For industry, the pandemic isn’t over yet

‘So you think it’s all over? Ho ho ho!’ That’s the message from Satan’s dark laboratory (twinned with Wuhan’s) where the Omicron variant turns out to have been bubbling in its test tube while we dared to resume our normal lives during the autumn. But whether that ugly little globule ruins Christmas or proves to be largely a scare story, the pandemic’s disruption of business ain’t over yet either: supply chain hold-ups, labour shortages, cost spikes and debt pressures continue apace.