IF the 21st June easing happens will it have a positive or negative effect on the economy?

[wheresmymojo]

There are already threads about whether the 21st June end of all COVID regulations will happen and whether it should happen...

I'm interested in whether people think it will have a positive or negative impact on the economy if it goes ahead?

The reasoning behind it being needed is to provide a boost to the economy I.e. pubs and restaurants would be able to fill back up to capacity if social distancing was removed...

However a lot of people I know who are currently going to shops/pubs/restaurants have said they wouldn't want to if social distancing was removed.

At least until there is more concrete evidence about how ill vaccinated people can get from the Indian variant.

For example - you may not die but what about long COVID?

If social distancing stopped on the 21st will you spending more money in the economy or less?

Our current infection rate is below all 5 of SAGES predictions including their best case scenario so until there are signs of this changing there is really no need to panic

Either vaccines work or they don’t. We’re at 75% of adults.

I’ll be much more likely to go out and buy stuff simply because I won’t have to endlessly do the distancing dance or spend time trying to avoid the self appointed curtain twitching Covid wardens.

@KleineDracheKokosnuss

Either vaccines work or they don’t. We’re at 75% of adults.

I’ll be much more likely to go out and buy stuff simply because I won’t have to endlessly do the distancing dance or spend time trying to avoid the self appointed curtain twitching Covid wardens.

75% of adults having had a first dose doesn't really mean anything though, does it?

It just sounds better than

59.3% of the U.K. population have had a first dose.

39% have had a second.

40.7% are completely unvaccinated.

Millions of the JCVI 9 priority groups still haven't had their second dose.

We're just over half way to herd immunity if the government doesn't let cases rise.

And if the Delta variant's vaccine escape isn't any worse than they think it is.

That's amazing.

But reality doesn't seem good enough for our government so they have to trumpet these bogus milestones.

It's definitely interesting how we end up in bubbles of people who act completely differently.

I'm the least cautious of all of my friends as I'm double vaccinated so basically doing everything we're allowed to do and not too concerned about the potential end of social distancing.

One of my friends just ate inside a pub last week for the first time since last February and says she'll only go to a pub outside if social distancing ends. She doesn't have anyone inside the house. Her husband feels the same way. She's mid 40's, no particular risk factors.

Another couple of friends are meeting with multiple people outside but haven't been in a non-essential shop or pub/restaurant since last Feb. They're also not meeting inside houses. They're both early 40's with no specific risk factors.

The most cautious of my friends isn't doing anything yet. No shopping, no eating out and we can't even get her to agree to an outside meeting. Early 40's with no risk factors.

My DPs are similar - DF is 66 and DM is 56. DM has eaten inside and been inside a house (both with me) but other than seeing me isn't shopping or eating out and DF hasn't done any of these things since last Feb.

Other friends are back at work and shopping indoors but not eating indoors. Both double vaccinated as one was shielding.

Clearly I just have a group of friends/family who are extremely risk averse!

I mean I absolutely have form for being the least risk averse of my friends but I've been surprised at just how cautious they are still. They will all definitely struggle post June 21st and I'm worried they will become hermits!

My elderly parents are the most covid-risk-adverse ppl I know.
They live in another country, their opening up dates are same as England's.
For months they were legally allowed to socialise a little but refused to spend time with anyone not in their same household other than their doctors.
The weekly WhatsApp call with my dad ends with him ranting about the vaccine hesitant (he doesn't know I'm a lockdown skeptic).

In spite of how risk adverse they are, since fully vaxxed, they often go to restaurants, go on airplanes, stay with family or host family (if fully vaxxed), see small groups of friends (mostly outside), shop when needed, do indoor leisure activities with strangers & some paid indoor work... basically they are nearly back to their old lifestyle only with masks & still no big extended family parties. My sense of that barometer is -- people are desperate to spend money & socialise in the same ways they liked to behave in 2019.

@OwlTwitterings

Your options don’t take into account if restrictions ease on 21st June, whether it will result in another lockdown and more restrictions which could have a more negative effect on the economy than pausing the roadmap for a few more weeks.

I find this kind of "balance" really interesting.

I'm not sure the negative (if we open, and then have to lock down again) is really that bad.

Because if we find we need to lock down real hard real quick, then we've learned we really didn't have any headroom. That's not great, but it means we need a radical rethink about the path forward. And that counts as a win for me —knowledge gained, albeit a fairly grim prospect.

If we need to lock down again, but only after a few months of infection growth... Well, then I for one would like to make the best of the summer. Is it an absolute net economic win? Not sure, but probably its better than staying as we are.

The half-way argument says to stay as we are for "just a few more weeks". I don't see why that would radically change the situation. It's certainly not enough to get us even close to "zero covid". It seems cautious to say "just wait a bit", but it's dishonest as achieving a significantly lowered risk demands quite a lot longer.

Love to see some real figures on this, or comment from a real economist.

Is letting covid waves happen over and over and over again helpful to the economy?

Arguably more helpful than having an entire population locked down and out of work with wages being printed by the gov, yes.

The only other choice is zero covid.

There are too many people who won't do another lockdown. People were hardly doing the last one if they had any choice in it.

The only thing that could convince me another lockdown is the answer is if it's an actual china style lockdown for 6 weeks, nobody bar emergency services on the streets, with the eradication of covid the goal and borders completely closed. 6 weeks of shit and then 100% back to normal.

But that will never happen, because none of our lockdowns are even lockdowns. So why are we pretending just years of half baked measures resulting in half lives. Vaccinate the vulnerable and get on with living.

none of our lockdowns are even lockdowns

Tell that to the "non essential" shops and hairdressers and small businesses who had to shut for months on end We had the toughest lockdowns with not being allowed to visit our own relatives for many many months. Quite frankly what helps to cause non compliance in further lockdowns is comments like yours minimizing the sacrifices we have already made. Why the fuck would/should people comply with yet another one when their efforts and sacrifices are treated like nothing and minimized and history is rewritten and people are gaslighted e,g, the "we are in this mess because no one complied over Christmas" bollocks. Rubbishing and minimizing the sacrifices ppl made over the winter will fucking ENSURE non compliance in the future Sick of seeing the "they werent real lockdowns" gaslighting and whining.

oh yeah, we haven't had the "We never had a proper lockdown!" shout-outs for a while.

@MercyBooth Where did I rubbish and minimise the sacrifices people made?

The the lockdowns we had were damaging in so many ways to millions of people - myself included!

And they still did not work because (according to some posters) we are still at huge risk of "very quickly" going back into lockdown.

It was not because people were breaking the rules! I am not rubbishing or minimising the sacrifices people made. I am not blaming anyone who visited their families.

The reason it wasn't a real lockdown (and therefore ineffective) is because we closed basically everything and stopped basically everyone seeing friends and family... but the gov made up exceptions whenever they wanted to.

You could try to follow every rule to letter, but if your office declares you essential you still had to go in. If your work don't pay sick pay, your colleague's still going to come in with a cough. If your work sends you to another country you do not need to quarantine for 10 days. If you're an essential worker (and I use that term loosely because so many workplaces claimed they were when they weren't) your kids were still at school. How many "Rulebreaking" threads were on here with covid hysteria when the situation followed the rules to the letter?

It was a HUGE sacrifice by everyone.

And as a result we get a month of socially distanced "freedom" before apparently very quickly going back into full lockdown.

It's clearly a pointless exercise. Look at Florida VS California. The only lockdown that would actually work is 100% with the aim of 0 covid, which would be 100% suffering but at least not dragged out 95% suffering over 2 years. Then another 6 months when a new, scarier variant pops up, which it inevitably will. And 0 covid probably wouldn't even work because we're not New Zealand.

Is your opinion just endless 95% lockdowns and mass suffering for unlimited amounts of years? I would genuinely rather kill myself.

We will spend more in the economy, mainly on the kids clearly, what we are awaiting is international travel, so we are still not spending as we want to do a full on, no expense spared trip with kids.

Saying this we released the pressure with a £600+ spending trip last weekend, we all needed running trainers etc.

@winched Sorry its just there have been a lot of posts on here saying that they arent real lockdowns. Yours is by far from the first. I dont agree with endless lockdowns either. Far from it

And Peru

@puppeteer

I'm not sure the negative (if we open, and then have to lock down again) is really that bad.

If we need to lock down again, but only after a few months of infection growth... Well, then I for one would like to make the best of the summer.

Seriously?? "A few months"! Haven't you learned the lesson yet, that the earlier we act, the less severe the actions? Hence many nations that acted early ever time, have avoided national lockdowns.

The half-way argument says to stay as we are for "just a few more weeks". I don't see why that would radically change the situation.

Vaccinations will be a lot further along - that's the difference. If the Indian variant had waited until we had 75% of adults DOUBLE vaccinated, then we wouldn't be in this mess.

As it is, we have a variant that spreads relatively easily through a partially vaccinated population. If we were TRYING to create a vaccine tolerant variant, we couldn't do a better job.

*The only lockdown that would actually work is 100% with the aim of 0 covid, which would be 100% suffering but at least not dragged out 95% suffering over 2 years

Simply not true.

China had a lockdown that wasn't 100% - people were allowed out for supplies etc. It was far shorter than ours and far more effective for many reasons - firstly, compliance was better, secondly, it got the job finished - they didn't end it and hope that a newly created and still not up and running Track and Trace system would finish the job. They also restricted travel in and out of the area - contrast with the UK which even as we all were restricted to our homes, thousands of people were still flying in from virus hotspots, bringing new cases.

Back in September when cases started to rise again, we could have brought in limited restrictions early to get R back below 1. We didn't, instead waiting until we were again at high infection levels at which point we were forced to endure another long lockdown. And yet again, it seems that we're stopping short of the finish line....

The lockdowns worked. Look at the fall in case rates and the death rates and the hospital admission rates. The intention was never to eradicate Covid, it was to ease the burden on the NHS.

@strangeshapedpotato in my initial post my "100% lockdown" was explained as meaning a China style lockdown i.e maximum suffering but also maximum effectiveness. As for what China actually did to get there... according to some they enforced quarantine with electronics fitted to doors and according to Youtube they welded people in their homes. According to the spectator people were not allowed out without a permit issued to buy essentials.

Whatever they did, they went for complete eradication in the shortest time possible.

The UK has not done this. Our lockdowns take 5 months with some places never actually coming out of it. Even at highest levels there are so many exceptions that the virus still spreads.

We didn't, instead waiting until we were again at high infection levels at which point we were forced to endure another long lockdown. And yet again, it seems that we're stopping short of the finish line....

But we're not "stopping short of the finish line" because we are in a completely different race.

The finish line for the two races is different because the strategy is different. Even if we stayed at Tier 4 (sorry, not familiar with English system but I'm meaning January 21 style) the whole time we would not have managed 0 covid.

You can't just pretend we are using an eradication strategy and say "we're stopping short of the finish line". We're not going for eradication. Our strategy (which has changed numerous times) has always been about protecting the NHS and the vulnerable, with vaccination as the route out.

What's happened is half the country thinks we're going for eradication and the other half thinks we're saving the NHS with the "on / off tap" method explained by the BBC.

It was said that during a pandemic people isolate anyway ... and yet they clearly don’t.
Every time restrictions are lifted, people take advantage of what they’re allowed to do.
Pubs open - they go.
Schools open - kids go back.
Trial nightclub - tickets sold out in record time.
Football match in Portugal - planes full.

@strangeshapedpotato: have I learned? Yes I think so. The shows been on the road for over a year now.

But as @winched says, we don’t go all in for it. And we keep repeating the mistake.

So if we really can’t (or won’t) muster a decent effort, then government should let individuals do as they wish.

China had a lockdown that wasn't 100% - people were allowed out for supplies etc. It was far shorter than ours and far more effective for many reasons - firstly, compliance was better

Bingo!

Fuck me, there really are people still banging on about a PROPER lockdown, preferably with the Army on the streets to shoot people who dare to leave their homes, no questions asked.