… a real stinker. And I said so to J, W aching along, last night. Especially on the issue of a second wave. Boris said something like it would disastrous for the economy. We would waste all the good effort to date if we opened too early and had a second wave which would overwhelm the NHS and be catastrophic for the economy.
And I though, huh?
Haven’t we learnt anything from the first wave? About tracking and testing and isolating and all that? And haven’t we now got massive spare capacity within the NHS? (There are empty wards and operating theatres because people not doing elective surgery. And the new Nightingale hospitals made especially for Covid-19, are at 5% capacity).
And in any case why should it be any more difficult for the economy if there were a second wave as opposed to the ruinous effects of the current shutdown in this first wave?
Toby Young writing today, shares my puzzlement:
And I though, huh?
Haven’t we learnt anything from the first wave? About tracking and testing and isolating and all that? And haven’t we now got massive spare capacity within the NHS? (There are empty wards and operating theatres because people not doing elective surgery. And the new Nightingale hospitals made especially for Covid-19, are at 5% capacity).
And in any case why should it be any more difficult for the economy if there were a second wave as opposed to the ruinous effects of the current shutdown in this first wave?
Toby Young writing today, shares my puzzlement:
Okay, let’s suppose, contrary to the evidence, that reopening schools and switching off some of the other extreme measures did, in fact, overwhelm the NHS. So we’d switch them back on again. What would be so economically disastrous about that? As far as I can tell, this argument crept in to the Number 10 press briefings last week without any accompanying explanation of how the Government or its economic advisors reached this conclusion. [The rest is here. Free to good homes]
