UKH

23m - long watch.  Good for the lay epidemiologists on UKC (me).

youtube.com/watch?v=gxAaO2rsdIs&

Bit that was eye opening was ~17m onwards ... where the authors appears to say - without effective testing and isolation ... going back to work at a central location is going to be exceptionally difficult.

What are the exit plan options from social distancing to restart UK plc?

In reply to StuPoo2:

Interview with Neil Ferguson, who's one of the guys advising the government. https://ftalphaville.ft.com/2020/04/04/1586015208000/Imperial-s-Neil-Fergus...

Seems like there isn't a clear exit plan. There are lots of options, but without a vaccine nothing is 'painfree' and a vaccine is at least a year away, if it is possible at all.

In reply to StuPoo2:

There's no exit plan but a continuation of the current plan (limit infection rates to a level manageable by the NHS) until everyone has gone through the illness, a vaccine/cure is found, a random deus ex machina event happens.

So we are looking at being on various flavours of lockdown for a year or more. Probably there will be encouragement for 'healthy' people to go to work and vulnerable people to be locked away once the economy aproaches critical levels.

In reply to StuPoo2:

This:

https://medium.com/@tomaspueyo/coronavirus-the-hammer-and-the-dance-be93370...

is probably about what it will look like.  We're doing the "hammer" at the moment (sort of).

In reply to Neil Williams:

Yeah ... I'd read that one ... it's good.

I don't think they're letting the general public in on what comes after they've put down the initial hump.  Maybe for good reason???

In reply to Mr Lopez:

Testing and a wrist band for those that have the antibodies to prove they are now immune?  

In reply to StuPoo2:

And just watch the hordes running into the streets to lick anything that may be carrying the virus to get it over with and the flourishing emerging market of 'immunity wristbands' and 'virus vials'.

In reply to StuPoo2:

I don't think they quite know yet themselves.  They're writing policy and procedures in days that would normally take months.

In reply to Mr Lopez:

hah!  Like the fake ID's at high school!

In reply to StuPoo2:

As long as it doesn't get christened Coxit. 

In reply to StuPoo2:

South Korea has had numerous problems with existing tests showing negative when they weren't. Without a reasonably accurate test many countries provisional ideas of exit strategies won't work. 

In reply to summo:

I can think of a couple of ways this might go ...

1. Dampen down the initial hump, let people gradually back to work, but pare it back when it flares up again.
2. Surveillance and swat teams.  i.e. the chat about monitoring our phones and then grabbing everyone anyone has been near if someone tests positive.  Surely an absolute nonstarter in the west.
3. Those with the antibodies can go back to work.  Those that don't - have to stay in lock down.

What other options are there?

In reply to StuPoo2:

I don't think option 2 would work in the west because there isn't nearly enough testing. Many of my friends are in bed with fevers. Is it Covid-19 or flu? No idea. We don't even know how many digits there are in the number of cases in the UK. I think it's far too late to start a south-korean contact tracing programme now, how would you ever catch up? Antibody testing is our best hope, or just letting the virus spread until > 60 % of people are immune, which should bring r0 down to < 1.

I don't think we will have the luxury of wondering how to de-lockdown a non-immune population, I think herd immunity will be what happens whether we like it or not, it's just a case of damping the initial wave so hospitals continue to function.

In reply to StuPoo2:

Just did some packet of fags calculations to figure out what could happen. Actual figures are a guess but gives an idea.

There's 66 million people in the UK, to get the bandied about figure of 80% infected means 50 million people will have to get it.

Lets say 5% of infected needs hospitalization, so that's 2.5 million, and the average stay is lets say 5 days, so that's 12.5 million hospital days.

If the infection rate is managed and the NHS has a capacity for 20000 people, that will take 625 days to achieve, or about 2 years, so the vaccine in that case will be the likely sooner event.

With a 40000 capacity it'll be 1 year which puts it on a par with the possible arrival of a vaccine.

With more capacity the herd immunity approach will be faster, but there will be a body count to pay for that.

So really there seems to be no fast way out of this other than waiting it out for a vaccine unless a cure or effective treatment is found. Option 1 in your list is the only workable choice really.

In reply to Mr Lopez:

And that assumes that we keep the hospital full with max capacity patients at all times - right?

In reply to Red Rover:

Agree on #2 being a nonstarter ... maybe for different reasons though ... i don't think I want anyone tracking my movements/mobile phone.  Once you give up that liberty ... how do you get it back?

In reply to Red Rover:

Today's economist PodCast is called :  "An app for that: covid surveillance" ... have just started to listen to it.

https://podcasts.google.com/?feed=aHR0cHM6Ly9yc3MuYWNhc3QuY29tL3RoZWVjb25vb...

In reply to StuPoo2:

How long do the antibodies last.. if reexposed could you still briefly pass it on.. would you be immune to future mutations.

There is much clutching at antibody, testing and vaccination straws as solutions, because many countries have ground themselves to a halt and have no exit strategy without them. 

In reply to StuPoo2:

Which also assumes a full complement of medical (and ancillary) staff fit, willing, able and fully supplied with the necessary as well. (Plus not being completely knackered after months of long hours and hence being more vulnerable !)

In reply to summo:

I guess that's the purpose of my post.  I am beginning to wonder "at what point will the cure be worse than the virus".

Month #1, I guess, the population is happy enough to play along because many/most(?) have enough money on hand to go 1 month without pay.

Month #2, it will start to bite.

Month #3, some people aren't going to have money to put food on the table.  Social isolation is going to become increasing difficult to maintain.

They must know this?  They must know that they aren't going to be able to keep the entire population in lock down for a, say, a year?

In reply to StuPoo2:

As the saying goes unprecedented. There is no plan, countries are just doing what they think is best at any given point in time.

In reply to StuPoo2:

That'd be doing 'the dance' as of that link. So tighten the controls when full capacity aproaches, relaxing them when capacity gets freed. The 'relaxing' increases the rate of infection so hospital admissions raise, approaching full capacity again, and continue ad nauseum.

The political decision someone will need making is how many lives are they willing to sacrifice for each month shaved off waiting for the arrival of a vaccine, so it may not be led by maximum hospital capacity but a lower number going by what they deem an acceptable number of 'deaths per month'.

In reply to StuPoo2: I expect we will see wave after wave of new infections each time they start to loosen the controls, this could go on for a couple of years or longer. I suspect they are just hoping that in those two years someone comes up with a vaccine, or that treatment with existing drugs makes it a less deadly virus, but I think it is just based on "hope". Even if they find a vaccine in a year it will take a long time to produce enough for the whole world and get it delivered.

My gut feeling is that as time goes on people will get more and more fed-up with restrictions and decide to take their chances and try and get infected, particularly young and healthy people.

Regarding climbing, I think it will be a long time before we get back to any kind of normality.

On a positive note my running fitness is benefiting greatly from the current situation!

In reply to Martin Haworth:

I don't think it will take too many waves though for 60 % of the population to have had it and recovered? Then, if immunity is long-term, we should be OK as r0 will be <1 so it can't spread. 

In reply to Mr Lopez:

Double those numbers?

For those admitted, hospital stay averages 11 days, ranging from 7 to 14.

https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(20)30566-3/...

In reply to Martin Haworth:

Tegnell (swedens strategist) was asked a question about holidays in the summer. He said in country holiday to other counties should be likely later in the year. Foreign travel as we previously knew it, forget it for the next year or two at the earliest. 

In reply to Martin Haworth:

As per that really good Medium article Neil Williams shared, once the initial spike is suppressed and we're back within ICU capacity, we only need keep the infection rate at or just below R1 (each person infects one other) to continue under control. That means most of the strictest controls could be eased, allowing us to return to relatively normal lives.

In reply to StuPoo2:

I can't see how anyone except the NHS can say when restrictions should be eased. If the NHS is overwhelmed, the lockdown has to be kept on, when they have capacity, then maybe there can be some restrictions lifted. I presume it will still be restricted to some extent for a long time, but the levels of that will change as the bed and medical staff capacity allows.

It's all well and good speculating what percentage of the population is infected or has antibodies, but the NHS has to call the shots on what they see I think. We don't have accurate anitbody tests, people will cheat the system if those with anitbodies are allowed to work and those without aren't, and we don't know how long immunity lasts. 

In reply to girlymonkey:

Maybe I have been watching too many movies..

There aren't enough police/army to keep everyone in lock down permanently.  Once people are out of money/food ... they aren't going to voluntarily observe the lock down even if the NHS/Government says so.  

Then what do you do? 

There must be a finite amount of time that the lockdown can be maintained before it starts to become self defeating? 

If it is the lockdown itself, that is depriving people of the means to put food on the table, and in turn is forcing people outside in search of food/work, which in turn puts them in contact with other people and that then spreads the virus ... then surely the cure is starting to defeat itself?

https://www.netflix.com/ca/title/70185071

Movies aside ... is there any evidence so suggest how long that might be?  (I am asking because presumably that must mark the outside limit of how long the current lockdown can maintain before the government does "something" different to keep everyone happy and inside)

In reply to girlymonkey:

We have to consider other issues such as the economy, there is only so long the government can prop it up before the future problems of doing so become so great the 'cure' is worse than the 'problem' you are trying to solve.....how you balance the two is beyond me...I don't see any way out that does not result in a terrible outcome. 

In reply to MonkeyPuzzle:

Especially if they’re selectively relaxed - the most vulnerable being kept strongly isolated.  Problem is we don’t know all the factors that make people vulnerable...

In reply to StuPoo2:

We are a fair way off that.

https://unherd.com/2020/04/how-far-away-are-immunity-passports/

In reply to StuPoo2:

And maybe the government are going to have to look at changing how they deal with social security etc. They have already raised the level of UC (still too low, but more than it was). Maybe they need to come up with a system for getting far more food deliveries on the go so that people can stay out of supermarkets, and pay people well (maybe more than they would earn otherwise?!) to stay at home if they are vulnerable etc. 

I don't know the answer, but I absolutely know that traumatising our doctors and nurses with piling up more and more dying people around them without the PPE needed and without equipment to help them  all is not the answer! We are going to end up with lots of doctors and nurses dying due to receiving high viral loads with a lack of PPE, how many are going to come out the other side of this with post traumatic stress disorder and unable to cope with being in that setting again? I see it as protecting our NHS first and foremost, and we do that by protecting the most vulnerable. We do that by locking down. How we make that work long term has to be decided by those wiser than me, but only the NHS can tell us how they are coping and let us know when to relax. It has to be their call! 

In reply to wintertree:

Sure, but I guess the R number will guide us and we'll have to be open to flexing levels of restrictions.

In reply to MonkeyPuzzle:

Yes; as I said on another thread...  If this route is taken, the key metric for opening up restrictions has to be hospital admissions levels, and it has to be done carefully and slowly as there is a lag between relaxing rules, increasing infections  and people then presenting at hospital meaning that feedback on the processes tuning takes time, and a mistake leading to healthcare overload and additional deaths can be locked in before we know that it was a mistake.

But cocooning the most vulnerable and raising the number of recovered/immune people both allow for a progressive relaxation of lockdown - both of these lower the R number.

A big unknown remains just how immune the recovered are, especially those who had mild/asymptomatic infections.

I still think this path is total madness but it's rapidly becoming one of the few left to us.

In reply to girlymonkey:

I worry that if the only solution is lock down until a cure appears ... that eventually lock down will start to fail due to fatigue.

Personal opinion - long term lock down will become a driver for inequality like we have never seen in our lives before.   It won't fall evenly.  Some sections of society will be hammered.  

It's only month #1.  I think the conversation will start to change as the months go on.  

I wish I had your belief that the NHS will be able to corral the population indefinitely. 

In reply to StuPoo2:

On the daily briefing yesterday Laura Kuenssberg asked about the ‘exit strategy’. Hasn’t she got any relevant questions concerning what is actually happening now rather than some hypothetical question that anyone with half a brain would know is a long way away and is dependent on things that are still uncertain?

In reply to Mark Edwards:

Do you think it's really that unfair to ask "when might this be over"?  

I would be happier psychologically if I was told "assuming objectives X, Y & Z have been met then we'll relax lock down on date = X"

Light at the end of the tunnel.  The not knowing is hard.

In reply to Blunderbuss:

It’s not just our economy; look across the channel, with the EU largely in the same position as us.  There will come a point, as has been said on here and related threads, that the cure will be worse than the disease.  Economies worldwide are taking a monumental hit, there is no US of A to come up with a Marshall Plan this time.  

I suspect at some point, there will have to be a more intelligent approach to lockdown, or maybe we will hit a point when we cant afford to fund the care system we need.

In reply to StuPoo2:

I think that is why we keep getting videos on the news about what is going on in the covid wards, to keep people focused on why we are doing it. 

Yes, it is never going to be simple to keep people locked down - I went and got a key worker job because I couldn't afford to stay at home! 

I don't know how we make it work, but speak to any doctor involved in dealing with it and they will stress the importance of it!! If our NHS collapses, they we are all screwed. And since it started in a poor place due to neglect and willful harm from the Tories, we absolutely have to do all we can to protect it as much as possible.

In reply to StuPoo2:

One thing we can do is upgrade the broadband network and change our working practices to get more people working from home. 

Most office based roles could be done just as well remotely, with a bit of thought into effective management and communication strategies.

I'm currently at home from a contract that could easily be done remotely. My end client is now trying to get a hold of the hardware they need to move the whole project to home worker based.

I suspect that if they succeed, they'll find they don't want to move us back when the lockdown is over - just so long as the communication networks can support it.

In reply to StuPoo2:

Most likely outcome will be along these lines.

Lockdown is only sustainable for a few months tops, after that pretty much regardless of what is going on with the CV19 we'll have to ease down restrictions and allow the economy the function again.

One way or another herd immunity is the only solution, it's just a matter of how long we are willing / able to spread the infection out to keep it under NHS capacity before the economic effects have more of an impact than the virus.

Basically it's how much suffering the whole population is willing to tolerate in order to save a certain additional percentage of the elderly population. Sooner or later we'll collectively decide we've done enough and wright off the rest as acceptable losses just like we do with annual flu deaths, think how many of those we could maybe save if we lived in permanent isolation conditions.

In reply to Lord_ash2000:

With sadness ... I fear that you are probably correct.

In reply to Lord_ash2000:

We need to get rid of this idea that it's a problem for old people. Yes, they are higher risk, but so are the medical staff dealing with them! Medical staff are receiving very high viral loads so even young, fit and healthy medical staff are succumbing to it due to this. We can't just write off the medical staff with a shrug and as acceptable losses!

In reply to girlymonkey:

Preaching to the converted girlymonkey ... I don't think anyone thinks it isn't critically important.  

In reply to girlymonkey:

Did Lord_ash2000 make the case for it being "a problem for old people" or "writing off medical staff"??

In reply to Lord_ash2000:

I will speculate that we will get relaxation of measures in a few weeks...

One point that seems to get missed a lot is that after the initial "wave" the virus will have a naturally lower R0 number due to a proportion of people being immune, so in theory it is possible to relax measures progressively without adding any extra load on the NHS. This number would probably only need to be 5-10% of the population to have a marked effect.

So far we have 50,000 recorded cases, and that only includes people sick enough or NHS workers wanting to return to work and there is a 30% false negative on the negative results. Lets say the real number is 10's or even 100's times higher than that - one article a week ago was speculating that half the population may be infected already. In absence of large scale antibody testing we simply dont know... By steadily relaxing measures and seeing if and to what extent we get a 2nd wave will provide a *lot* of answers to the scientists working out the long term approach. Its not to say measures would not be tightened again, but keeping everyone under lock-down long term in comparison provides very little in the way of useful information. 

In reply to StuPoo2:

No, he didn't say anything about medical staff, I used them as a reason why we can't just write it off as old people dying, which he did say. This is what he wrote:

"Basically it's how much suffering the whole population is willing to tolerate in order to save a certain additional percentage of the elderly population. Sooner or later we'll collectively decide we've done enough and wright off the rest as acceptable losses"

In reply to girlymonkey:

You'd perhaps be surprised just how much of the elderly population are saying things like "if it gets me it gets me, I've had a good innings".  Personally I'd far rather be taken out quickly by something like COVID19 than sitting p***ing and s****ing myself in a nursing home for several years with no idea who anyone who visits me actually is.  My biggest fear is actually loss of independence, and I don't like the fact that that's coming in about 30-40 years, like it or not.

I very much have the impression that the level of concern on elderly people is far more along the lines of younger people not wanting to lose parents and grandparents.  Which is understandable, but different.

The people for whom this is a massive, massive shame are primarily younger people, particularly kids, with serious pre-existing conditions, as well as the 1% (or whatever it is) of healthy people it will take out.  But then people die young, particularly in things like car crashes.  We don't like to think about it but it goes on all the time.

In reply to StuPoo2:

I am fairly convinced that a vaccine will appear sooner than we predict (having passed tests etc), but there will still be the problem of manufacturing vast quantities to be distributed around the world - and who gets it first!

I ponder whether those individuals who over recent years have refused current available vaccines  for their children and families will refuse a covid vaccine when offered? Back of the queue for them.

In reply to Neil Williams:

No, I'm not surprised by the number of old people saying that, I have heard it myself (just started work in a care home, it seems to be the predominant attitude). But, no one is going to be willing to leave a person dying without comfort or palliative care to ease the pain of this horrible condition, and those people are at risk! As you say, the younger people with pre-existing conditions are not saying the same as the older population. At the end of the day, it's back to protecting the NHS first and foremost, and they can do their job of protecting the rest of us as much as possible.

In reply to Moley:

What makes you think a vaccine will be sooner than we think? If we got one in 18 months that would be an amazing achievement. The coronavirus MERS-Cov appeared in 2012 and we're still doing human trials. OK there are less resources being thrown at MERS-Cov but 18 months for SARS-Cov-2 would be seriously impressive. 

It isn't a case of "it would be 18 months but we're going flat-out so it can be fast-tracked" it's a case of "going flat out and fast-tracking it could get it done in 18 months".

Maybe replace 18 with 14 or 12 but you get my point. 

In reply to girlymonkey:

https://twitter.com/EmmanuelMacron/status/1240601417573900290

"It is impossible to live — even in self-isolation — and to cure people, if we do not continue the economic activity that, quite simply, permits us to live in this country,”  Emmanuel Macron

No offence meant personally, it is naive to think we can lock down forever or until the NHS tells us this is all over.  I don't think we can. 

If the economy is not restarted then eventually either 1) the lock down itself will start to drive people back into contact with on another in order to earn/provide for their families or 2) the government will run out of money to fund the NHS. 

All the PPE gear ... it costs ... they need to buy it.  In order to buy anything they need to tax people and you can only tax people that are earning.  (Yes they can print money - but inflation will negate that by raising the prices for PPE gear)

In reply to StuPoo2:

And I don't think anyone is saying lockdown should be forever, but all I am saying is that the NHS has to let us know when restrictions can be relaxed and when they need to be tightened again. They are the people who have to head this up and tell us what needs to happen, no one else. It is them who are at the biggest risk and having the biggest stress

Yes, the economy is a problem, but I think people are already starting to adapt and I'm sure they will continue to. I can't see our economy staying the same after this and we have only been locked down a few weeks. We will continue to adapt and change what businesses we have and how they work. Some will go bust, and others will start up. Yes, there are things which have to be done in person and some stuff will just have to wait, it is obviously going to have a huge shock effect on the economy, but I do think people's ingenuity will start to get some stuff moving again in new ways. 

In reply to Red Rover:

Money, money, money. Whoever wins this race will be in the big bucks.

In reply to StuPoo2:

I can empathise that not knowing when this will end will be tough for a lot of people. But at this stage would you expect any sort of achievable roadmap, when most of that map is still covered by ‘Here be Dragons’. I think even posing the question raises hopes which could so easily be dashed in the weeks ahead and then people could end up feeling even worse (if that’s possible). Stay strong and don't be afraid to ask if you need help. There are no easy answers but talking through your concerns may help.

In reply to Richard Horn:

But like I said, with money, money, money and fast-tracking and throwing the kitchen sink at it, it brings it down from 5 to 10 years to 18 months ish. There's only so much you can do. People forget that 18 months isn't the standard, it would be an amazingly fast time for a coronavirus.

In reply to girlymonkey:

If the economy collapses how is the NHS going to be funded?....it is far too simplistic to say the NHS needs to tell us when restrictions can be lifted.......it can tell the government what level of inpatients it can cope with but then the cabinet needs to decide how to proceed.

In reply to Blunderbuss:

How much are the government still paying for a nuke? Have they properly clamped down on big businesses avoiding tax? There are bound to be many ways they could find more money for the NHS, there has to be desire. Maybe Bojo will start to value it more if he pulls through and think more about how he is going to find the money!

In reply to StuPoo2:

One thing rarely discussed is the long-term effect on the economy. I fear if we continue the lockdown into May, sure we’ll save lives now, but we’ll decimate the economy in the long-term. The government will have to bail out airlines, universities, businesses, banks, provide job seekers allowance for the XX% unemployed, etc, etc. Two years down the line, the state will be so damn broke, we’ll have to make cuts across everything, including the NHS, which will cost lives in the long-term for those waiting on cancer operations, etc.
 

The only other options are;

1. Print more money and create hyperinflation, which never works.

2. Try borrow from the IMF, however no doubt the entire planet will try do that with limited success.

3. Perhaps the only feasible option is for the government to offer the population ‘patriot bonds’, as they did in WWII, where UK citizens buy bonds to bail out the country.
 

Any thoughts on this?

In reply to StuPoo2:

Who is going to be able to afford to buy bonds?

In reply to steve_gibbs:

Yes. The UK is screwed (this will happen in many other countries too) if we can't get the economy going again. I bet the US gets their economy up and running this year, well before Xmas (I think earlier than that, but I fear I will get my head bitten off if I say when)

In reply to squarepeg:

I agree. Patriotism is dead. I certainly wouldn’t buy any bonds myself. They’d be medium risk and low return! Better to invest in Netflix right now!!

In reply to profitofdoom:

The government furlough scheme is apparently going to cost ~£1bn per month, per % of the working population who take it up. That is a huge amount, and I imagine the government will have envisaged it being in use no more than 2-3 months before some cold hard decision making being taken...

I was thinking HS2 might get the chop though as a result... 

In reply to Red Rover:

It's going to be a long wait! What are the official stats now, something like 50k cases identified, those are positive genetic tests in hospital, from Chinese stats we can infer that roughly 20% of the obviously infected, clearly symptomatic cases. If 20% remain very mildly or completely asymptomatic as appears a reasonable estimate, hell let's call it 50% to make the result cheerier, any more than that doesn't seem credible looking at the early accidental experiments then we have then we're at 50k/0.2/0.5 = 500k infected to today, that's taken weeks and an enormous toll. We can't let the rate go up much from here and we have maybe 45M to work through to hit reasonable herd immunity. Managed (how?) at 250k new infections per week (likely around the current workload) that's three and a half years to make herd immunity. Even massively ramping up care provision (how, we're killing our precious few medics many orders of magnitude faster than we could hope to recruit and train new) so we can increase the tolerable infection rate it's still going to be years.

How this didn't occur to government and advisers is baffling unless they simply didn't believe the Chinese experience would translate or they really were planning an apocalyptic burn through hundreds of thousands of dead citizens on the road to herd immunity.

jk

In reply to squarepeg:

There are plenty of people (office-work, particularly IT) still working as normal at home.

In reply to Richard Horn:

Despite what some people think HS2 isn't a pot of money that could be redirected to the NHS.  It's mostly based on borrowing against future fare income.  It might get canned if it's felt demand will drop to the point that that income won't pay the loan, but there's no scope to can it and fund the NHS instead.

In reply to jkarran:

This doesn't count as evidence at all as it's the worst kid of anecdote, but I think about 10% of my friends are in bed with fever (many are nurses, paramedics, teachers etc so I'm skewed) or have recovered. But without testing who knows if they've just got flu? And who can tell how long it will take to get herd immunity if we don't know anything about UK case numbers?

Your numbers are fine but without testing we have no idea if you're accurate. 

I think it will happen without our influence as it is still spreading. Many people have to work and many people are presumably being infected in shops which seem quite high-risk to me I can't see us having much choice over how it plays out, either it's a  long lockdown or suddenly 'oh look 60 % are immune' or somewhere in between but we seem to be blind.

In reply to steve_gibbs:

The Government will NOT default on bonds.  They will print money rather than do that.  They are to all intents and purposes zero-risk.

In reply to profitofdoom:

At the rate they're (not) going with providing temporary support it'll be in tatters long before Christmas. The job will be building something almost completely new, not to get the old economy (businesses) going again.

jk

In reply to jkarran:

We have >5000 deaths, I think we would have had 500k infections 3 weeks or so ago (if the quoted death rate of 1% is to be believed, together with the expected latency between infection and death).

In reply to Neil Williams:

This risk is not that you won't get your money back, the risk is that the money you'll get back will be worth less than it was before.

In reply to HansStuttgart:

That happens in almost every low-risk investment - nowhere more so than leaving it in your current account!

In reply to Red Rover:

In truth, probably me subconsciously trying to be optimistic about something, anything.

Which leads me to believe some of the statements from companies, last week I put a link to an Israeli project that sounded promising, think someone commented that was the CEO trying to sell shares!

So now I give you BAT subsidiary and tobacco plants. 

https://www.bat.com/group/sites/UK__9D9KCY.nsf/vwPagesWebLive/DOBN8QNL

Interesting anyway, presuming the date is not relevant - I can't believe anyone would be that insensitive just now.

In reply to Neil Williams:

Norwegian Krone seem a safe choice at the moment

In reply to Red Rover:

5000 x 100 = 500k

Unless I am missing something (and I am not getting much sleep so thats possible)

In reply to Richard Horn:

Yep fair one I was talking rubbish! It is 500 k.

In reply to Neil Williams:

The billions being spent on Trident could be redirected to the NHS. The NHS seems to be a better protection from international threat than a nuke does!!

In reply to girlymonkey:

Funnily enough I just said exactly that to someone else on FB!

It's more viable than canning HS2, as most of HS2's funding comes from loans set against future fares income, there isn't a pot of money to take from it per-se.

In reply to girlymonkey:

The cost of Trident is peanuts compared to the government propping up the economy with its current measures and desire does not trump cold hard reality of a drastically shrunken economy.....i don't think you truly comprehend the damage that will be done if this carries on for too long.

One thing is for sure we are all going to be poorer on the other side of this...

In reply to Moley:

Perhaps you could be optimistic about medicines for coronavirus? Worth a thought?

In reply to Moley:

I think it was actually me being sceptical about the CEO's statement! I hope I'm wrong and it's more like 12 months than 18. I just never believe anything until it's been around for a while and has been confirmed by other people, otherwise it's a bit of an emotional roller coaster. I see the vaccine as being a bit like a rescue team coming to save you from a tight spot in somewhere like Antarctica. It will be great when it arrives but you have to sort yourself out in the meantime. 

In reply to girlymonkey:

Given the current occupants of the Kremlin and the White House, the small amount of money we spend on Trident seems a very good investment to me.

In reply to profitofdoom:

Good idea. I am optimistic about therapeutics. Either chloroquine, hydroxychloroquine or remdesivir might bring the case fatality rate down a bit.

Remdesivir is a tough synthesis I think it might be hard to get enough doses out there. Chloroquine and the hydroxy version are a piece of cake to make in large amounts so let's hope its one of those. 

Edit: a synthesis of Remdesivir: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Synthesis_of_Remdesivir.png

In reply to Red Rover:

It would certainly seem that if there is a treatment that can reduce the length of hospital stays then that means NHS capacity de-facto increases (in terms of cases) and so lockdowns could be loosened.  I hope the trials do result in success.

In reply to Blunderbuss:

Every little helps! It is not wanted in Scotland, the NHS is! If we need to help reduce this crisis, it is an achievable way of gaining a bit more money for the coffers.

In reply to Red Rover:

Thanks. Then there's Ivermectin (in the news earlier today) - and any other drugs which may be developed in the days to come. Here's hoping

In reply to Red Rover:

Sorry, here's hoping they all recover well. We're out of flu season by now surely?

We don't know for sure but until we they seem reasonable loose estimates to me. We have no real cause to suspect they're wildly wrong do we?

For us to hit herd immunity 'naturally' in a year we'd need to be infecting at several times the rate I estimated we're at now or we need ~80% of cases essentially asymptomatic (the wishful thinking/effective medication route). The more likely alternative is massively increasing treatment capacity which we have started but staffing looks sketchy in the longer run and we'll probably need to maintain this or a higher infection & death rate for a year which is 100's of thousands dead directly of CV (loads of potential variability with policy detail here) plus significant collateral damage through swamped hospitals and other services. Hard to see that we can effectively manage the infection rate with the economy fully re-lit so that's a long lock-down and high losses.

I don't disagree it's still spreading and will keep doing so but if we stomp it down to manageable levels it'll take a decade or so to develop immunity assuming it doesn't mutate and immunity, my point is only about the rate of new infections, any kind of managed herd immunity won't come fast.

There isn't an obvious and acceptable way out of this without 'technology' we don't yet have or a radical new economy that doesn't primarily value the production of money but with people being what we are that revolution probably comes with more deadly 'teething problems' than just letting the virus burn free!

jk

In reply to Point of View:

Nope. It should never ever ever ever be used, so we shouldn't have it there is a temptation. The Kremlin isn't interested in playing with nukes anyway, they are merrily playing with politics and meddling in all big decisions. Far more effective for them than engaging in nuclear war. 

In reply to Richard Horn:

Interesting, something doesn't add up.

jk

In reply to jkarran:

If so, only because of the social distancing The last three weeks, the amount of people affected by the seasonal flu dropped massively (in Germany: https://grippeweb.rki.de/).
.

In reply to Mark Edwards:

Thanks mate!

In reply to steve_gibbs:

Citizen bonds ... wow ... we know we're really in a bad place when we need to ask the citizens of a country to bail it out.

In reply to squarepeg:

Per my post above ... long term lock down will release inequality like we have never seen before in this country.  

You are right ... some sectors of the economy will be decimated and totally unable to to purchase bonds.

The rich won't be affected too much though.  Their S&S portfolios will take a hit in the short term, they'll buy the dip and when the markets rebound they'll make a fortune again.  They'll still be topping up their pensions ... and their pensions will still need something to invest in.

IMO - Long term lock down = massive increase in inequality.

Cheers.

In reply to profitofdoom:

As I said, I am fairly optimistic about a vaccine and hoping in the short term (certainly this year for distribution, maybe 6 mponths?). Regards medicine for treatment, I am sure there as many working on those and as every day and week passes then knowledge must be gained on potential ways to fight it, treatments if it is possible?

But I have no understanding of what may work or how they go about trials - though there are plenty of recipients at the moment I imagine that telling them to swallow this and then waiting to see if anything happens isn't the done thing.

In reply to Moley:

Isn't that roughly, in a very crude way, exactly what a clinical trial *is* in this sort of context?  You have some people with COVID19, you give some of them one drug, some of them another one, and some of them placebo (a sugar pill or something).  Then you see what happens.

TBH I'd volunteer.

In reply to jkarran:

I think 500 k infected is believable. Before lockdown very few people were taking this seriously. Just before Madrid went into lockdown we had 3000 Athletico Madrid fans in liverpool, and shortly before that we even had the Chethenham Festival with 80 k people, which I found hard to believe. 

In reply to Neil Williams:

Even better, I'll recommend you and give a good reference

In reply to Red Rover:

Well you’re only ok if you’re not one of the 0.5% that dies. If the population is 66million and 60% get it, and 0.5% die, that’s about 500,000 dead people.

In reply to Moley:

And a syringe of COVID19 to catch it first?

In reply to Martin Haworth:

I know, I did't say that wouldn't be a tragedy, but we are where we are: sadly it is spreading. I was talking in the context of easing lockdown so I meant OK as in 'OK to go back to work'.

In reply to StuPoo2:

If the lockdown continues for three more months so many businesses will go bust, so many will be unemployed, the tax take decimated, that we will have pretty much destroyed the economy for many years.  They simply have to find a faster way to get things moving.  
 

In reply to Red Rover:

I realise what you meant. My maths was incorrect anyway, it's 200,000 deaths not 500,000.

In reply to Red Rover:

So there may be a balm in Gilead after all?

In reply to Martin Haworth:

OK sorry, no problem. It's hard to know if things are literal or not when it's all just text! 

In reply to StuPoo2:

You lockdown/social distance hard enough to kill it off completely as Wuhan has done. Segregate the country into small pockets and quarantine everyone moving between a pocket until tested clean - so about a week's quarantine at a guess. How many people would really need to move between pockets? Not many. If you commute to a job in the neighbouring pocket you temporarily move there during the crisis, or change jobs.  Once you have a 'clean' area with good border control it's relatively easy to keep it clean with reasonable social distancing.  Yes, there will be a new 'normal', but it will work. People may not earn as much and standards of living will drop, but it's doable. All the time the healthcare system is beefing up and the control measures can be relaxed.  People have learnt that there's a whole load of stuff they used to do that they can work around, jut as they did in WW2.

In reply to jkarran:

(I posted) > Yes. The UK is screwed (this will happen in many other countries too) if we can't get the economy going again. I bet the US gets their economy up and running this year, well before Xmas (I think earlier than that, but I fear I will get my head bitten off if I say when)

Thank you for your reply. I really wonder though, about your "building something almost completely new, not to get the old economy (businesses) going again" - what will/would a new UK economy be or look like (?without "businesses")? Thank you very much

In reply to StuPoo2:

Please don't bite my head off folks, and I'm obviously not an expert ha-ha-ha, but I'm just wondering why - if the lockdown in the UK is off and everyone goes back to work - why would zillions of people die in the UK? I'm wondering because:

*Didn't happen in South Korea so far. People are out and about and mostly back at work. Rates continue to fall; most new cases are imported by travellers arriving at Seoul airport now

*Didn't happen in Hong Kong so far. People are back at work. New case numbers are very low now; the few new cases are imported by arrivals from outside HK now

*Didn't happen in Wuhan / China (if they're to be believed, I have no idea about that) so far

I'm very aware that SK, HK, the UK, and China are very different places, and that CV-19 rates are different to some extent. I'm still puzzled though

Thanks and stay safe everyone

In reply to Toerag:

The problem with wuhan is it wouldn't work in the West. Many people didn't leave their houses or flats for weeks, a building representative took food orders and it was delivered. No work, no dog walking, no 30mins exercise. That's a lock down! 

In reply to profitofdoom:

I've been thinking exactly the same. This holocaust - which is going to hollow out the entire world economy - seems to have lasted just 3 months. The Chinese authorities are so confident that the crisis is over that 200 flights are leaving Wuhan today. This just doesn't add up.

In reply to Rob Exile Ward:

I saw a photo of "people embracing" in Wuhan.

This is all going to go badly, badly wrong.

In reply to Rob Exile Ward:

It does add up.  If effective measures were taken then the diseased didn't spread exponentially beyond it's first few days in any one area.  Had they not been then that exponential growth would have produced the holocaust you refer to.

In reply to profitofdoom:

Because we are not South Korea, Hong Kong or Wuhan.

Wuhan used lockdown to basically eliminate all infection before releasing it - if we released lockdown today the perhaps 80,000 infected people in the population (many of them not knowing it) would go on to infect 160,000 more people over the next few days, then those would go on to infect 320,000 people etc.  Then we have everyone infected in 3 weeks and up to half a million dead.

South Korea uses extensive contact tracing and testing to identify and quarantine asymptomatic carriers.  They do this through extensive testing.  I don't know what their testing rate is; the closest country in Europe is Germany, they are testing 50,000 people a day and have a much smaller scale problem than the UK (not reflected in their infected numbers because of their better testing, but in their death numbers).  The UK is testing 13,000 people a day to put this in context.

If we don't want to go to tens to hundreds of thousands of dead within a few weeks and a destroyed NHS, we have to hold lockdown until the detected infected presenting at hospital is small enough that we then have enough resource (people, testing capability) to trace all their contacts over the last 14 days or so, and quarantine them immediately, and test them and only release those that test negative, going on to trace, quarantine and test contacts of the positive.

The government is almost totally opaque on why they have been so bad at scaling testing (despite a massive largely unpublicised effort to centralise perfectly good lab capability from around the country into central NHS testing sites)

If I had to pull numbers out of my rear, I'd say we won't see cases down to a low enough level to relax lockdown and move to a trace/quarantine/test system for at least another 2 weeks, and even that is a pipe dream if we can't get testing rates up.  I still have an uneasy feeling that higher powers are thinking "herd immunity" and not "trace/quarantine/test" and I hope to be proved thoroughly wrong.

Either way it seems that lockdown is here for a while more, so let's hope people follow it so the threats to limit exercise don't materialise, and let's hope that it starts to smarten up to enable more work to resume.  Perhaps the infection is much more widespread and less lethal than we think - if that's the case this will present as an unexpected reduction in deaths; as long as relaxation of lockdown is led by hospital admissions and ITU capacity the true infection rate doesn't actually change anything on the ground.
 

In reply to wintertree:

The move in Paris with regard to exercise is interesting - ban it during the day but not in the early morning or evening - times when nobody would choose to use the exercise "excuse" to go and sit in a park, but also times people who normally do go e.g. running often choose to go.  Perhaps if this weekend gets out of hand that might be an option rather than an outright ban.

In reply to AdrianC:

But unless 80% of the population actually caught the disease the they are still susceptible. Are you saying none of the 10s of thousands leaving Wuhan today will not come into contact with asymptomatic carriers?

And if measuring someone's temperature is such a good indicator of infection, which the Chinese are apparently relying on, why aren't we all doing it?

In reply to Skyfall:

Spotted for Scottish economy only.

https://fraserofallander.org/scottish-economy/coronavirus-quantifying-the-i...

3 month continuation of current lock down estimates are:

• Agriculture    = + 2-5%
• Production    = - 25-30%
• Construction = - 40-50%
• Services         = - 15-20%

Overall = -20-25%

Cheers

In reply to Rob Exile Ward:

Because we left it too late and then threw the panic button and went into lockdown.  If we start to release lockdown without raising infection rates, health testing at every opportunity is one of the tools I expect we'll use.  But given the government's inability to put in the required PPE orders in advance, how do you reckon we're doing at ordering 100,000 thermographic cameras for use at workplace entrances?

In reply to Rob Exile Ward:

No I'm not saying that.  They may well do.  There may be another outbreak but they haven't released the whole lockdown in Wuhan and other places are managing things in different way, as Wintertree points out.

In reply to wintertree:

Good summary that. 

By good summary I mean it agrees with my own thoughts!

In reply to wintertree:

(I wrote before) > >  the lockdown in the UK is off and everyone goes back to work - why would zillions of people die in the UK? 

wintertree, thanks very much for your detailed reply

You said:

Thanks, and yes I know - I said in my previous post "I'm very aware that SK, HK, the UK, and China are very different places"

You also said:

The Coronavirus Worldomoter gives the South Korea rate as 9,310 per one million population ( and the UK as 3,929 per one million population)

In reply to profitofdoom:

Remember, this is the number of *detected* cases not the number of cases.

As I said, South Korea is doing a lot more testing.  We only test people admitted to hospital, they test anyone who reports symptoms and every contact they trace.

Our number includes only those needing serious medical care.  Theirs is higher because it includes almost all infected and that’s how they are in control and we aren’t.

If you look at the deaths per million we’re close to 25 times worse than South Korea.

This is terrifying for us, because it suggests there could be 25x as many infected out there under lockdown waiting to spread it.  That factor is off because most people in SK who would have died have died, whereas we have a lot of people who are detected and are going to die but haven’t, yet.  Allowing for that pushes it back towards the 10x ujder-detection rate people seem to tend to for the U.K.  What’s interesting about that is it suggests that we need to test much more than 10x as much as currently (because many tested contacts will be negative) or we need to drop the scale of the infected more than 10x through lockdown before contract tracing can work.

In reply to wintertree:

South Korea still has a long way to go.There have been hotspots of Covid and the jury is still out as to whether their methods work ( according to the Economist).

Its a bit like Germany, we all think its working, but they are not reporting deaths in care/nursing homes etc.There is concern that these maybe out of control.

Meanwhile econonmys are taking huge hits. It is now estimated that for SME's in the UK the cost of the furlough scheme for 3 months will be £30-40 billion. This is just not sustainable in the medium/long run.It is eyewateringly expensive.And at some stage the economy is going to have to overide hospital admissions/ITU capacity.

In reply to wintertree:

I know. And wintertree, thanks very much again for your detailed reply and information

In reply to neilh:

I agree with you neilh.

Maybe important to make clear to some on this thread that when a phrase like "the economy is going to have to override hospital admissions/ITU capacity" is used ... it isn't because people have given up on corona virus or because people are financially focused.  It is because if we don't restart the economy that will do more harm to everyone than coronavirus/coronavirus lockdown will.

I think a lot people fail to understand the symbiotic link between a strong NHS and a strong economy.  They are intertwined at the deepest of levels.  If the UK didn't punch way above it weight economically ... we wouldn't have the NHS we have today.

In reply to neilh:

For sure - but I was explaining to prophitofdoom my take on why they have been able to relax lockdown *without* catastrophic healthcare overload.  Not if their methods “work” from an economic perspective.

This assumes that practically destroying our whole medical system isn’t going to have a major effect on our economy and social cohesion.

I think a lot can be done to reduce the impact of lockdown through better trace/test, through more health monitoring at places of work and potentially mass transit, through more selective lockdown with much harder geographic boundaries than the lockdown within them and through identifying recorded/immune people.

Its a totally false dichotomy to treat this as indefinite strict lockdown vs protect the economy.  

In reply to StuPoo2:

Its a two way link.  We can’t have a strong economy without a strong NHS, and anyone advocating ramming ITU with the dying to save the economy rather overlooks the long term effects this will have on the NHS.  

In reply to wintertree:

That is not what I'm, trying, to say or what I think others are saying.

I am trying to point out that at some point the damage that will be done by maintaining the lock down will be greater than the damage done by not locking down.

It's easy to currently see the damage that not locking down would do.

In the coming weeks/months it will slowly become more apparent what damage the lock down itself is having on people lives.

In reply to StuPoo2:

You replied endorsing this comment from neilh "the economy is going to have to override hospital admissions/ITU capacity".

Seems pretty clear cut to me.  

Yes, and what I am saying is that you and the various other poster I have seen who make this argument all explicitly or implicitly assume that there would be no significant detrimental effect on the economy from overwhelming healthcare.  This is a false dichotomy.  

It's bloody obvious to me and everyone else that indefinite lockdown isn't sustainable, and that everything needs to be done to relax it as fast as possible.  But the economy can't override ITU capacity because the economy depends on a functional healthcare system.  

In reply to summo:

Another interesting fact from China, is that those in the financial and business world (in the West) are monitoring the pollution levels in China as a way of judging how fast they are coming back onstream with production. Don't have to believe what they say, just check the air quality.

Interesting times.

In reply to wintertree:

I apologize for neilh's choice of words - they were not mine.  And I am not making the case for overwhelming health care.

The part I endorse was the fact that at some point the lock down will itself start to cause more harm than not locking down.  I am making the case for following the path of least harm and that at some point ... that path of least harm will transition away from lock down. 

I worry that the turning point will turn out to be a political turning point - not an NHS/scientific led one.  

In reply to wintertree:

Not having a higher temperature isn't a guarantee you don't have the virus. 

In reply to summo:

Nor did I claim otherwise.  However, using every available opportunity to detect some fraction of infected people and to keep them from spreading the virus lowers R0, which is the key action.

In reply to wintertree:

Are you really going to destroy the whole medical system? Unlikely. Its going to be restructured and fast. Been in a Dr's surgery over the past couple of weeks? Its a different environment with more online consultations.Is the NHS overloaded at the moment? Some close shaves, but it is being remarkably resiliant.There seems to be alot more confidence ( Khan's comments this morning suggest so)

The economy will be king in the medium / long term, it has to be. People will alter their habits ( social distnacing etc..its amazing how settled down it is now at supermarkets) and a new balance will be achieved.

Its going to be interesting seeing how we and other Western countrys manage coming out of lockdown.

In reply to summo:

That's a pathetic excuse. Whatever is necessary will work, because it has to.  We might not like it, but if we have to do it, we have to do it.

In reply to StuPoo2:

It has to be, because it’s a balance between competing interests. It’s for politicians to take on information on all these different factors, balance them and make a decision.

In reply to Toerag:

You have in effect a totalitarian govt in China using apps to control everything and monitoring citizens. Look up the way that citizens earn brownie points for good behaviour prior to the lockdown..Look at the way they contolled citizens going in and out of apartment blocks. Consider the borders on the state of Wuhan and how they closed everything down.

Step back and ask if we have that here, we do not, thank goodness.

In reply to Toerag:

It's a simple fact. It only worked because corona was a local problem, not a global one at the time. It an equivalent might be shutting down Birmingham while the rest of tbe EU supported it unaffected. We cant shut the world down in the same way. And this before the sociological aspects are considered. 

In reply to Toerag:

That's true.. but having a half heart lock down where folk separate by a small amount on Sat or Sunday, then share the underground mon-fri, isn't really the kind of lock down that halted the spread in China. 

There will never be a Chinese style lock down in the UK. 

In reply to wintertree:

No. I realise it linked the reply of a reply. 

Yeah. We could take the Brailsford approach of marginal gains and try to locate a small proportion of carriers through various means, thus hoping to locate enough to slow the spread overall. 

In reply to wintertree:

I am very skeptical about the value of these forehead temperature tests in public, and I suspect they they were being done because it was something that could be done rather than because it actually helped.

Based on experience with the kids, no two thermometers can be relied upon to give the exact same reading when applied one after the other (which matters when you’re looking for relatively small increases, as produced by coronavirus), and that’s using mouth thermometers that have some chance for measuring your internal temperature. Forehead thermometers measure surface rather than core temperature and have, I suspect, more value as recently-wore-a-hat detectors than tools for medical diagnosis.

In reply to StuPoo2:

Prior to the lockdown people were saying we should have done it earlier and the government said they didn't want to go too soon as it would cause "lockdown fever" (for want of a better expression). After only 2 weeks the media are already asking questions of "when can we come out"? I think if the weather is good this Easter it could lead to some problems - there is a rave planned up my way apparently, if anyone is interested!

Possibly the decision makers had it right on timing, we won't know till analysing in retrospect, the big question is as you say, what next and when? 

In reply to mullermn:

I’m sympathetic to your view - I do daily temperature measurements at home using one thermometer and I try and standardise the time.

Then again a thermal camera gives a wider FOV than a contact forehead thermometer and can cope with the hat problem.  Combine with pulse oximetry (any modern mobile phone can do it) and you’re going to catch some sick people.

I’d be really interested in any data showing if it’s actually effective or if it’s just a viral version of security theatre.

In reply to Yanis Nayu:

Yup ... its going to be scary when these "competing interests" start to rear their head.  If the lock down has not got us where we need to be to allow the politicians to relax it  ... its going to be nasty I think.

In reply to Lord_ash2000:

I'm not sure that I would consider a 5 year old. A 13 year old. Several 30-50 year olds as elderly. Admittedly those with 'underlying' health issues seem to be the most vulnerable. But not all. It's beginning to prove NOT to be an 'old persons' disease.     

In reply to StuPoo2:

Yes, I can’t see how the period of lockdown won’t have had a significant effect though. 

In reply to brianjcooper:

I'm not sure there has been any change in the likelihood of getting it badly at certain ages/with certain medical conditions, though (it was never thought to be 0 at any age).  These are the ones that hit the headlines; 80 year olds dying generally don't because in many cases if this didn't get them something else would, maybe next year's flu if they chose the wrong strains for the jab that year.

Older people surviving have hit the headlines, OTOH...

In reply to brianjcooper:

What makes you say that? Here is a recent analysis of mortality by age

https://www.thelancet.com/journals/laninf/article/PIIS1473-3099(20)30243-7/...

The odd exception doesn't change the clear conclusions

In reply to brianjcooper:

I don't know about the kids. But in the press if often states "fit healthy active 50 year old dies".. But the picture of them isn't always the slimmest healthiest looking person. Many could have poor diets, weak immune systems, border line diabetes, high cholesterol or narrowed arteries or other undiagnosed conditions, perhaps genetics plays a big role as there are male female differences in the stats globally too. Plus how big a dose of the virus they get. There is also talk of the tb jab being beneficial. 

In reply to Yanis Nayu:

So it begins ... 

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-52211206

"The economic fallout from the coronavirus could increase global poverty by as much a half a billion.

This bleak warning comes from a United Nations (UN) study into the financial and human cost of the pandemic.

It will be the first time that poverty has increased globally in 30 years, according to the report.

...

The report, which estimates a 400-600 million increase in the number of people in poverty across the globe

...

By the time the pandemic is over half of the world's population of 7.8 billion people could be living in poverty. About 40% of the new poor could be concentrated in East Asia and the Pacific, with about one third in both Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia."

In reply to StuPoo2:

Analysts forecast this costing the global economy $5 trillion! Once the pandemic dissipates, we’ll face a global recession, with mass unemployment and billions pushed further into poverty, inevitably costing multitudes more lives. 
 

We’ll no doubt see unprecedented austerity, with cuts across healthcare, welfare, education, pensions, etc. Sadly this will inevitably result in transnational protests, perhaps far larger than we saw earlier this year.

In reply to steve_gibbs:

I think you are being unduly pessimistic, it isn't going to be good for a while but I believe it will be more of a catalyst for change, both in societies and working practices rather than a worldwide fall into an abyss.

That is my positive statement for today.

In reply to Moley:

You’re right. I think I’ve succumb to pessimism from too much time reading the news in recent days! With every crisis comes opportunity!

In reply to Moley:

I expect the best outcome is that most countries have only doubled their national debt in a 12month period. 

Change will come in the form that many people won't be able to afford what they had in 2019 in 2022.