Economy
Enforcing mandatory lock-downs, social distancing and furloughing workers will affect our economy for decades to come. For how long will we be paying for our government’s decisions?
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Speaking on BBC Radio 4’s The World at One, Professor Thomas argued that according to his team’s calculations, if the UK’s GDP fell by more than 6.5 percent for a consistent period of time, the economic effect of coronavirus will cost the country more lives than the disease itself. He explained: “I calculated the likely size of the epidemic and it is very big. The loss of life will be equivalent to 400,000 average lives lost.
“Yes this is serious but the real question is: is this serious enough to warrant putting most of our population into house imprisonment; wrecking our economy for the indefinite period; destroying businesses that honest and hardworking people have taken years to build up; saddling future generation with debt, depression, stress, suicides and unbelievable distress inflicted on millions of people who are not especially vulnerable and will suffer only mild symptoms or none at all.”
To stop coronavirus we will need to radically change almost everything we do: how we work, exercise, socialize, shop, manage our health, educate our kids, take care of family members.
We all want things to go back to normal quickly. But what most of us have probably not yet realized—yet will soon—is that things won’t go back to normal after a few weeks, or even a few months. Some things never will.