Covid-19 pandemic

[Ray de Galles]

Move along, nothing to see here :

The UK government has just announced that, after today, it is giving up its daily coronavirus press conference. But it says the data usually published in the daily slides will continue to be published daily every week day.

It will still hold press conferences for “significant announcements”, it says.

Johnson is taking today’s press conference, which will be the last one.

[Rogin the Armchair fan]

The furlough scheme is locked in until the end of October, they can't withdraw it from anyone now.

They're withdrawing support for employers from the end of July. So people will increasingly only be "furloughed" if their employer starts paying them again, or the employees are prepared to take not 80%, but 60%, 40% etc. Hence the need to open up all the small businesses who can't afford to pay people if they're not trading and will just lay people off instead.

[ursus arctos]

The other thing with many/most of food production facilities that have had very serious outbreaks is that they are staffed with immigrants who not only work in very close proximity to each other, but live in similar proximity, be it in "dormitories" or "private" housing that has been converted to house many people so as to lower its cost.

This pattern has been repeated all over the world - the vast majority of Singapore's cases, for example, are migrant workers living in dormitories.

[Ray de Galles]

So, unless I've misunderstood, people (in the UK) can go to concert halls and theatres, where despite social distancing measures they'll still probably get pretty close to each other but live performers aren't allowed to grace the stage?

Can someone explain what the reasoning is behind this? If you're not going to have live performances why not just continue with the current situation where performers live stream the shows into people houses?

What's the point of a live audience if there's no live show to watch?

This is apparently the "logic" behind reopening, absurd that it is :

"Theatres and concert halls can reopen to show recorded shows, but not live performance because of issues around socially distancing performers and the risks associated with singing."

[Ray de Galles]

They're withdrawing support for employers from the end of July. So people will increasingly only be "furloughed" if their employer starts paying them again, or the employees are prepared to take not 80%, but 60%, 40% etc. Hence the need to open up all the small businesses who can't afford to pay people if they're not trading and will just lay people off instead.

Ad hoc's assumption was that the government was going to withdraw the furlough scheme from businesses if they reopen, that's not the case.

Also, they are not "withdrawing the support from employers from the end of July", they are gradually reducing it by small incremental amounts. The burden of making up the drop in the government's contribution towards wages (which only drops to 60% of total wages up to their monthly limit and only for the final month) falls on the employer, not the employee - they still receive 80% wages ;

• for June and July, the government will pay 80% of wages up to a cap of ?2,500 for the hours the employee is on furlough, as well as employer National Insurance Contributions (ER NICS) and pension contributions for the hours the employee is on furlough. Employers will have to pay employees for the hours they work
• for August, the government will pay 80% of wages up to a cap of ?2,500 for the hours an employee is on furlough and employers will pay ER NICs and pension contributions for the hours the employee is on furlough
• for September, the government will pay 70% of wages up to a cap of ?2,187.50 for the hours the employee is on furlough. Employers will pay ER NICs and pension contributions and top up employees’ wages to ensure they receive 80% of their wages up to a cap of ?2,500, for time they are furloughed
• for October, the government will pay 60% of wages up to a cap of ?1,875 for the hours the employee is on furlough. Employers will pay ER NICs and pension contributions and top up employees’ wages to ensure they receive 80% of their wages up to a cap of ?2,500, for time they are furloughed

The July 4th reopening of certain businesses has nothing to do with the furlough scheme.

[ursus arctos]

Presumably this does not include communal sing-a-longs in honour of the recently departed Ms Lynn.

[Rogin the Armchair fan]

I can imagine how a Vue cinema complex can reopen inside the actual theatre, selling advance tickets to people or families so their seats are at least distanced during the performance. But you're still going to have 30, 40 people all congregating in one entrance lobby at the same time for a film, and clambering past each other to find their seats. I don't think I'll be shelling out ?12 to find out how it's working.

[Rogin the Armchair fan]

The burden of making up the drop in the government's contribution towards wages (which drops to 60% of total wages minimum and only for the final month) falls on the employer, not the employee - they still receive 80% wages .

That was the main thrust of my point though - some employers won't make up that shortfall and will simply offer employees those lower wages or lay them off. No employer is forced to retain people and pay them.

[Capybara]

The other thing with many/most of food production facilities that have had very serious outbreaks is that they are staffed with immigrants who not only work in very close proximity to each other, but live in similar proximity, be it in "dormitories" or "private" housing that has been converted to house many people so as to lower its cost.

This pattern has been repeated all over the world - the vast majority of Singapore's cases, for example, are migrant workers living in dormitories.

Ah right. That makes (rather unpleasant) sense.

[Ray de Galles]

That was the main thrust of my point though - some employers won't make up that shortfall and will simply offer employees those lower wages or lay them off. No employer is forced to retain people and pay them.

But that's always been the case, nothing changes as of July 4th!

[Rogin the Armchair fan]

What "changes" is that more companies can open up again for trading, which the government clearly hopes will minimise the risk of what we're on about later on.

[longeared]

The inland waterways are reopening fully from July 4th, they've pretty much been restricted to use by liveaboards only for the last month after lockdown was initially eased. That means that non-liveaboards can stay overnight on boats and that the hire boat companies can start up again. Although there's not a great deal of water in the system presently after the dry spring and the Macclesfield is also down after the reservoir that nearly collapsed last summer. The easing of restrictions applies to England only for the moment, Welsh canals are still for essential use only. I kind of hope there's going to be someone stationed at the Chirk aqueduct to stop boaters crossing the border.

[Ray de Galles]

What "changes" is that more companies can open up again for trading, which the government clearly hopes will minimise the risk of what we're on about.

Look, you're saying that the chance of employers earning income will be a trigger for them to lay off staff that they've kept on for three months when they've had no income?! Even though they have to pay none of their wages until the end of August, nothing at all until the end of July, only their extras in August, 10% of their wages + extras in September and 20% of their wages + extras in October?!

It's just not logical. If this was about the furlough scheme then the timing of the implementation would tie up for a start. It's obvious the government is loosening these regulations for PR and to jumpstart spending rather than for any scientific reasoning but it's not about the furlough!

[Ray de Galles]

This was one of the many things that had me shouting at the screen at Johnson's bullshit earlier :

'Rubbish': Boris Johnson accused of misleading claim that no other country has 'functioning test and trace app'

[ursus arctos]

https://twitter.com/weijia/status/1275422015059615750

[Snake Plissken]

It's that kind of incisive out-of-the-box thinking that proves that Johnson is indeed the clever politician that we've been told he is, not just some bumptious loon who's winging it.

Look, Johnson and Cummings are bored now. They've had their fun, they need to move on to some other shiny toy to deal with. Oooh, Brexit!

[Snake Plissken]

Mind you, Ireland will have introduced all the measures above by the end of the month, but then again, your 1,000 daily cases would be equivalent to 80-100 here, rather than the 6-10 being recorded now.

You've kind of hit on it - for the Government, everything is a competition and a game. If you've got an app, we've got a world-beating app, if you ease the lockdown, we ease the lockdown faster.

If you have 1000 dead, we have 65 times that much.

Johnson can't have countries - especially EU countries - getting things done first. He's definitely keeping score.

[Ginger Yellow]

You've kind of hit on it - for the Government, everything is a competition and a game. If you've got an app, we've got a world-beating app, if you ease the lockdown, we ease the lockdown faster.

If you have 1000 dead, we have 65 times that much.

You send one of yours to the hospital, we send one of ours to the morgue.

[Diable Rouge]

A second Nord-Rhein-Westfalen localised lockdown, in Warendorf.

[The Awesome Berbaslug!!!]

If meat processing plants have such terrible hygiene in so many countries many more of us should be considering going vegetarian.

Perhaps this is the time for everyone to take a real look at the meat industry, and the migrant agricultural labour situation. It seems as though everyone has agreed that these two areas don't need to have any standards applied to them, and that seems to be an extreme false economy, and an active decision to exploit people.

[ursus arctos]

The likelihood of that happening is illustrated by the US Administration exempting agricultural and food processing workers from its visa crackdown and going after South Asian engineers instead

[Sporting]

Sickening

[Balderdasha]

Another bizarre conversation with my father today.

He has a theory about the outbreaks in the meat packing plants. He worked his whole life in the meat packing industry, first as a scientist in the laboratory, then as a foreman on the workshop floor (higher salary than lab work) and latterly as a meat trading manager. He ponders whether the virus is more easily transmittable in cold environments given that meat packing floors are almost always refrigerated, and whether this means things will be much worse in winter 2020. I still think that proximity, poverty and questionable hygiene are bigger factors.

[Eggchaser]

Look, Johnson and Cummings have extracted about as much money and rowback of civil liberties as possible from Covid19 now.
They've had their fun, they need to move on to some other shiny toy to deal with. Oooh, Brexit!

Fixed etc.

[Janik]

Re: the meat processing plant outbreaks (and other food processing, but to a lesser extent), as well as the lack of social distancing at work and potentially for those workers at home as well (neither of which are unique problems to that particular industry) you also have a refrigerated workplace where aerosol droplets that the virus needs to stay functional last for longer so can travel further. Lower temps = slower evaporation. Even a few degrees makes a particular difference with small droplets as surface area to volume ratios grow rapidly with reduced diameter.