatment last month when his levels got dangerously high and he was started to suffer broken ribs etc.
Not to mention all the "telephone" appointments he gets booked in for which never happen. Only last week he had a phone appt with the oncologist. Appointed time came and went. He phone up after an hour to be told "you're next in line". An hour later he phoned again, spoke to a different receptionist only to be told his oncologist had gone for the day (apparently it was his half day!). No apology for their failing to call. If that had been a normal "face to face" consultation, OH would have been sat outside the guy's office and would have been seen.