Xtophe wrote:
Peter wrote:
in the UK you get 1 week’s pay for each year of service which makes a 30-year-service employee very expensive to fire
But it is capped at 12 weeks/years
Also at a max of £538 per week which in the context of white-collar professionals is not very much, thus making the maximum statutory redundancy payout £16,140.
In days gone by people were offered redundancy pay over and above the statutory minimum, and it was very attractive because anything you’re not contractually entitled to is tax-free. People paid their mortgages off with their redundancy payments. These days I cannot imagine a scenario where any company would be paying more than the statutory minimum.
Off_Field wrote:
Are there any surveys that show masks as I seem to see them being used (used repeatedly, not washed correctly and not handled correctly, etc) actually help at all?
Yes, there is good evidence: https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS2213-2600(20)30352-0/fulltext
One could still discuss if in areas/settings/times of low baseline risk it is worth the money for comparatively low number of cases that are there to avoid – but one can’t reasonably argue that they don’t help at all.
LeSving wrote:
so spreading in the entire population isn’t a disaster as long as those at risk are protected
There are some quite alarming reports of long term consequences of infections at younger/fitter patients. It’s still to early to tell and first papers are just kicking in and are not yet properly reviewed – but if this turns out to be right the “let’s get the young and healthy infected” could be quite questionable.
Again, as with all of the measures the core question is how much risk of erring on the wrong side we want to take.
max of £538 per week which in the context of white-collar professionals is not very much
True but an airport isn’t going to be full of highly paid people. Maybe in some countries?
I wonder what the statutory redundancy provisions are in other countries? That makes a big difference to whether a company survives, or not.
Graham wrote:
Of course everyone has a story about someone they heard of who was very fit/quite young and died of it, but there will always be edge cases and the plural of anecdote is not data. The data is quite clear that the vast majority of people who die of Covid-19 are very old and/or have serious underlying health conditions. Perhaps @MedEwok can comment on whether these are generally people that might normally be finished off by any respiratory infection?
I absolutely agree that from a certain time onwards, we will have to accept that SARS-CoV2 is endemic in the population and just live with it existing, as we do with the other Coronaviruses or even Influenza. However, the problem is that we cannot simply lift all restrictions say tomorrow and expect anything good will come out of that.
Yes, most of the dead are old and frail, and at serious risk of dying from any systemic infection. However, a very significant number of all cases, meaning even people much younger than 70 or 80, require hospital treatment of their infection. This number is about 6 to 9% of all cases and probably still somewhere around 5% for under 50s. This is very significant, because if you let SARS-CoV2 run wild, we will very quickly exceed our capacity to treat these people.
Nobody knows the answers to these questions. I think the last question is the most significant one, and, at least for our health care system in Germany, I would estimate that the answer is a strong “yes” (we have indications that non-Covid patients already suffered from the postponement of elective treatment in March/April/May, and our hospitals were never at capacity then!).
Also, there is a psychological factor which many seem to overlook. Say the government(s) lifted all Covid-related restrictions tomorrow, or next week or anytime soon. Would everyone resume their pre-Covid behaviour, especially with regards to the economy (i.e. go to work, spend money and travel as “normal”?). I would say the answer is a resounding No!. This was already observable in Germany in March, when the first wave hit, because people stopped behaving “normally” way before they were under any sort of legal restriction(s). As long as the virus circulates and appears to be a significant danger to at least parts of the population, we will not resume our pre-Covid life as a society, no matter what government(s) actually do. People need to be confident to go outside and meet others for “normal” behaviour to resume, and that will only happen once at least the “at-risk” groups are vaccinated.
gallois wrote:
All over UK news yesterday that scientists now believe that post Covid immunity might be very short lived. So you can write off herd immunity.
That’s not at all what “scientists believe”. There was one study that showed (according to The Times) that 25% of people who were infected this spring no longer test positive for antibodies. That is not at all the same thing as “post Covid immunity” is short lived and even less means that we can “write off” herd immunity.
Again according to The Times, “scientists warned that not enough is known about how the body fights off Covid-19 and said it may have other defences that do nmot come up on antibody tests.”
It has recently been discovered that standard tests do not detect antibodies in all people who do have antibodies. Is is also known that T-cells play an important role for the immunity but T-cells are very difficult to detect. One study showed that out of a group of people who had Covid-19 but tested negative for antibodies, 100% had T-cells.
I think national lockdowns have a very important role in this crisis.
Lockdown 1.0 worked very well at supressing the virus. In Ireland we were down to single digit daily new cases, and total active cases in the state were estimated to be around 300 people at the end of wave 1. We were very close to eliminating it in the state.
However the problem seems to be that lockdown was treated by politicians as the solution rather than just a tool in it.
The lockdown brought numbers down to a very low level. This should have only been step one. Step two should have been a plan to keep the numbers very low. But nothing was discussed here other than local lockdowns when cases spiked.
Instead there should be a national debate followed by a planned strategy.
This could be a desire to eliminate the virus from the country by controlling inward travel and state controlled quarantine.
It could be a plan to keep numbers low by testing of 100% of inward travellers for the virus, but no quarantine, and accepting that some cases will be imported.
It could be a plan to keep numbers low by very active testing and tracing. (Not just testing those with symptoms or close contacts, but a wider testing programme).
It could be a plan to eliminate the virus from the state by a massive testing programme where all inward travellers are tested (accepting some will get through infected) and all public facing workers, or those with lots of contacts at work are tested weekly, and random testing, walk in testing outside super markets, or even (as Slovakia is doing I think) testing the entire population.
There are many more possibilities and combinations. The problem as I see it, is that the government didn’t have a plan for after lockdown other than testing those with symptoms and close contacts, and imposing lockdowns again where necessary. That wasn’t enough of a plan. As a result the opportunities given by the national lockdown were squandered and we’re back further than the beginning. I say back further than the beginning, as this time people are tired, fed up, less scared and less willing to comply with lockdown 2.0. So it will be harder to get things under control this time, especially as there, again, doesn’t seem to be a plan for what to do afterwards other than wait on a vaccine.
dublinpilot wrote:
I think national lockdowns have a very important role in this crisis.Lockdown 1.0 worked very well at supressing the virus.
I would argue it did not. Look at the UK and other countries. It seems that timing was the key. Countries that took action early got the best results no matter what strategy they used.
It’s always easy to blame the government. But in this case, it’s to a large extend not their fault. Wearing masks, keeping distance, not doing parties, not traveling anywhere (even where one believes it is safe), etc. are all thing where we do not need a single government to do. It’s the stupidity of each individual acting – not the fault of any politician.
What I am talking about is the initial response in February and March. They reacted way too late, they lied about the effectivity of masks (at least here in Switzerland) because they did not have enough of them, which is one erason why lots of people to this day do not believe masks are efficient and they kept things open way too long, allowing the thing to spiral out of control. When they got it back under some semblance of control, they ditched the expert advice and opened everything up resulting in a 2nd wave. If this is not a criminal incapability, then Ido not know what is.
Of course the stupidity and egoism of people is vital in this. If we were all Vulcans we would not need rules, everyone would act logically and in the best interest of the many instead of the one. But it is not like this and we have seen this. People take their own pleasure and vanity over the common good and dump the big picture the secondd it interferes with their daily lifes.
I have to admit that it is often difficult to impossible for the individual to act the way they would see fit, for family, work and other obligations. Therefore, it is much easier for many of us who WANT to keep the recommendations that they are set in law, so nobody can force you to disobey them.
Due to my personal situation I was forced this year to travel twice when I knew it was inadvisable to do so, we were darn lucky in both cases. Thankfully my workplace kept to the letter, which is why we have had two cases altogether with no spreads so far, but now, having to keep a 24 hour ops going, it is only a question of time. I have also seen that it is very hard to resist the temptation to socialize in person and similar things, particlarly if its family and close friends who are in need.
My conclusion has been clear therefore. Lockdowns and sanctions are not only there to force the stupid and ignorant, they also protect those who can not out of force of circumstances retreat into isolation by themselfs, not for the lack of wanting to.
MedEwok wrote:
Also, there is a psychological factor which many seem to overlook. Say the government(s) lifted all Covid-related restrictions tomorrow, or next week or anytime soon. Would everyone resume their pre-Covid behaviour, especially with regards to the economy (i.e. go to work, spend money and travel as “normal”?).
Florida provides a good example, all state restrictions were lifted a month ago.
