Covid-19

Wednesday

Kate Andrews

How will Rishi Sunak roll back the furlough scheme?

Just weeks ago, Chancellor Rishi Sunak claimed that widespread use of the furloughing scheme was proof of its success. But it appears the government has over-achieved. The Treasury’s original prediction was that 10 per cent of businesses would use the salary safety net; the figure has turned out to be closer to 70 per cent. The cost for just one month of the scheme is estimated to be £8 billion, only £3 billion less than the NHS’s monthly budget. ‘We’re not talking about a cliff-edge but we have to get people back to work.’ says Matt Hancock, the health secretary. ‘We’ve got to wean off it.’ After telling ITV early

Katy Balls Katy Balls

Is it ‘speculation’ to say the UK has the most deaths in Europe?

It’s a grim news week for the government with Dominic Raab announcing in Tuesday’s press conference that the UK coronavirus death toll is now at 29,427 (ONS figures suggest the number of deaths is as high as 32,313). This means that according to official figures from each country, the UK has overtaken Italy in fatalities and currently has the highest death toll in Europe.  However, at the press conference, Raab suggested such a conclusion was ‘speculation’ and warned against early international comparisons on the grounds that there are differences in the way various countries’ record coronavirus deaths and excess deaths with the size of the population also needing to be taken into account: I don’t think

Tuesday

Matthew Lynn

A German court has plunged the eurozone into fresh crisis

An epidemic has been raging across the continent. The economy is in lockdown, and GDP is in freefall. But, hey, just when you thought things couldn’t get any worse in the eurozone it now has a financial and currency crisis as well, and one that is being made worse by the week with the shambolic management of the European Central Bank by Christine Lagarde. Today, the German constitutional court has, at least in part, ruled against the ECB’s bond-buying programme, which allows the central bank to print money and effectively bail out Italy, Spain, and probably quite soon France as well. You need to be a German lawyer – not

Gavin Mortimer Gavin Mortimer

The return of the deep shelter mentality

Seven weeks confined to a city apartment changes a man. Trees, for example, have never been a particular passion of mine but recently I’ve spent many happy moments studying the plane tree outside my bedroom window, and in particular the magpies’ nest therein. On Saturday a baby magpie emerged from the nest and edged tentatively along a branch. There it stayed for several minutes until it retreated to the security of its nest. On Sunday, the Observer reported that a similar nervousness now afflicts the British. According to the paper, fewer than one in five of the public believe the time is right to end the lockdown. Britain is not

Stephen Daisley Stephen Daisley

Our toothless response to China is embarrassing

If you have been troubled by the government’s failure to get tough on the country responsible for our present malaise, never fear. The Foreign Office has issued a joint statement with ten EU members warning this regime of ‘grave consequences’ for its ‘standing in the international arena’. That’ll put Beijing in its place. Well, not quite. The statement wasn’t directed at China and the deadly pandemic it has unleashed upon the world. It was another scolding for the Israelis, this time over plans to apply sovereignty to West Bank settlements in line with the Trump peace plan. With 250,000 fatalities and the world economy on a ventilator, it’s about time

Monday

Melanie McDonagh

It’s time to cancel the school holidays

It seems that a quarter of A level-students preparing to go to university haven’t been set any work by teachers. So… what does that tell you about the rest of them, the ones who aren’t the focus of teacher attention? Perhaps all over the country, there is a frenzy of education going on. It just hasn’t happened very much in my vicinity. Except, from what I can gather, from people with children in private schools. I do know of teachers who’ve heroically gone out of their way to teach, set work and mark it (it takes more time marking online) but it’s by no means the norm. How about the summer

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

Sweden tames its ‘R number’ without lockdown

Sweden has been the world’s Covid-19 outlier, pursuing social distancing but rejecting mandatory lockdown. Schools, bars and restaurants are open – albeit with strong voluntary social distancing compliance and streets that often look almost as empty as Britain’s. Has this been enough? Sweden’s public health agency has now published a study of its R number, a metric which the UK is using to judge the success of the lockdown. The UK objective is to push R below one, by which it means it wants the number of new cases to fall. Last week, the UK’s R number was estimated at 0.8 (± 0.2 points), a figure described as an achievement of

Joolz Gale

What British bureaucrats can learn from German efficiency

We have often heard over the past weeks how Germany’s impressive testing capacity has proven central to combating the coronavirus at such speed. But equally impressive is the speed at which its state and federal governments have reacted financially to save the economy. Like some of the UK’s support schemes, Germany has provided various aid packages or Soforthilfe to businesses large and small. Unlike the UK, however, Germany has already managed to pay out billions of euros to those in need. For the self-employed and small businesses with up to ten workers, this has essentially meant free money arriving in their bank accounts within 24 hours of applying, for which they

Kate Andrews Kate Andrews

The problem with immunity passports

Could we see ‘immunity passports’ in Britain? Ministers are reportedly discussing them as a route out of lockdown. According to today’s Guardian, the UK tech firm Onfido is in discussion with ministers about creating a ‘digital certificate’ that would be issued to those who have already been infected with coronavirus – who are presumably more immune – so they could return to some resemblance of normal life, including heading back into work.  The technology needed to carry out such a scheme is reportedly in the ‘discovery stage’ and big questions linger as to whether British bureaucracy – which has struggled to source plastic PPE and has trailed other countries in Covid-testing for months

Saturday

Jamie Jenkins

Covid deaths – direct and indirect – will now be over 45,000

This week, the government has published a better measure of Covid-19 deaths by widening it out from hospital deaths to all settings. But what about those who have died without having had a test? Does the ‘improved’ estimate go far enough?  I think the simple answer is no. The mortality data is rising at a rate that suggests many more are dying who have not been tested. But there are ways of estimating and, as the former head of health analysis at the ONS, I have conducted my own study.  As of Wednesday 29 April, my figure is 45,290 deaths linked to Covid-19 in Great Britain. This is far higher than the

Friday

Katy Balls

Why Covid cuts are off the cards

How will the UK recover after lockdown? Although social distancing is expected to continue for months, talk has turned to how the government will deal with its coronavirus debts. The Treasury is seeking to raise £180 billion over the next three months to meet its pledges – putting the UK on course to see its budget deficit rise to a level never seen before in peacetime. Some estimates put borrowing this financial year at over £300 billion, far outpacing the years following the financial crash. This has led a number of public figures to predict a return to the Cameron and Osborne era with mass cuts in the years ahead. However, when Boris Johnson was

Thursday

Melissa Kite

I’m imposing a one-woman trade embargo on China

Without making any efforts in that direction, I now know all about a certain telecom firm’s future business plans. My neighbours are working from home, loudly, with their kitchen windows open. I want to scream: ‘I can’t turn my ears off, and I don’t have a mute function!’ Call me old-fashioned, but if they continue to corporate grandstand at the tops of their voices during laptop conference calls without specifically telling me that everything I’m hearing is off the record, then I’m treating them as primary source material. ‘Guys, that’s confidential. Our ears only,’ one of them keeps shouting through her kitchen window. Why not close the window, as a

Wednesday

James Forsyth

Why shouldn’t Cummings attend SAGE?

One of the key committees advising the government is SAGE — the Scientific Advisory Group on Emergencies. At the weekend, there was a rumpus after the Guardian reported that Dominic Cummings had been present for some of its meetings; though given the enormity of what was being discussed there would have been problems if no one from Downing Street was at these meetings. Last night, Bloomberg reported on the SAGE meeting of 18 March. Alex Morales and Suzi Ring wrote that Dominic Cummings had at that meeting raised questions, including asking ‘why a lockdown was not being imposed sooner’. I am informed that at that meeting Tim Gowers, a Cambridge maths professor and

Saturday

Melanie McDonagh

Ten lessons we’ve learned from the lockdown so far

Yep, the end is in sight, courtesy of other countries organising the practicalities for the return to some sort of normal life – shopping and schooling, as in Germany. That means Britain will, like it or not, be playing catchup sooner rather than later. And when this oddly dreamlike existence is over, it’s going to feel like that bit of the Sleeping Beauty when the court wakes up after its hundred year sleep, yawning and blinking and eyeing each other rather shyly. It’s partly the warm weather; being obliged to stay away from work when it’s sunny, with quite a lot of your wages paid by the government (if like

Rod Liddle Rod Liddle

Our impatience will end the lockdown

At the farm shop this morning there was a chap panic-buying a large metal and plaster flamingo. It was the last one in stock and he looked very pleased with himself. I wondered if he had a few score more at home, hoarded in the attic. And then his long-suffering wife saying, when he arrived home: “Did you get the milk and chopped tomatoes?” And him replying with excitement: “No, but I managed to get another one of THESE, love…” As I mentioned in my column this week, the government will be a fait accompli to the ending of lockdown. The glorious silence of two weeks ago is already a

Ross Clark Ross Clark

Britain can’t rely on a vaccine to ease lockdown restrictions

Six weeks ago Britain stood as a bit of an outlier among western countries in that our government seemed set to manage, rather than suppress, coronavirus. It rejected the idea that it was pursuing ‘herd immunity,’ but seemed to do just that. Now we stand out for a different reason: we are the only country which appears to be committing itself to remain in lockdown, or close approximation thereof, until a vaccine arrives. In much of Europe, lockdown restrictions are tentatively being relaxed as infection rates and death rates fall. Here, ministers tell us it is far too early for that sort of thing – we will need restrictions on

Steerpike Steerpike

Chinese diplomat’s Covid-19 PR exercise backfires

As countries around the world try to work out a way to live with coronavirus, there’s a growing hostility towards China. In order to remedy any such thoughts, this week Beijing sent the Chinese embassy’s second in command to face something unheard of in her homeland – public scrutiny. Chen Wen, a London-based diplomat for the totalitarian state, took the BBC’s World at One programme on Friday to defend the Chinese Communist record on Covid-19. During the extensive interview, she declared that when it come to the global pandemic, which originated from China, the world should ‘appreciate’ the efforts of the Chinese state rather than criticising its failings. However, some gentle probing from the BBC’s Chris Mason

Friday

Isabel Hardman

How the lockdown is making domestic abuse worse

For years, ministers from successive governments have conducted drills for all kinds of pandemic scenarios. But they never imagined a lockdown. It’s a new tool, and its implications — and side effects — have never been properly tested. So no one really thought about the effect it would have on something like domestic abuse. Before the lockdown, it was estimated that two women a week were killed by their current or former partners. But that was when they could move freely. On Friday, the Metropolitan Police announced they had made 4,000 domestic abuse arrests in the last six weeks, with calls about abuse rising by around a third over that time. The

Freddy Gray Freddy Gray

Why are people taking Trump’s disinfectant comments seriously?

Every time you think Donald Trump has lost his talent for making people’s heads explode, he somehow excels himself. His latest? Telling Americans that injecting disinfectant and shining UV light could cure Covid-19 patients. You’ll have seen the clip already, everybody has, but it is worth watching again: Trump voters don’t necessarily take Trump all that seriously This was a Trumpian masterpiece. I particularly enjoyed the way he turned to the experts for validation, while his mouth trotted out the peculiar ideas. And I find it hilarious, even though I know we are all supposed to be horrified that the US Commander-in-Chief, the leader of the free world, can sound

Kate Andrews Kate Andrews

If austerity is off the table, how do we pay for Covid-19 costs?

What is the true cost of Covid-19? No one knows – yet. But it’s not going to be cheap. The Treasury has revised its borrowing plans for May to July up to £180 billion, four times what it planned to raise and over £20 billion more than it planned to borrow all year. So how are we going to pay for all this spending? Policies at the heart of the government’s Covid-19 response, like the furlough scheme, are surpassing all estimations for uptake, and have been granted a limitless price tag by the Chancellor through to the end of June at least. As the economy contracts in a way that