TQR

Yes, which is why this package doesn’t go far enough. Businesses can only really get small loans out of this. The amount of works orders my place has seen put on hold is more than a little bit concerning. And we’re two staff down so far, staff that rely on the overtime being there that can’t get to work at all. Small businesses aside for one moment, even the huge firms are going to feel the pinch. They’ll see people laid off left, right and Chelsea. This is a prolonged period of difficulty and millions of people can’t get to work and earn what they need to. Making a few grand available for smaller businesses to borrow is like turning up at a tsunami with a towel.

Rishi Sunak, off of Chancellors, has announced a third of a trillion pounds worth of Coronavirus emergency package to help businesses face the challenges that come with everyone being holed up at home. It still doesn't quite go far enough, in my honest opinion, but he has said more could be made available. Good move, but just imagine if a non-Tory government proposed a financial package worth nearly 15% of the UK's GDP; they'd be pilloried to high heaven for trying to crash our economy.

Apparently we shouldn’t go to the pub so instead I’ve panic-bought some Guinness from the horrendous Hunger Games reminiscent melee that is Tesco. Slarncha.

Oh @the_engineer...please don’t shout at me, but...the line of succession is a bitch innit. And @CaptainChorizo, you already have 87. Fingers crossed!

Only problem with that is that was for last year 2020 starts some way down page 5...perhaps we’ll treat ourselves to a shiny new thread for 2021.

I take it you’re doing the eulogy at the funeral?

Two people from my work are now self-isolating. Neither have been tested yet. Both were last in on Saturday morning. No one in today has any suspect symptoms but it’s a bit worrying for us all the same; both our production schedule (least of my worries) and our personal finances (not the least of my worries) would be severely hurt if we all ended up needing to do the same. Nothing confirmed or anything but it’s one of those where suddenly it all becomes quite real.

BBC obit.

I beat all three of you to that date.

New depth of depravity for Donald Drumpf: The German government has confirmed that he tried to bribe their scientists for exclusive rights to the Covid-19 vaccine they’re working on, for the US and only the US.

Cases are still growing at a rate of knots in most affected countries, which means that's exactly what the death rate is going to do for another 3 weeks at least. How do you arrive at there only being another 1,000 deaths before this is 'over'?

Another thing with the retired NHS staff is that they would obviously need assessing to make sure they can still do the job to the standard needed (if they’ve not worked for a long time, could be a bit rusty?) Inspection is key for the adaptations, both of makeshift medical facilities and engineering firms being contracted to produce vital equipment. A lot will fail, but we’ll have some more - it’s better than nothing, I suppose? For the quarantine issue I’m mostly talking about people still working, playing vital roles; we need power. We need carers. We need provisions. We need manufacturers. We need medical professionals aside from just doctors. I’m saying quarantining is a necessary measure, but we’d need a permit system for people who need to be out, and those who are still out should be rewarded for their efforts. A lot of these measures would work. Problem is, they should’ve started a couple of weeks ago. And I do think that, with adequate measures of containment etc (which we irrefutably don’t have at the moment), the worst of this is in the not too distant future.

Interesting thoughts, many of them exactly what we should be aiming for, but there are a few of these that simply can’t be put into place. The ‘everybody self-quarantine’ thing, for starters. Just try enforcing it. And think of how many exceptions are needed. Many retired NHS staff have already said pretty unanimously they won’t return, regardless of the money. How long’s it going to take to adapt these schools into makeshift hospitals that are a high enough standard to cope with Corona patients? Great idea though, one that should’ve been actioned a while ago to be fair so it can make a genuine difference to the amount of critically ill patients we have. I work in manufacturing. My firm does precision CNC machined parts for motorsport, aerospace, defence and commercial, but not medical; that’s an ISO certification we don’t have. The same would apply for, at the very least, 95% of other manufacturing firms, regardless of size, that aren’t strictly dedicated to the medical industry, which are flat out producing what is needed already. You may say temporarily grant all capable firms this cert, but this means necessary quality controls basically go out of the window, and erroneous medical equipment can be, if anything, worse than nothing. It’s not feasible to throw everything a country has at keeping a pandemic at bay. It’s not the only issue we face. Everything else we had to do pre-Corona still exists and won’t go away. But I do agree that our government’s utterly nonchalant attitude towards it isn’t going to do us any favours either.

Next round: March 29th

QR: 9 CS: 8 DL: 7 Things still aren't slowing down!

Tom until the end

Stereophonics being brilliant again.

The 4th April result announcing conference has been cancelled, in favour of a scaled back event instead. Probably a Facebook Live or some bollocks.

This will be us in 2 weeks time:

Just seen this! Excellent to see the whole country coming together during a crisis.

...in fact, the whole racing weekend has been postponed.

Grauniad obit.

One of the teams in Formula 1, McLaren, has pulled out of this weekend’s Australian Grand Prix after one of their team tested positive for Corona.

Sajid was apparently going to lower the basic rate to 18% and up the higher rate threshold from £50k before Dominic Cummings, sorry, Rishi Sunak decided against it. That would have saved someone on £30k £30/month, or someone on £50k over £60/month. But no, we’ll have our 8 quid from NI because Rishi is a legend.