So yeah, the economy is fucked

[Malcolm Tucker]

People still think it's a choice between protecting the economy and protecting people from the virus.

They're heavily linked, opening things up to normal may bring about 1-2 weeks of economic revival but it will then begin to go tits up as the virus surges just as strongly, then huge amounts of people start going off sick, being hospitalised, and eventually dying again in significant numbers - the idea this won't smash the economy as well is total fantasy, it will absolutely fuck it, for even longer because of the workforce collapsing, the government will lose control, telling workers to march into blatantly unsafe offices, factories etc will just result in strikes, people refusing to work except anywhere but home, you'll even get civil unrest as scores of people die and the government refuses to back down on pretending everything is fine - it'd just be chaos.

They've opted for the least worst option, to hibernate the economy, it won't save everything but it will save more than simply letting everything go to shit. Most people agree, it's why they had record approval ratings and poll numbers despite their actions translating into an economic crash, it's widely understood they were making the best of a bad situation and the alternative was worse.

However they are shitting themselves on how long this lockdown is taking to ease, and when the next one might be. It's why I think they're pushing to re-open as much as they can at the moment while the summer is here, even against some of the SAGE advice. Make hay while the sun shines and get some businesses an income again for a bit before a second wave comes, probably peaking in the winter.

[Frank Castle]

You’re a thick cunt.

The virus is bullshit and harmless to the workforce

ITS ONLY HARMFUL IF YOURE OLD AND ILL U IDIOT

[Frank Castle]

You’re a thick cunt.

The virus is bullshit and harmless to the workforce

ITS ONLY HARMFUL IF YOURE OLD AND ILL U IDIOT

[Moses]

Originally Posted by Frank Castle

People are still sitting at home on furlough, absolutely clueless to the economic time bomb that is yet to even begin to show. Yes we’re getting little rumblings and a few redundancies, but when furlough stops, many people all over the Uk from many industries and sectors are going to be absolutely FUCKED

I mean I’m only getting 3-4 days a week at min as a self employed hgv driver, and I’m lucky as some of the lads I know doing this are getting 1 day a week if they’re lucky

Even Boris is warning is that the shit is going to hit the fan in a big way

https://www.standard.co.uk/news/poli...-a4459126.html

They'll start the process of binning people off before the furlough scheme ends because of how the employers are gonna have to start contributing from August onwards looolll (and because the redundancy process takes a while obvs).

[Moses]

Can imagine employers will try and cut people as much as possible in case demand doesn't ramp up again. Too risky to keep a full wage bill. Obvs if everything does recover they'll reemploy people or get different people in... which'll be easy enough as there will be SO MANY people desperate for jobs.

[Malcolm Tucker]

Originally Posted by Frank Castle

You’re a thick cunt.

The virus is bullshit and harmless to the workforce

ITS ONLY HARMFUL IF YOURE OLD AND ILL U IDIOT

People still go off sick from work for non-lethal illnesses. Even if under 65s only had flu like symptoms they don't need medical attention for, they'll still be off work from it obviously. Even people who WFM are usually fit for nothing for a week. It's not true anyway, loads of ~40 year olds have had it knock them on their arse, with some needing ICU. PM himself is only 55 and he was in hospital. He isn't a paragon of vitality I know but he's not exactly exceptionally unhealthy either. I mean, how fit are you compared to him?

Also, the 'workforce' don't exist in isolation, they live and mix with the population as a whole including the ill and old. All of this has been covered, if the virus was mild enough to let it go through the population unchecked with no serious issues we'd:

A. Not even be aware of it, as it would have travelled the globe and blended in with the common cold or hayfever. You'd only know it was even one of the ones ciruclating if you followed research papers about coronaviruses.
2. NHS would be aware but have a laid back approach and campaign geared toward the very vulnerable only, and a very minor spike in deaths of those already likely to die <6 months would occur.

[Malcolm Tucker]

Originally Posted by Moses

Can imagine employers will try and cut people as much as possible in case demand doesn't ramp up again. Too risky to keep a full wage bill. Obvs if everything does recover they'll reemploy people or get different people in... which'll be easy enough as there will be SO MANY people desperate for jobs.

Depends on the job and company but IME it's more of a pain in the arse to rehire than to just try to keep someone on. You can rehire the same people back, if you're quick enough but any loyalty they may have had will be gone.

[Moses]

Originally Posted by Malcolm Tucker

Depends on the job and company but IME it's more of a pain in the arse to rehire than to just try to keep someone on. You can rehire the same people back, if you're quick enough but any loyalty they may have had will be gone.

True, it'll vary massively. Employers won't want to lose important technical and professional skills, but say in hospitality and leisure lots of people will be screwed.

Then in some places they might have to bin off a load of technical/skilled people... depends how long they can absorb that cost. If demand only goes back to 80% of pre crisis there's obvs only so long they can suck up the 100% employment costs on 80% revenue... will be weighed up against the costs of making them redundant.

[Frank Castle]

Hospitals are empty, covid is given as cause of death if merely suspected

ITS BULLSHIT

[Malcolm Tucker]

Originally Posted by Frank Castle

Hospitals are empty, covid is given as cause of death if merely suspected

ITS BULLSHIT

That isn't true. Cause of death from COVID-19 can be easily misled because it's not the type of disease that a has a singular cause of death. You can have 10 people all technically die with COVID-19 on the same ward but different things killed them, could be pneumonia, heart failure, renal failure etc. However they are all there because of COVID-19 and the virus is responsible for bringing on those complications, they weren't already in for organ failure.

You get people who are very ill from underlying illness, perhaps even terminal ones, and COVID finishes them off, but that's still a valid cause of death. They might have survived COVID and later died of the cancer or whatever, but they didn't, they died of covid. Coroners aren't retarded, they take the patient's chronic and acute conditions into consideration and evaluate what killed them, it's usually the thing if you removed from the equation they'd be alive. If someone is run over by a bus and they happened to also have coronavirus or something, they don't chalk that up as a coronavirus fatality.

My Mum works in a mortuary and has had this exact conversation with Doctors and the whole situation with bodies arriving who have tested positive with coronavirus. They're not all put up as the cause of death.