ALB
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Looks as if Trump is acting quicker and going further than the British government, by giving every US citizen a check for $1,000.
https://www.buzzfeednews.com/amphtml/salvadorhernandez/coronavirus-trump-mnuchin-1000-check-economy
What is that? About two weeks wages? That won’t go very far but it’s not every day that the government gives everybody something for nothing.
Some revealing ideas coming out. Today’s Times reports Julian Jessop, of the free-marketeer thinktank The Institute of Economic Affairs, as suggesting:
“that the government introduce ‘some sort of temporary universal basic income’ in the form of a £,1000 handout per person ‘to make sure people can afford essentials during this crisis.”
More here. Free handout to the workers to allow them to buy essentials.
Where will it end, die-hard supporters of capitalism must be asking.
Also, this scientific advice as a pretext for the government abandoning its previous mad “herd immunity” plan:
“More than a quarter of a million people would have died under previous plans to control the spread of coronavirus, according to the government’s own advisers.”
Advisers other “mad professor” Sir Patrick Vallance, the government’s Chief Scientific Officer, that is. Fortunately, the Chief Medical Officer seems ok.
Not that it needed a team of experts to work that out. Anybody could have on the back of an envelope (and did).
Alan wrote: “This story sort of reminded me of the Lucas Plan from the 1970s. Defence work could be re-tooled for socially necessary production.”
I am sure it would be technologically possible to retool production lines to make respirators and I am sure the workers involved would be enthusiastic to respond. But this sounds like another of Johnson’s stunts. In this case to give the impression that, after previous talk about sacrificing them for the benefit of the herd, it’s now all about saving the most vulnerable victims of the virus. I doubt if it will happen.
If it did, it would give some credence to the Pieter Lawrence scenario of the state, in a dire emergency, resorting to production for use, presumably paid for with newly created payment vouchers. In fact they may have to do this to compensate the pubs, restaurants and places of entertainment whose business will be ruined by the government’s policy.
Of course the outcome won’t be socialism or a moneyless economy but, combined with Robbo’s point about the revival of community spirit, might make putting of the case for socialism easier — even the counter-example of the American response might help people realise where the capitalist ideology of individualism leads.
It seems that the government is now disavowing their chief scientific officer and his mad “herd immunity” scheme. From today’s Times:
“Mr Hancock has insisted that the government is not pursuing a policy of allowing the virus to spread in order to achieve ‘herd immunity,’ apparently contradicting a statement last week by Sir Patrick Vallance, the chief scientific officer.”
That’s a relief.
Just heard on the news that the aviation sector are calling on the government to stop “bean counting”:
“In a stark message, industry body Airlines UK said the government’s “prevarication” and “bean counting” had to stop.”
That’s a bit rich. Just because they are not getting enough beans they are begging the government to hand them out a few. As if their whole business wasn’t based on bean counting, including making staff redundant and opposing strikes to keep as many beans for themselves as they can.
Still, ignoring bean counting and mobilising resources directly was how the changeover to a moneyless society started in Pieter Lawrence’s The Last Conflict ….
It looks as if other scientists are beginning to criticise the “mad professor” who is advising the government and his experiment in “herd immunity” with us as the herd of guinea pigs:
https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/coronavirus-scientists-share-fears-uk-21695523
It’s a no-brainer. With the date of conference coinciding with the period during which the government is planning the epidemic should reach its peak, with people falling sick in droves, it cannot take place then. It has to be postponed.
Even the Rebellion has been called off:
https://www.cityam.com/extinction-rebellion-cancels-london-protest-over-coronavirus/amp/
Meanwhile others are beginning to worry about the strategy the government here has adopted:
https://uk.yahoo.com/news/boris-johnson-turned-britain-petri-130300274.html
Don’t know how reliable this publication is but the government seems to be backtracking anyway. Giving the impression that they are carrying out some experiment on “the herd” as they call us is bad for publicity.
Missed this from yesterday’s Times:
“At the core of policy decisions, argues Roy Anderson, from Imperial College London, there is a dilemma. ‘The simple epidemiological rule is the earlier you intervene the better. Weighed against this is the economic impact. Governments cannot minimise mortality and economic impact.’”
If this is the dilemma, in deciding to delay the peak the British government appears to have decided to minimise the economic impact rather the number who will die.
Which might explain why the Prime Minister went out of his way to warn that “many more families are going to lose loved ones” — many more than strictly necessary?
The media are reporting that one of the strategic aims of the government’s policy is to achieve “herd immunity” so that the next time the virus comes around, like next year, it won’t be so bad as enough people will be inoculated against it. Since there is as yet no vaccination against it, this means that the only way to inoculate people will be for them to have contacted the virus and recovered.
According to an item in today’s I paper:
” for the UK population to gain herd immunity, a large enough number of people — 60 per cent of the country, 40 million people, in the words of the chief scientific adviser Sir Patrick Vallance — will need to contract the virus and then recover.”
But not everyone will recover. If the death rate is 3% then 1.2 million won’t. Even if it is only 1 percent some 400,000 won’t. These will be the number of us herd who will have be sacrificed to achieve “herd immunity”.
I don’t know if achieving herd immunity is the government’s aim or if the figure of 6 out of every 10 people having to get the virus and recover is valid, but if so it appears that the government is being advised by a mad professor.
The weight of evidence is that radiation from 5G does not have the dangerous effects that people like Firstenberg claim. See for instance:
http://skepdic.com/electrosensitives.html
Firstenberg seems to be regarded as a crank. The list of scientists signing that petition doesn’t seem very impressive.
The rational approach of the layperson to this sort of scientific issue is (as with climate change) to go along with the middle of the road view of the scientists in the field concerned.
“ALB does that stat include the recommended self-enforced quarantine or actual employees falling sick?”
Yes I think so. So the estimated 6.5 million to be off work during the peak period would include those advised to self-isolate as well as those too sick to work.
The stated policy of the UK government is, as the doctor you quote put it, “flattening the timeline of the epidemic so it’s not, for example, 100 people getting admitted to the hospital one week, but maybe 10 cases a week for 10 weeks.” Which of course prolongs the epidemic and the disruption to everyday life even if it would make it easier for the NHS to cope.
Just been reading the chancellor’s budget speech (as you do) and at one point he says “if we expect 20 per cent of the workforce to be unable to work at any one time.” There are 34.5 million in the UK workforce, so the government is apparently anticipating that some 6.5 million workers could be off work during the peak of the epidemic.This would only be temporary but would translate as a significant drop in production — and so the flow of profits. It seems that have calculated that this can’t be avoided and have resigned themselves just to trying to limit the damage; which would be more if they did nothing.It is true they could be exaggerating or panicking but we’ll know in two or three months.Sent from my iPhoneWhat Bernie is advocating— help for the self employed and those with no sick pay — is already going to be implemented by the Tory government in the UK. As for Woolf, I thought I heard him complain that everybody in the US was not being tested to see if they’re carrying the virus. That doesn’t seem realistic or even necessary for that matter. He does raise one issue, though, of what about “illegal” immigrants: will the government here do what he says the one is South Korea is doing, ie forgetting their illegal status if they come forward for treatment?
It does appear, though, that there is concern about the pandemic even in the USA.
How can you deny that the pandemic is having a negative effect on production?
https://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/www.bbc.com/news/amp/business-51689178
It will be the same in other countries though with a smaller impact in those with a larger service sector where some people can work from home. This should be confirmed (or not) when the statistics for the 2nd and 3rd quarters of the year are published.
The reason the government here is giving for their particular policy is that they want to try to control its spread so that the inevitable peak comes at a time (May) when the health service will be able to cope better. Other governments are pursuing the different strategy of trying to contain the spread now rather than control and postpone it. (None are pursuing your suggested policy of letting the pandemic run its course as it eventually will). We will see who’s right. Meanwhile we in the UK are guinea pigs in the government here’s experiment.
