Westministenders: The Virus

[RedToothBrush]

Its like living in a Bad Disaster B Movie.

If you thought Brexit on your TV every day was Bad, The Virus is a whole new level.

The 5pm broadcast with Johnson and friends, and the public infomation video with the unblicking Chris Witty (who has such unfortunate mannerism he makes me think he's me a Dr Who alien akin to the Slitheen).

Who knows what will happen. Just that everything has changed and our entire economy is now on life support whilst we figure out how to deal with the crisis and what on earth our exit strategy is.

Johnson has however refused to join a joint EU purchase scheme designed to assist countries through the crisis.

Meanwhile the US is about to go nuts... so what does that do to a trade deal?

More money for the NHS? More hospitals?

Well its possible that might just happen...

@Sostenueto I don’t know whether it’s genuine but that’s basically what the government said it will do.
If it’s not true yet, it will be in a couple of weeks when the nhs won’t have enough ventilators.

Understanding what has happened afterward will give us an idea if how many lifes were lost due to running down the nhs. And not just CV deaths but all the others too (eg cardiac arrest, strokes not treated appropriately, people not getting diagnosed or treated on time - not just cancer)

Surely accommodation for any agricultural workers will be a big problem if quarantine is needed and social distancing is to be maintained. Otherwise there'll be hotspots all over the place. Land Army-style hostels in requisitioned houses/ Nissen huts and more modern caravans/mobile homes: all potentially a bad idea.

French farmers rely heavily on Moroccan and Polish seasonal workers and to a lesser degree on Tunisian ones, so this will be an issue, too.

The numbers afterwards will be a league table of who's government really do govern for the people. I doubt the uk will be in the top half.

The numbers afterwards will be a league table of who's government really do govern for the people. I doubt the uk will be in the top half.

Stalins bon mots about the people who count the votes applies, I believe.

In a real emergency, support for a leader almost always rises in the short term,
what the USA calls "rallying around the flag"

People place their faith & hope in their current leader, because little other choice, until it is over
It seems too dangerous to swap over at the steering wheel of a speeding juggernaut

Most governments around the world are getting a massive increase in support, whether they are left, right, centre or whatever

Afterwards, there will be time for analysis & comparisons;
those governments that have made too many mistakes will be hammered

However, even those that made good decisions about CV may still get hammered by a public that is angry at the following years of economic recession / depression

Dec 2019 might have been a good GE to lose ....

Dec 2019 might have been a good GE to lose ....

Saw an FT article yesterday that said whatever the plan was in Dec 2019, it's toast now. Whatever Boris was elected to do, he won't be able to as a simple matter of bandwidth.

As Economic Toll Mounts, Nation Ponders Trade-Offs Cost of confronting pandemic is millions of jobs, trillions in wealth lost to save potentially millions of lives By Hilsenrath & Armour, 3/23/20, Wall St. Journal [...]

Value-of-statistical-life measures are routinely used by the federal govt
to calculate the costs & benefits of a wide range of health &
environmental regulations, which also come with trade-offs between public safety & economic cost.

W. Kip Viscusi, a Vanderbilt University economics & law professor & leader in these valuations, estimates the value of a statistical life at around $10 million. The number means a U.S. community of 100,000 people would on average pay $100 per person to reduce the risk that one person in the community would randomly be killed by some threat. The community is essentially paying $10 million to reduce the risk that one among it will die.

Even under normal circumstances, such measures are complicated by many factors. For example, should the life of a child be given the same value as the life of an octogenarian? How do you account for age differences for a disease that affects the elderly most? Is a life in Laos worth as much as in the U.S.? Most people would say a life in either country is of equal value, but the calculations are based on how much a person would pay to reduce the risk of death, & because incomes are lower in Laos than in the U.S., the statistical value of life there is lower too.

In this case, the unknowns are especially large, notes Joseph Aldy, a
Harvard professor & former adviser to President Obama. The mortality rate of the virus itself is unknown. Because testing has been especially sparse in the U.S., nobody knows how widespread it is in the population, or how aggressively it transfers from one person to another.

“It is hard to even assess probabilities,” he said.

Mr. Viscusi noted another conundrum. Economic dislocation causes its own health problems.

“Mortality rates rise after periods of unemployment & income loss,” he
said. “Even if health is your only concern & financial costs are not
considered, adopting prevention efforts that limit the adverse effects on income is important.”

The U.S. should be willing to bear substantial costs to overcome this
virus, because it is something that can cascade out of control, said Mr.
Hammitt at Harvard.

How much cost?

“I don’t know,” he said.

www.wsj.com/articles/as-economic-toll-mounts-nation-ponders-the-trade-offs-11584970165

"Surely accommodation for any agricultural workers will be a big problem if quarantine is needed and social distancing is to be maintained."

Yes, there may have to be a rethink on the kind of accommodation provided - or maybe the aim is that each worker does 14 days of self-isolation on arrival, then can start work and move into the more shared accommodation. But that will apply whether they are from the UK or elsewhere.

Or, maybe we will have the antibody test by then, although that now seems not to be being mentioned as an immediate possibility. Did anyone ask Michael Gove about it this morning?

Distressing reports from Faisal Islam twitter.com/faisalislam about the lack of PPE and government inaction.

Btw we have E European workers round here currently (farming area) - they live in caravans onsite.

Yes, there may have to be a rethink on the kind of accommodation provided - or maybe the aim is that each worker does 14 days of self-isolation on arrival, then can start work and move into the more shared accommodation. But that will apply whether they are from the UK or elsewhere.

How does that square with the minimum wage ?

Also, given HMRCs ongoing fetish with benefits in kind, is there not a danger that the taxable value of accommodation provided exceeds the net wage, and a worker could end up leaving the job owing rather tahn earning money ?

Good points DGR - government would have to address those issues.

and that's one - of several - reason why any potential EE workers would put the UK at the bottom of their list

and that's one - of several - reason why any potential EE workers would put the UK at the bottom of their list

That and not being eligible for NHS treatment would pretty much seal the deal, I'd have thought.

Unless they are eligible for NHS treatment, and Boris and the Boys care to explain that to the Great British Public ?

10 minutes apart: Scotland's CMO Catherine Calderwood having the courage to say that the lockdown restrictions could last 13 weeks (posted at 10.19 on the BBC) and 10 minutes later on the Marr Show the slithery git Gove saying "I can't make a prediction" on the Marr Show as well as avoiding answering the question about ventilators

Since I know there are a few history buffs out there, I've just started watching en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Vietnam_War_(TV_series) which I seem to have on a disc somewhere ...

Just got to the end of the first programme, and am ashamed at how little I knew pre-1961, but pleased I do now, as it puts a lot of context around my previous knowledge.

Here's a question for the lexically minded ... is there a word for a situation where fear of something proves to be more damaging than the thing itself ? Because I think the US terror of communism has done far more harm in the world than communism ever could have.

It's kind of a contemporary question, given recent UK events, as it seems fear of socialism appears to have done far more harm than socialism ever has .....

I think there is zero prospect of importing agricultural workers from abroad for early crops. OTOH with a "rally round" national spirit, it might be possible to get young people working on farms. They are keen to do this here in France too ... I might suggest to my DS that he considers it, depending on what happens about school and exams.

DGR, the problem with the economy versus deaths argument is that (a) hundreds of thousands of deaths will also harm the economy, as highly productive experienced workers fall ill and some die, and as scared people stop spending; and (b) with the uncertainties involved I am not sure how you model the cost/benefit of different strategies.

When the schools were closed, Nicola Sturgeon said not to expect them to be open again before next year I've totally paraphrased here I know so this being the way, if not getting more harsh then loosening, until June at least is sort of what I expected.

Veg picking is incredibly hard work
hence why the Bulgarians used to do it for 6 months a year living in caravans towed from farm to farm
and then go back to Bulgaria to let their backs recover for 6 months

If the job is made easier and better paid, that massively increases the cost of the product to consumers

THere are no easy solutions in a post Brexit world
even without Covid

DGR, the problem with the economy versus deaths argument is that (a) hundreds of thousands of deaths will also harm the economy, as highly productive experienced workers fall ill and some die, and as scared people stop spending; and (b) with the uncertainties involved I am not sure how you model the cost/benefit of different strategies.

I don't necessarily agree with everything I post or paste (unlike some ...). just put it out there (or more precisely "in here" ) because I know the posters on this thread are pretty well equipped when it comes to analysis and extrapolation, and given I ain't going anywhere anytime anysoon, it passes the time.

At the end of the day, money - like religion - is a man made construct. (Although given chimpanzees can grasp it's functioning, it's debatable whether it's and emergent property of intelligence).

That being the case, it can be made, re-made, and used and re-purposed as and when required. And one oy my key foundation principles of analysis is to be wary of assuming a future of 100 parts where changing 1 part only every affects that part, as it rarely does. In fact it's the inability of (some) people to comprehend that changing 1 part can cause the 99 others to change with it that causes a lot of problems trying to explain or plan change.

Food prices are already rising. I got a veg delivery yesterday from an enterprising market stall owner who has started doing deliveries. She said that in two weeks the wholesale price of certain vegetables has risen by 60%. And this is in France where some veg are starting to come into season already.

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/pick-for-britain-growers-to-recruit-70-000-laid-off-workers-to-harvest-fruit-and-veg-5qg3xskjq
Pick for Britain: Growers to recruit 70,000 laid-off workers to harvest fruit and veg

A “pick for Britain” campaign will be launched by the farming industry and government to recruit up to 70,000 British workers to harvest fruit and vegetables from next month.

Workers who have been laid off and students will be among those targeted as the industry fears that crops will rot in fields because travel restrictions mean only 10 per cent of the usual eastern European workforce will be available.

amp.theguardian.com/environment/2020/mar/28/fruit-and-veg-will-run-out-unless-britain-charters-planes-to-fly-in-farm-workers-from-eastern-europe?CMP=share_btn_tw&__twitter_impression=true
Fruit and veg ‘will run out’ unless Britain charters planes to fly in farm workers from eastern Europe
UK urgently needs to fill 90,000 positions to pick crops that will otherwise die in the fields, warns charity

Charter flights to bring in agricultural workers from eastern Europe are needed as a matter of urgency, otherwise fruit and vegetables will be left unpicked in Britain’s fields, the government is being warned.

Some large farms have already been chartering planes to bring in labour from eastern Europe. But farming organisations and recruitment agencies say that, in the face of massive disruption to the agricultural sector caused by the spread of the coronavirus, the government needs to step in and help organise more flights.

Some 90,000 positions need to be filled, many in just a few weeks’ time. One leading supplier, the charity Concordia, was looking to bring in around 10,000 labourers – half from the EU and the rest from Russia, Moldova, Ukraine, Belarus, Georgia and Barbados. But all of the non-EU countries are closed. On Wednesday, in a big setback, Ukraine extended its lockdown from 2 April until 23 April.

Stephanie Maurel, Concordia’s chief executive, said: “Our recruitment outside the EU is stalled which leaves us with Lithuania, which has closed borders, Romania with no airplanes, and Bulgaria which is our little beacon.”

Here's a question for the lexically minded ... is there a word for a situation where fear of something proves to be more damaging than the thing itself ?

It's called Falsehood of fear in psychology terms I think. It's a thing.

https://www.psychologytoday.com/intl/blog/conquer-fear-flying/201512/fear-can-make-you-believe-the-worst-will-happen-how

It's called Falsehood of fear in psychology terms I think. It's a thing.

I was thinking of a single word ... is this another Schadenfreude moment in English history ? Do we need to look to German or Russian, or (heavens above !) French ? Quelle horreur !

that crops will rot in fields because travel restrictions [ insert other reasons here ] mean only 10 per cent of the usual eastern European workforce will be available.

I see already we have the press narrative gathering force- attributing the fall in needed workers 100% to the pandemic over the last month. Ignoring any other contributory factors over the last four years.

Is the fall in fruit pickers due to:

1. Only the pandemic.
2. Brexit and the pandemic.
3. Brexit only.

If it hadn't been for the toxic xenophobia at high government and electorate levels those workers would have loyally stayed and helped despite the pandemic.

Some large farms have already been chartering planes to bring in labour from eastern Europe

So borders closed is bollocks then ? At least we sorted that out.