The UK government decided to lockdown the country for all but essential key workers. Is this the best option?
The government is stating they are going to pay 80% of furloughed peoples salaries for a period of time which is in fact a cost to the tax-payer. Apart from the money, our money, that is being used to keep people at home, those companies of those employees are going to struggle. With a lockdown of the country, people are not able to go out and spend money. Shops are not allowed to be open for anything other than essential shopping items. Small independent business are likely never to recover. Those people on furlough are still going to be nervous when the lockdown comes to an end as their employers may not be able to trade anymore due to the impact on shoppers not being able to go out and spend money. Unemployment will inevitably rise which means we, the tax payer, are going to be paying more into the social pot to cover the costs of benefits. The government will have no choice to borrow billions to survive.
Would not the best option have been to take this as seriously as a military threat back in January and immediately build the NHS infrastructure (that will be needed for the future, inevitable, pandemics), sponsor the research into new vaccines and allow the country to continue as normal? Yes there would be people getting the virus, and yes there would be deaths , just like there is now, but we would be able to handle the situation without the catastrophe that has now happened. The economy would still be carrying on as normal, the country would still be running, people would still be working and getting paid.
This country has in my opinion made a mistake. When you consider that on average 1500 people in the UK die every day of other conditions, the numbers for Coronavirus deaths are not anywhere near that figure. We don’t lock down the country for the Flu virus that plagues the country every year. We should have just spent the money on the NHS to be prepared for the numbers of people that would contract the virus. Most people would survive and more importantly , their bodies would be stronger for it. We are not letting our bodies fight diseases anymore but instead choose to throw ant-biotics at everyone. If this Coronavirus returns as a different strain again next year, are we going to shut down the country again? We need to re-evaluate our position and think about the long term effect of what this lockdown is doing to the country and the economy.
