Making sense of the elections by Brian Bamford

IN THIS weekend's editorial in the Financial Times the editor writes:

'An old rule of politics is that British governments tend to lose midterm by-elections. That makes the resounding defeat of Labour in the centre-left stronghold of Hartlepool by the Conservative party in power for 11 years all the more extraordidary... Extrapolating too much from a town that is the 10th most economically deprived and one of the most pro-Brexit in England is unwise. Yet coupled with the early signs that Labour lost ground to the Tories in council votes too, Thursday's elections in England have provided a boost to the government - and left the oppostion searching questions.'

One thing that is odd in this context is that while in the North Boris Johnson is so popular in places like Hartlepool in the North East and yet he is almost persona non-grata north of the border in Scotland. I know an anarcho-syndicalist retired miner from the North East who voted Tory at the last General Election because of his support for Brexit. Yet in Scotland there are reports that some Tories voted tactically for Labour to try to keep the SNP out.

The 'i' newspaper had an article by its political editor, Nigel Morris, titled 'Labour in turmoil: "shattering" results plunge party into crisis' arguing 'The poor showing reopened wounds within Labour ranks as the party as the left blamed Sir Keir's lack of policy direction for its slump in support, while leadership loyalists said the party was still suffering an overhang from Jeremy Corbyn's time in charge.'

The Labour Party last 'Super Thursday' seemed to lack a serious strategy depending on sneers about sleeze and the claims about a 'chumochracy'; this led John McDonnell to write a post-election column in the 'i' entitled 'No wonder we lost: there was a vacuum instead of a vision'.

The FT editorial I referred to earlier suggests:

'Confounding Labour's urgings that it is time for a change after a decade of Toryism, many voters perceive this as a new government. Johnson has not just disassociated himself from the Cameron and May admisitrations but the Thatcherite past ....[and] has shifted Tory politics away from its former devotion to the free market.'

The conclusion is that there has been demographic shifts in politics and not just in England, Scotland, and elsewhere in the UK. Currently the expections of the centre-left in Germany now depend on the Greens more than the Social Democrats. Some like Boris Johnson are managing to combine right-wing popularism with the offer of more public spending. In this way the Johnson government appears to offer a breach with the past. We'll just have to wait and see how this plays out in the long term.

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COVID-19: 'SCIENCE ON TRIAL' ?

THIAGO CARVALHO* in this weekend's Financial Times asks: 'So what have we learned about the limits of science? First, we were reminded that spectacular successes are built on a foundation of decades of basic research. Even the novel, first-in-class vaccines are at the end of a long road. It was slow-going to get to warp speed. We learned that there are no shortcuts to deciphering how a new virus makes us sick (and kills us) and that there is no ignoring the importance of human diversity for cracking this code. Diabetes, obesity, hypertension - we are still finding our way through a comorbidity labyrinth. Most of all, we have learned an old lesson again: science is the art of the soluable. No amount of resorces and personnel, no Manhattan Project, can ensure that science will solve a problem in the absence of a well-stocked toolbox and a solid, painstaking built theoretical framework.'

He reminds us: 'South Korea recorded its first Covid-19 case on January 20. Eleven days later, Spain confirmed its first infection: a German tourist in the Canary Islands. Spain and South Korea have similar populations of about 50m people. As of ublication of this piece, South Korea has had 879 deaths, while Spain reports over 50,000. The west missed its moment.'

* The writer is an immunologist at the Champalimaud Foundation, Lisbon.

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Toby Young's slip-up on Twitter

SOME weeks ago Toby Young, editor of the Lockdown Sceptics website, tweeted: 'New study suggests more than five million Britons have had the coronavirus. Given that -50,000 people have died from it, that means an IFR [infection fatality rate] of 0.1%.'

Tim Harford, the UNDERCOVER ECONOMIST in the Financial Times [19th, DECEMBER 2020] wrote 'There was just one small problem with that tweet: the arithmatic.' Young duly clarified: 'That last tweet was wrong... had a brain fart. If 5 million Brits have been infected and -50,000 have died, that equals an IFR of 1%.'

Tbat suggests that Young's second tweet admits that the virus is 10 times more deadly than he had thought. Meaning that rather that anticipating one death per thousand infections, his updated calculation suggests we should expect 10.

Tim Harford admits that it is easy to slip-up with decimal points, and thus to make false statements about Covid-19. He argues that the 'strongest arguements in favour of lockdowns is the kind of information peddled by some lockdown sceptics.' He writes: 'When you see demonstratably false claims that most people who died with Covid-19 did not die of it, that we are seeing a "casedemic" founded on false postives or most infections are asymptomatic throughout - that's the point you think: gosh, maybe we really can't be trusted after all.'

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'Wild West' Approach to Apprenticeships in the UK

by Brian Bamford

CAMILLA CAVENDISH writing in the FT on 4th, October, wrote: 'The gulf between academic and vocational education in the UK has depressed productivity and exacerbated skills shortages.' She added that: 'Many of the largest shortages reported by employers are in sectors such as construction, health and IT.'

Meanwhile, in the UK only one one in ten adults hold a higher technical qualification as their highest qualification compared to about one in five in Germany and one in three in Canada. Camilla Cavendish estimates that 'as much as 20% of the UK workforce will be significantly under-skilled for their jobs by 2030'.

In this country the government wants to bridge the gap, and according to Ms. Cavendish 'create a "world-class, German-style further education system".' The government has promised a 'lifetime skills guarantee' with the offer of free further education courses to adults without A-levels or the equivalent. Yet Ms. Cavendish insists 'The challenge [for the government] is to make them good enough ans to offer people who didn't enjoy school something better the second time around' and she says: 'Until now, the UK has not done this well.' And she argues that in the 'UK ministers must fight their urge to centralise'.

The trouble is that anyone in the UK can set-up as a joiner without any qualifications. Yet in Germany you can't be a carpenter or plumber unless you have mastered a trade doing an apprenticeship of about three years, often followed by evening classes. The handwerk curriculum is also guided by master craftsmen who know the job, and not what Ms. Cavendish calls: 'pseudo-academics'.

She viciously compares the two systems saying: 'In contrast, vocational training in the UK is a Wild West. There are a bewildering array of more than 12,000 different qualifications. Students are often jammed through courses in which "competition", not actual learning, commands the fee. Sub-contracting is rife, making it hard to monitor quality. There are some excellent courses; but also mis-selling. Good further education courses have also been denuded of funding with their teachers paid less, on average, than their counterparts in schools.'

It may be argued that the German guild system is a bit 'inflexible', and it could opperate a bit like closed shops. Also in the rapidly shifting situation even a gold standard apprenticeship may not last a lifetime. Yet surely it offers a better set-up than we've got now with all kinds of chancers and scallwags passing themselves-off as tradesmen in this country. This decline in workmanship was brought forward with Margaret Thatcher's attack on the trade unions in the 1970s and 80s, and the replacement of the one-to-one traing on the job with the 'pseudo-academics' and the prioritisation of classroom learning.

The 20th century philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein was clearly aware of this vast gulf between practical know-how on the job and speculative classroom efforts to solve problems when he remarked to his student Maurice Drury: 'You think philosophy is difficult enough but I can tell you it is nothing to the difficulty of being a good architect. When I was building the house for for my sister in Vienna I was so completely exhausted at the end of the day that all I could do was go out to a "flick" every night.'

Based on his own building site experiences and observations, Wittgenstein noted the language games employed by building workers giving orders and obeying them in building a wall: such as for example shouting 'brick' and not 'bring me a brick' and so forth to his mate (see his Philosophical Investigations). Classroom learning creates a completely different language game which somehow lacks the quality of the practical situation. In Wittgenstein's terms they are two distinct 'forms of life' and two different 'language games'.

The snobbery of the middle class will naturally continue to prefer the full time graduate degree as the ideal. But it will still not help when we want to get the roof fixed.

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Regulator: On Censoring Carillion Slowly! *

by Brian Bamford

YESTERDAY the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) announced that it intends to take further action against the failed outsourcer Carillion for 'misleading' shareholders with false information.

In a warning notice published the watchdog said that a number of senior executives were 'knowingly concerned' in numerous breaches of market rules, and had acted 'recklessly'

The FCA, had in fact issued warning notices to the company that 'certain previous executive directors' over a series of breaches of the financial rules before the business collapsed into administration in 2018 with liabilities of almost £7bn after a series of financial troubles caught up with the outsourcing giant.

This included giving 'false or misleading signals as to the value of its shares'; 'failing to take reasonable care to ensure that its announcements were not misleading, false or deceptive' and 'failing to take reasonable steps to establish and maintain adequate procedures, systems and controls'.

Yet the FCA has so far failed to as yet issue 'a financial penalty' or comment on possible sanctions against the guilty men et al or to even name the directors involved, because the case is ongoing. The FCA insisted that the warning notices were not final decisions and individuals might appeal against any decisions to its upper tribunal.

Meanwhile, Pro. Prem Sikka from Sheffield university and a member of the House of Lords, told the Financial Times: 'There are 30,000 small and medium-sized enterprises who have lost money, thousands of employees who have lost jobs and pension rights, and the regulator has taken two years to do little or virtually nothing.'

Carillion, which had 43,00 employees including 19,000 in the UK, was liquidated in January 2018 with £29m in cash and £7bn in liabilities, leaving the goverment to step in and pick up the pieces to ensure delivery of vital services including school meals and cleaning hospitals and prisons.

An inquiry into the collapse carried out by MPs described the collapse as 'a story of recklessness, hubris and greed', and said that the firm’s business model was 'a relentless dash for cash'.

For the individuals in question, the FCA has recourse to a number of additional penalties.

Carillion and the individuals in question will have 14 days to make representations to the Regulatory Decision Committee (RDC).

At the same time we can name some of the culprits because MPs haave demanded that Richard Adam, a former finance director, Richard Howson, a former chief executive, and Philip Green, a former chairman be held to account for their role in the biggest UK corporate failure in recent years. It is also the case that the Financial Reporting Council is investigating the conduct of Mr. Adams as well as another former Carillion finance director, Zafar Khan.

During their tenure, the company ran up debts and sold assets so that it could continue paying dividends to shareholders. It also paid 'performance-related bonusess to executives just months before its collapse' according the today's Financial Times.

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* SOME HISTORY OF THE CARILLION COLLAPSE

ON Tuesday 15 January 2019, Northern Voices reported: All Carillion's victims.

AFTER a year the fall of Carillion is still having consequences with many sub-contractors having lost huge amounts. Today in Construction News Rob Davies spoke with some of those affected to find out why:

In the aftermath of Carillion’s failure, there were concerns that its liquidation would lead to multiple collapses in the contractor’s supply chain.

Unite union criticises lack of action

Unite, Britain’s largest trade union, bemoaned a lack of action taken against former Carillion directors, who were accused by a committee of MPs of “recklessness, hubris and greed”, reiterating calls for a criminal investigation.

The Unite assistant general secretary, Gail Cartmail, said: 'It is staggering that a year after the biggest corporate failure in modern UK history the government has carried on as though it is business as normal.

'The fact that no one involved in Carillion has yet had any form of action taken against them, demonstrates either that the regulators are failing to do their jobs or that existing laws are too weak. If it is the latter then we need better, stronger laws.

'A year on from Carillion’s collapse the government needs to stop prevaricating and start taking effective action to drive bandit capitalism out of the UK.'

The government has introduced measures to make companies in charge of major public sector contracts draw up “living wills” to ensure the smooth operation of the services they provide in the event of financial failure.

But Unite said the measures did not go far enough to reform the system of public procurement. A spokeswoman for the Cabinet Office, which manages the outsourcing of public sector contracts and faced criticism over its role in the administration of the bust of Carillion, said the government had put in place measures to prevent a repeat.

She said: 'This government has taken great strides to improve how we work with the private sector, including requiring companies to demonstrate prompt payment to suppliers and piloting "living wills" for critical contracts, allowing contingency plans to be quickly put into place if needed.'

The accounting watchdog Financial Reporting Council (FRC), which was criticised by MPs for being 'chronically passive' over the audits of Carillion by firms including KPMG, is still investigating the circumstances of its failure.

Aja Romano asks ‘Can I still read Harry Potter?’

AJA ROMANO claims to have been a Harry Potter superfan for yonks! So much so that the BBC has invited her to present a 30-minute Radio 4 documentary called: ‘Can I still read Harry Potter?’

Alas, in June this year J.K. Rowling ventured her views on the trans issue resulting in Romano rethinking a treasured childhood allegiance. On Thursday Radio 4 at 11.30am addresses questions about cancel culture, safe spaces, the appeal of Potter for LGBTQ readers and the new online relationship between authors and fans. Meanwhile, the Financial Times critic reports that Rowling has suffered a increase in sales since furore about her comments began. ***********************************************************

Query for Prof. Oswald on Lockdown & Restrictions

TODAY in the Financial Times Peter Cave writes a letter in reply to Pro. Andrew Oswald*:

'Professor Andrew Oswald asks for a cost-benefit analysis of the virus inspired restrictions, taking into account wellbeing and intergenerational unfairness (letters, November 3). That request raises two questions.

'First, how do you do a cost-benefit analysis of wellbeing and fairness? Many of the vulnerable and elderly underwent war and postwar deprivations that that would horrify many of today's young. How will analysts take such lack of wellbeing and unfairness into account?

'Secondly, while analysts analyse away, what should be done right now? Sheild the elderly and vulnerable? Leave other lives unrstricted? They forget that many elderly sweep the streets, clean the hospitals and work in factories: some are well-trained carers, nurses and doctors. Who would do their jobs? Further, many live in crowded multigenerational housing, unsheided.

'I conclude that we are back to medical and care services, underfunded for years, lacking capacity to deal with the many increasing Covid and non-Covid demands, unless restrictions are imposed. No cost-benefit analysis can magically show that conclusion to be false.'

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* Pro. Oswald wrote a paper entitled 'The Case for Releasing the Young from Lockdown: A Briefing Paper for Policymakers'::

"The UK is ‘locked down’ because of coronavirus (COVID-19). No clear exit strategy currently exists. This paper suggests a possible way forward that combines elements from economics and epidemiology. The paper proposes as a policy a ‘release’ from lockdown of the young cohort of UK citizens aged between age 20 and 30 who do not live with parents.

"The paper calculates that there are approximately 4.2 million UK individuals who fall into this 20-30 age-band and who live outside the original parental home. Of those, 2.6 million work in the private sector, so unless some corrective action is taken they are likely to be extremely harshly affected, financially, when compared to employees in the public sector.

"The paper argues that a young-workforce release of this kind would lead to substantial economic and societal benefits without enormous health costs to the country. In this way, the nation might begin to move forward in the footsteps of the young."

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David Graeber (1961-2020): ethnographer, anthropologist and the study of everyday life

David Graeber (February 12, 1961 – September 2, 2020

David Graeber, anthropologist and anarchist author of bestselling books on bureaucracy and economics including Bullshit Jobs: A Theory and Debt: The First 5,000 Years, has died aged 59.

On Thursday Graeber’s wife, the artist and writer Nika Dubrovsky, announced on Twitter that Graeber had died in hospital in Venice the previous day. The cause of death is not yet known.

Renowned for his biting and incisive writing about bureaucracy, politics and capitalism, Graeber was a leading figure in the Occupy Wall Street movement and professor of anthropology at the London School of Economics (LSE) at the time of his death. His final book, The Dawn of Everything: a New History of Humanity, written with David Wengrow, will be published in autumn 2021.

THE GUARDIAN

Sian Cain

Thu 3 Sep 2020 16.18 BST

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AS an ethnomethodologist I immediately recognise the anthropological approach of David Graeber. For example in an essay he asks:

'If there’s a line to get on a crowded bus, do you wait your turn and refrain from elbowing your way past others even in the absence of police?'

IN the 1990s, members of our Ethnography group John Lee and a colleague at Manchester University did some research work on queuing in France and found that although people didn't queue in a line at metro stations in Paris etc. there was none the less a pattern with rules that could be applied without any formal enforcement. I notice that in Spain that people didn't form lines at stalls in the market place but when approaching a stall simply asked the question 'Quien es el ultimo?'. Once that was known it was not necessary to stand in a rigid line and one could freely chat and wait one's turn.*

In the UK there are regional differences and Northerners will, I think, notice a difference between people using the Underground in London and between folk waiting for the No.11 bus in say Chelsea. The Underground will seem a rougher experience for the first time user I think.

The Spanish experience will also vary according to where you are and what context: villages and small shops have slightly different customs. In Morocco, I noticed that people sleep in the bus stations over night before catching an early morning bus. Tickets were often not on sale in advance of the bus ariving because touts would buy them up and offer them for resale at a premium. And when the bus arrived at Rabat bus station a wrestling match would break out as to who could get to the front. When this happen once to me and I was forced to wait flexing my muscles I ostentatiously took off my jacket and handed it to my wife; whereupon an observant man selling the tickets quickly arranged that we got a seat on the next bus.

TIM HARFORD the 'Undercover Economist on the FT' has examined the problem of queuing thus:

Mathematicians reckon the odds are against you. If you choose a queue at random, there will be a line on either side of you, and thus a two-thirds chance that one will be faster.

Economists take a more sophisticated view. David Friedman, for instance, argues that the relevant discipline is financial market theory. Choosing the right queue is like picking the right portfolio of shares: if it were obvious which shares were good value, they wouldn’t be good value any more. If it were obvious which queue would be quickest, everyone would join it. Naive attempts to “beat the market” will fail.

Then there is “efficient market” theory – you can’t out-perform a random choice of shares because public information is immediately incorporated into share prices. In truth, most markets are not efficient and thus it is possible for an informed decision-maker to beat them. Even if supermarket queues were efficient, no queue would be a superior bet, because expert supermarket customers would quickly join any queue that was likely to be quicker.

More likely, queues are not efficient because few have much to gain from becoming expert queuers. Some have other considerations, such as minimising the distance walked, while others shop rarely, so the calculations are more trouble than they are worth.

And unlike the stock market, which a financial wizard can make more efficient by outweighing the foolish decisions of small traders, in the supermarket a single expert queuer has a limited effect on the distribution of queuing times.

I can advise you to steer clear of elderly ladies with vouchers, but more advice would be self-defeating. Too many of your rivals would read it.

First published at ft.com.

Many on the left, including some anarchists, would regard this focus on queuing as trivial. Yet the queue is central to most people's lives. In some cases in some countries it has led to riots.

Yet, Davd Graeber, the anarchist, has written: 'The truth is we probably can’t even imagine half the problems that will come up when we try to create a democratic society; still, we’re confident that, human ingenuity being what it is, such problems can always be solved, so long as it is in the spirit of our basic principles — which are, in the final analysis, simply the principles of fundamental human decency.'

* How NOT to Queue in Spain

If there was one thing that would set aside a Brit from say a Spaniard more than anything else it would probably be their attitude to queuing.

Whether a Brit examining the etiquette of queuing in Spain, or - worse still - a Brit berating a foreigner´s lack of understanding of queuing etiquette in the UK one thing is clear : Queuing etiquette is - or lack of it - is quite possibly the one thing that will drive a mild mannered granny into in a raving psychotic.

I was having a conversation on this subject with my intercambio language exchange partner the other day : What exactly is the etiquette with regards to queuing in Spain, and ditto with the UK ?

Juanjo explained to me that there wasn´t any etiquette when it came to queuing in general in Spain. In smaller Towns and Villages it may be considered polite to let the elder generation go first in certain circumstance, however, in shops it was usual practice to simply ask "¿ Quien es la Ultima ?" - which means " Who is last one [in the queue]? ".

It seem that this is time honoured tradition that has served generations of Spaniards perfectly well for generations, ensuring that the last person to enter a shop knows who the customer to be served in front of them is. That way everybody knows there place and is free to wander off or chat with friends etc...

The system only becomes problematic when in wanders clueless Guiri and either jumps his place, or fails to inform the person entering the shop behind him, where his place in the queuing system is.

As far as said Guiri is concerned, the fact that there is not a linear column of people stretching neatly away from the counter, means that there is in fact no queue.

And because said Guiri is both unaware of the existence of the etiquette he alone is responsible for the total collapse of law and order in the local Panaderia, and quite often leaves the shop frustrated at the "bunfight" that he has just caused (see what I did ? that Grammar school education wasn´t for nothing ...) and convinced that the very concept of queuing in Spain does not exist.

Juanjo conceded that as far as getting served in a bar, restaurant or market stall was concerned then queuing, as us Brits would know it, didn´t exist, and he just laughed when I asked about the etiquette of queuing for public transport.

(Have you ever wondered why you never see bus loads of Spaniards at Alton Towers ?)

On the subject of Public transport, Juanjo told me he was almost lynched once whilst on a business trip to the UK when he saw his bus approaching whilst walking with colleagues towards the Bus stop. Worried that the Bus wasn´t going to hang about longer than was necessary to let the passengers get off he sprinted down the pavement and leapt onto the Bus - seemingly ignoring the column of passengers waiting in the rain. His British colleagues did the decent thing and let him do so, casually joining the end of the queue, and letting each of the passengers shoot him their best icy glare in turn whilst waiting their turn in the queue.

I explained that I wouldn´t have been at all surprised to hear that there would have been queues of British women waiting quietly in a queue to take their place for a lifeboat on the deck of the Titanic.

Even when waiting in the Casualty department of A&E you still see some people at the triage station smiling sheepishly as the duty nurse decides that the 9" nail that they have embedded through their eyeball warrants them jumping further along the queue than the guy who just stubbed his toe.

It´s a disease we Brits are born with and will more than likely never be cured.

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Walking the Covid tightrope: a Bluffer's Guide

Taking a chance on exposure to Covid-19

TIM HARFORD at the end of August in his Financial Times column measured the risks of going outside and the perils of the pandemic on the street. A friend of his asked: 'What I want is a survival guide for life in the age of Covid,' The man is in his sixties and has barely left home since March mostly because of the risks of travelling on the underground seem too great. Yet the man knows that his instincts may be wrong.

Tim Harford writes: 'The typical English resident, then, has a 44 in a million chance each day of being infected. In the US, the midpoint of epidemiological models suggests around 150,000 new infections a day, or 450 per million people per day, about 10 times the risk in England. In South Korea, despite the recent spike in confirmed case, the risk of infections is probably closer to 1 or 2 per million people per day.'

These averages include folk who take precautions, people who work in exposed professions and everyone inbetween. So Mr Harford says he can only guess how much his friend's risk increases if he should decide to venture outside. Yet he estimates that for his friend Covid-19 currently presents a background risk of a one in a million chance of death or lasting harm, every day. And he claims that the 'risk of death alone is one in 2m.'.

Finally Tim Harford FT article concludes: 'But simply existing in a country where the virus is uppressed but circulating is not so risky. It depends on age, gender, geography, behaviour and much else. But on average it is half a micro-mort a day-similar to taking a bath, a going skiing, or a short motorbike ride, and consideringly less risky than a scruba dive or a skydive.'

Later Tim Harford following much publicity about the risk of taking a bath, has had to admit that he was wrong and that in truth one would have take a bath for a year to run an equivalent risk, but the risk of sky diving, and scuba diving is considerably more dangerous. What really worries Mr. Harford, the host on the Radio Four program 'MORE OR LESS' dedicated to understaning statistics, is the danger of the virous surging back; and he writes: 'We cannot afford to relax just yet, because we will be walking a tightrope this autumn.'

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Another Outing For Mr Nobody

by Les May

LISTENING to the news reports of the response by the different agencies one might have expected to have taken action earlier to shut down the Leicester ‘sweat shops’ I had a strong sense of deja vu; I’ve heard it all before.  I saw it in my own town a few years ago when a ‘marked register’, a precaution against voter fraud, went missing, possibly stolen, from a polling station.  There should have been a police investigation; there wasn’t.  A candidate who should have been informed that this had happened and wasn’t, tried to pursue the matter and found nobody would take responsibility.  He described it as the ‘sloping shoulders syndrome’. I saw it again when a Rochdale Labour councillor, Faisal Rana, who had voted twice in the election failed to declare his interests within the specified time.   Council officers wriggled and squirmed to avoid taking any action.   Once again nobody would take responsibility. It reached scandal proportions with regard to the Grenfell Tower fire.   It was Mr Nobody who was responsible yet again.

In Leicester it not even true to say the existence of the sweat shops and what was happening in the decrepit buildings that housed them was ‘an open secret’; it wasn’t even a secret!  A journalist had written an article for the Financial Times drawing attention to them.  In January 2020 Tory MP Andrew Bridgen had raised serious concerns over the conditions in garment factories.  Nobody took notice.

The agencies which might have been involved, HMRC to check no one was fiddling the furlough scheme, the Health and Safety Executive that social distancing by workers was being enforces, the Fire Service that the decrepit buildings were not a fire risk, the Police to check that no one was being forced to work in unsafe conditions against their will, do to some extent have the excuse that that they were no asked to intervene by the body that has ultimate responsibility for what goes on in Leicester, the local council. It seems Mr Nobody was responsible once again.

What is perhaps most disturbing about this is that responsibility for keeping the rate of transmission of the SarsCov2 virus which causes Covid19 disease is being placed in the hands of local councils.  Will Mr Nobody be responsible if they don’t do the job properly?  Figures released on Friday show that Rochdale where I live has 149 cases which is an infection rate of 68 per 100,000 of the population. (These figures are based on data for the fortnight up to 12 July)

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-manchester-53448533

If you actually look at the advice being given by RMBC to bring down the rate of infection, limit visitors in your home to two, wear a face mask in public and keep two metres apart from at all times they are not really much different from the vague advice coming from Boris Johnson et al.  Where is the guidance about work?  About travel?   About eating out?  But should I really expect better from a council which feels it is acceptable that a councillor who admitted voting twice in the same election should be appointed to a committee which deals with planning applications?

http://democracy.rochdale.gov.uk/mgUserInfo.aspx?UID=6271

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The dark factories in Britain’s garment trade

Leicester's Shameful Industries & Covid-19

ON the 17th,May 2018 Sarah O'Connor in the Financial Times [FT] asked: 'How is it possible to make cheap clothes in a country where the minimum wage for over-25s is £7.83 an hour?' 

She suggested:   'Online retailers’ nimbleness and lower overheads allow them to pay more for products while still giving consumers a good price. In addition, there are manufacturers that use technology to make clothes more efficiently' and she added 'factory owners in Leicester say some take a different route, one more reminiscent of the 19th century than the 21st.  They call these places “dark factories”.'  

At that time it seemed part of May 17 2018’s garment industry in Leicester had become detached from UK employment law, 'a country within a country', where '£5 an hour is considered the top wage', even though that is illegal.  And one man said he had worked in places with blocked fire escapes, old machines and no holiday or sick pay.

Now a week ago Sarah O'Connor in the same FT wrote:
'Covid-19 has found its way into the neglected cracks in our economies. In the US, Europe and Asia, poor working conditions in care homes, meat plants and factories have helped to spread the virus.  This week [3rd, July 2020], a campaign group blamed clothing sweatshops in the English city of Leicester for contributing to a local surge in cases.  The story of Leicester’s garment district is worth knowing, because it reveals something important about how the British economy evolved in the decade between the financial crisis and this pandemic.  It also demonstrates what it will take for the country to “build back better”, as UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson promised to do this week.'

Sarah O'Connor describes how in 2018, she investigated Leicester’s clothing industry which she concludes was 'a bizarre microeconomy where £4 to £4.50 an hour was the going rate for sewing machinists in many factories (£3 for packers).'  Based on tiny sweatshops that were crammed into crumbling old buildings and legally compliant factories using expensive machines were being outcompeted by illegally underpaid humans.

When she exposed this industry two years ago she likened it to be more like the  19th Century than the 21st Century.

It seems that large scale buyers of Leicester’s clothes are based online as 'fast fashion' retailers, which have done well in the pandemic owing to the proximity and speed of their UK suppliers.   And Boohoo, which sources about 40 per cent of its clothing in the UK, much of it in Leicester, prospered in lockdown by switching nimbly to producing leisurewear for the homebound, while rivals were left with shipping containers from Asia full of summer party dresses.

It seems that the big boy on the block Boohoo’s co-founder Mahmud Kamani has become a billionaire and is set for a £50m bonus if Boohoo’s share price continues to rise.  And the campaign group Labour Behind the Label has alleged that the some of company’s suppliers contributed to the spread of coronavirus; meanwhile Boohoo says it adhered to all government guidance and that its supply chain adheres to all labour laws, though it does not publish a list of its suppliers.

Sarah O'Connor reports that:
'Leicester’s sweatshops, which comprise part but not all of the city’s garment sector, were an open secret even before my investigation began. In fact, a senior Whitehall official first told me about them.  A local official in Leicester warned me in 2018 that, if I published my story, I would cause mass unemployment for people with no other options. In fact, nothing changed.  After publication, I was invited to testify at a parliamentary select committee hearing into the costs of online fast fashion.  The government rejected every one of the committee’s recommendations.'


Ms. O'Connor writes:  'As unemployment rises in the months ahead, it will be vital to focus on jobs.  But to prioritise quantity while turning a blind eye to quality would be to repeat past mistakes.' 

Tellingly she points to the crucial coming dilemma:  'As well as the feared harm to public health, Leicester’s economy will suffer from a prolonged lockdown and fall further behind more prosperous parts of the UK.  So much for “levelling up”.  In truth, there was always an economic cost to allowing labour exploitation to flourish.  The garment factories are a microcosm of Britain’s productivity problem.  Job creation boomed after the financial crisis and ministers did not worry initially about their quality.  They pushed up the minimum wage but left it badly under-enforced, while cutting back health and safety inspections to free up “entrepreneurialism”.'

This is all too reminiscent of other industries which have suffered like the British building trade and outsourcing.

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Blue-Collar Workers & Covid Secure Workplaces

Return to work 'fumbled presentation' by Boris
by Brian Bamford

TODAY the editorial in the Financial Times took a dim view of last Sunday's Prime Minister Boris Johnson's TV address and his plans for a phased economic reopening and scheme for rebuilding public confidence.  The FT editor writes:  'The fumbled presentation, and impression that not all elements had been fully thought through, undermined the impact. they also risk widening the social and economic divide between those who can work from home and those compelled to return to their workplace.'

The restart in the government's 'Plan to Rebuild' does have some credible grounds for easing-up on the lock-down so long as the physical distancing rules are intact.  

But the Sunday statement lacked clarity and provoked confusion as today's FT editorial showed:  'Making the statement without explaining sufficient, safe transport would be available - or whether workplaces could be guaranteed "Covid-secure" - suggested a more cavalier attitude towards the welfare of blue-collar workers than stay-at-home "knowledge" workers.'

For example men in some blue-collar jobs are already more than twice as likely as the general workforce to have died from Covid-19 according to official figures. The Office of National Statistics found that the highest mortality rate amoung men working as security guards, with bus and taxi drivers, chefs and retail staff also among those more affected. 

Francis O'Grady, the Trade Union Congress's general secretary, warned of 'chaos' if people were forced back into work tomorrow as promised especially if their workplaces had not been prepared for proper social distancing.  At the same time, it seems, there has been haggling between business leaders and employers about a return to work. 

The FT which had previously excused the government's earlier errors before it later introduced the lock-down is now arguing:  'Mr Johnson's breezy assertion that workers should explore cycling or walking, and avoid public transport, betrays a metropolitan middle-class failure to appreciate how much more difficult that may may be for those in rural or small-town areas.'

Now the FT is saying:  'After earlier mis-steps, the government had a chance to prove it was getting on top of coronavirus policymaking, but has flunked it.' 

Today I rung my eldest lad who works on the shopfloor at a fibre glass company in Burnley, he hasn't yet gone back to work and is expecting to be furloughed for the next few weeks.  It's not going to be easy to return to anything like normal.

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North West TUC: post pandemic workers' consensus

Introduction

The Covid-19 pandemic is the latest crisis to expose western economic and social orthodoxies as wholly inadequate for meeting modern global challenges which also include climate change, poverty, war and the mass displacement of people. In the UK, massive state intervention has been necessary, not least to ameliorate some of the effects of 40 years of austerity which intensified following the 2008 global financial crash. Our population has been exposed, not just to a deadly virus, but also to the importance of key - previously undervalued - workers (producers) and the impotence of markets.

The government’s initial laissez-fair response which sought to develop a Darwinian “herd immunity” has been forced to evolve quickly, take heed of progressive voices such as the TUC and now includes measures to underwrite the incomes of tens of millions of people – not out of benevolence but in order to maintain consumer demand and the stability of financial institutions in the short-term.

When organs of monopoly capital such as the Financial Times¹ begin speculating about a post-pandemic economy requiring “radical reform” in which “public services [are] investments rather than liabilities… [when we must] look for ways to make labour markets less insecure” and “redistribution” is necessary, it becomes obvious that conditions are ripe for fundamental change. Things probably will never be the same again but our movement needs to be clear that minor reforms do not represent the sum total of our ambitions – even if, in the early days of an anticipated backlash or intensified class conflict, they appear to represent a welcome alternative to the default prospect of a period of much longer and much harsher austerity.

Aims for a post-pandemic consensus

Many workplaces, from hospitals to warehouses, supermarkets to schools and mail depots to care homes are unable any longer to be managed through a system of strict command and control. Workplace pluralism has broken out and is now recognised as necessary to optimise organisational efficiency and safety which is essential for the effectiveness of the public response to a national crisis and represents an opportunity for a renaissance of trade union activity.

Taking the existing provisions of the TUC Campaign Plan, Charter for a new deal for working people and considering the spirit behind the motions submitted to the postponed 2020 Annual Conference of the TUC North West, the Executive Group has considered the appropriate immediate tasks. These assume that the TUC and affiliated unions will form a functional part of the interventions required from civic society if we are to emerge from the Covid-19 pandemic with a renewed relevance and appetite to deliver progress for the people we represent:

A stronger voice at work

The producers in the economy have assumed a new significance and found renewed respect throughout the public health crisis. Medical and social care professions, shop and distribution workers, engineers and other workers in the fields of education, communications, sanitation and transport; public sector employees engaged in welfare, justice, housing, social work and beyond; and thousands of other jobs and vocations which were previously undervalued at best or exploited, and even demonised at worst, but are now held in higher regard by society at large. Their workplace voice is being heard more clearly and with more confidence than at any time since the peak of collective bargaining influence in the mid-1970s with examples including the demands for personal protective equipment in hospitals, the practical and academic arrangements for schools to remain open for those who need them but closed for the majority of students and the social distancing regimes which are now routine in factories, depots, warehouses and shops.

Going forward, a recalibrated industrial balance tipped in our favour is essential; backed up with a range of new and legally enforceable, collective workplace rights to secure effective mechanisms for regulating relations between workers and employers of any size. International Labour Organisation conventions and publications such as the Institute of Employment Rights’ Guide to a Progressive Industrial Relations Bill provide a template for such an initiative to be progressed by the TUC and supportive organisations, consistent with existing policy and in conjunction with affiliates.

Employment, security and flexible working

The lockdown announced on 23 March has exposed a range of inefficiencies in traditional ways of working and forced a reconsideration of how technology can assist workers rather than be used to replace them. Video conferencing and digital communications have become commonplace and have replaced physical meetings - saving time, stress and significant levels of pollution from unnecessary travel on congested transport networks.

The process of “furloughing” (Job Retention Scheme), introduced in no small part as a product of TUC lobbying, challenges a whole plethora of assumptions about the role of the state and its relationship with industry, incomes policy, the markets and maintenance of some sort of temporary order in the wider economy. Moreover, the scandal of precarious employment, bogus self-employment and casualisation more generally, now needs to force a fundamental re-think about job security – not least because as many as 11 million workers are expected to fall between the gaps in the government’s emergency provisions.

Globalisation and global markets have proven unable to provide an adequate response to the crisis, as exemplified by the absence of a domestic manufacturing sector capable of responding as quickly and effectively as required, for example, to produce medical ventilators, clinical gowns, masks and other types of PPE. With UK business investment² and productivity³ continuing to decline and global debt to GDP at historic levels⁴, the recovery from the crisis requires significant state intervention, specifically in respect of long-term domestic industrial development, research, skills and job creation, including new Green Jobs, towards a policy of full employment.

Flexible working and home-working have proven effective in ways that employers might not have previously thought possible and, with a few exceptions, unions have been able to secure pragmatic agreements on the use of discipline, capability, performance management, redundancy consultation and other Human Resource Management initiatives during the crisis. This reorientation needs to be secured after the crisis subsides with a transformation of management techniques and practices which are leveraged by confident workers with a better understanding of industrial relations.

Welfare, tax and public services

The fragility of social care provision has been brought into even sharper focus throughout the crisis – not least in respect of the lack of coordination around the provision of Personal Protective Equipment for an enormously undervalued group of professional Carers. Though just one example of the failure of market provision, this can provide the basis for a popular campaign of nationalisation and insourcing of a wide range services which have been removed from democratic control since the post-war consensus made way for neo-liberalism in the 1970’s but which have been demonstrated to be essential for societies to thrive and in reducing inequality.

This requires a new way of thinking about who contributes to society and how those contributions are valued. Hedge-fund managers and financiers were nowhere near the top of the list of “key workers” as identified by the government⁵ but to ensure that all citizens and corporations meet their social responsibility obligations it is necessary to re-evaluate how taxes on high salaries, profits and accumulated assets can contribute to a transformational programme of societal and economic reform. Such a programme does of course require sufficient numbers of trained staff to collect tax owed and circumvent domestic and international loopholes which currently allow and facilitate large-scale tax avoidance and evasion.

Reforms of the type described can provide a solid basis for root-and-branch social security reform in the interests of families; sick, disabled or retired workers and the professional staff who care for them.

Safe, satisfying and dignified work

1 Virus lays bare the frailty of the social contract - Financial Times, 3 April 2020

2 Net investment by UK financial institutions - ONS, March 2019

3 UK productivity shows weak growth before coronavirus hit - City AM, 7 April 2020

4 Global Debt-to-GDP Ratio Hit an All-Time High Last Year - Bloomberg, 13 January 2020

5 Guidance for schools, childcare providers, colleges and local authorities in England on maintaining educational provision - Gov.uk, 19 March 2020

Financial Times: Australia to bring manufacturing home

Alice Woodhouse Apr 15, 02:56:

Coronavirus shortages prompt Australia to bring manufacturing home
Coronavirus shortages prompt Australia to bring manufacturing home Jamie Smyth in Sydney Australia has been forced to rethink its industrial policy after an acute shortage of ventilators and protective equipment exposed what critics labelled its “dependence” on China.  As part of the country’s effort to tackle its coronavirus outbreak, Canberra has promised to nurture local manufacturing to ensure it is less reliant on global supply chains.  “Open trading has been a core part of our prosperity over centuries,” Scott Morrison, Australia’s prime minister, told parliament.  “But equally, we need to look carefully at our domestic economic sovereignty as well.”  Canberra has tightened restrictions on foreign takeovers and is now trying to ensure it can source critical raw materials, make vital components and manufacture the medical products required to boost self-sufficiency during crises.

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'ON CERTAINTY' in the Coronavirus

 On Being Cock-Sure about Covid-19
by Brian Bamford

SHORTLY before he died, Ludwig Wittgenstein wrote:  "I do philosophy now like an old woman who is always mislaying something and having to look for it again: now her spectacles, now her keys."*

This humility of the philosopher contrasts with the terrifying certainty that is being thrust upon us daily by various forces from the political left and the right.
Yet it fairly describes the dilemma facing governments at the moment over the coronavirus pandemic.

Today I have had two e-mails in my in-box:   one a Special Issue (March 2020) of Labour Internationalist, containing a dramatic statement dated 24 March 2020 on the Covid-19 pandemic by the Organising Committee for the Reconstitution of the Fourth International (OCRFI), and another from 'Defend Our NHS' is now confidently declaring:  'The coronavirus letter you’ve just been sent by Johnson is a lie.'

And the Labour Internationalist with bold determined conviction in a subtitle declares:  'The failed capitalist system and the governments that serve its interests:  they are guilty and responsible for the growth of the coronavirus pandemic!'

'Wishful Thinking'

It is not only the Marxists who are brimming over with confident conclusions, in that case catostrophic conclusions, but we all like to embrace wishful thinking.  Tim Harford in his recent column in the Financial Times warned:  'Wishful thinking is a powerful thing', and he went on to write:  'When I read about a new disease modelling study from the University of Oxford, I desperately wanted to believe.  It is the most prominent exploration of the "tip of the iceberg hypothesis", which suggests that the majority of coronavirus infections are so mild as to have passed unrecorded by the authorities and perhaps even by the people infected.'

If true?  That could mean that many of us have already had the virus and have probably developed some degree of immunity to it.  'Herd Immunity' was the concept that in the earlier stages of this crisis the government seemed to be following.

Yesterday, Gideon Meyerowitz-Katz, an epidemiologist Sydney, Australia, wrote an essay in ScienceAlert on this approach:
'It's hard to predict things in a pandemic.  The situation changes so much on a daily basis that everything you thought you knew last week is wrong by the end of the day.  Things are changing so fast that even the solid certainties that we thought we were sure of – the reproductive rate, the symptoms of the infection, the key to making a good quarantine – are suspect and need to be re-evaluated.'

Despite all the bluster of the cock-sure political lobbyists in the current crisis, there are still a lack of reliable facts and data to form firm conclusions.

Gideon Meyerowitz-Katz continued:
'But among all this uncertainty, I can say for sure that there is one thing that I would never have seen coming: the discussion about herd immunity. It is so out of the blue that the first time a journalist asked my opinion on whether it was effective for the coronavirus, I literally laughed out loud because I assumed they were joking.'

About 15-years ago another epidemiologist, Prof. Ioannidis, published a study entitled 'Why Most Published Research Findings Are False'.  He wrote on March 17th, this year, that Covid-19 'might be a one-in-a-century evidence fiasco', because some infections are being missed, and we have no idea how many.  Consequently we have no idea how deadly Covid-19 actually is.

Hence, there is still no certainty to how things will turn out with the pandemic.

'The will to certitude'

Wittgenstein's 'On Certainty' was a text that can plausibly be interpreted as an anthem against the human will to certitude and mastery of the world.  Most obviously, it reminds us that uncertainty is an intimate, everyday matter.  There is a personal dimension of the experience of not knowing exactly who we are, what our world is and where both we and our world are heading.  Big talk of global spikes and planetary spectres of uncertainty is one thing.  Daily living with uncertainty is another. 

This is why particularly we shouldn't be surprise if the Marxists around Labour Internationalist want to declare a forthcoming catastrophy in the making owing to capitalist government's handling of the pandemic.  Or that a lobby group for the NHS want to use the current crisis as part of its campaign strategy to get more funds.  

There’s a French proverb that runs rien n’est sûr que la chose incertaine (nothing’s certain but uncertainty).  This could easily be a motto for democracy.  Considered as a political form and as a whole way of life, democracy is like no other.  The totalitarian or authoritarian mind craves the comfort of a political line that resolve the uncertainties.

But how do the uncertainties of our age compare with the great religious turmoil of the late medieval and early modern period, masterfully analysed by Jean Delumeau: the fears of damnation and death mobilised by the church and compounded by episodes of military violence, famine, disease and the widespread belief in witchcraft and other forces of magic?

The unknown consequences of the current crisis could well give rise to political delusions or even religious expectations.  We could anticipate that uncertainty is fickle and capricious tormentor of the human condition and conviction.

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*  Nothing is forever. Uncertainty, the twin of certainty, cannot be banished from human affairs. Not even taxes and death are certain, we could say.  Although Wittgenstein doesn’t put things this way, truth claims, paradoxically, stir up doubts about truth.  Truth is a contaminant of truth.  Its yearning for certainty calls into question things that are taken for granted.  Nothing is certain but the uncertainty of the unforeseen.  Hence Wittgenstein appeals for greater humility about what we know, or suppose we know.

Germany's coronavirus infections climb but deaths remain low

 
Experts debate ‘anomaly’ as other countries record higher death rates

Experts have been debating Germany’s ‘coronavirus anomaly’, as cases continue to grow in the country but deaths caused by the virus remain low. 

Currently, Germany has confirmed over 16,000 cases of coronavirus infections among its citizens – the virus which causes the respiratory disease COVID-19.
Although the virus is spreading fast within the country, the confirmed number of deaths has remained low – standing at 44, according to data from John Hopkins University.

In comparison to the UK, which has far fewer confirmed cases – just over 2,500 – the number of deaths of individuals who tested positive for the virus is 138, more than in Germany.

The disparity between Germany’s confirmed cases and death rate has left experts trying to explain why some countries have lower case numbers but higher deaths than the country, including France and the US.

Some have attributed the low death rate to the high level of testing in the country, with Lothar Wieler, president of the Robert Koch Institute, revealing that German laboratories are undertaking approximately 160,000 test per week.
That is well above the number of tests being carried out in other countries in Europe and around the world. The high level of testing allows for the identification of individuals who have little to no symptoms, and hence have a higher chance of survival.

Also, Germany’s confirmed cases are more likely to reflect the true number of infections because of this widespread testing, compared to other countries where the confirmed cases likely do not reflect the real picture of the virus’ spread.

So far, the majority of those confirmed to have the contracted the virus in Germany are under the age of 60 – over 80% – which may also explain the low death rate.

“Especially at the beginning of the outbreak in Germany, we saw many cases connected to people returning from skiing trips and similar holidays,” said Matthias Stoll, a professor of medicine at the University of Hanover, in the Financial Times.

“These are predominantly people who are younger than 80 and who are fit enough to ski or engage in similar activities. Their risk of dying is comparatively low,” he added.

Despite the relatively low levels of death in Germany, experts have warned that the country is still in the early stages of the outbreak, and the mortality rate is expected to grow.

“We are still at a relatively early stage in the outbreak in Germany. The overwhelming share of patients became infected only in the last week or two, and we will probably see more severe cases in the future as well as a change in the fatality rate,” Hans-Georg Kräusslich, a professor of medicine and the head of virology at the University Hospital in Heidelberg, told the Financial Times.

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Epidemiologist Neil Ferguson caught coronavirus!

by Brian Bamford

YESTERDAY's editorial in the Financial Times declared 'Johnson is coming to grips with the virus'.  Yet only a week ago the same FT editor had argued that 'The [then] UK approach is ... potentially more costly in human lives than strict containment measures, if the latter do succeed in stopping the virus in its tracks.'  The FT editor was concerned, a week ago, that if Chris Whitty, England's chief medical officer, was right in estimating a 'reasonable worst-case scenario' was that 80% of Britain's 66m people would be infected then the death toll could be 500,000 - almost doubling the UK's normal annual death rate.

Last week it also turned out that the epidemiologist Neil Ferguson had reported having a 'dry cough' and a high fever; the classic symptoms of the coronavirus.  Last Wednesday he tweeted that he felt 'a bit grotty'.

A test soon showed he had been infected by the virus he was modeling.  At this time it's a sobering thought!


Ferguson is a mathematician and an epidemiologist whose work on the spread of Covid-19 is informing policy in not only the UK but also France, the US and other countries as well.  The centre he founded with colleagues at Imperial College, the MRC Centre for Global Infectious Disease Analysis, collaborates with the World Health Organization.

This week the massive swift shift in the UK response from essentially letting the virus spread through the population to the wholescale stay-at-home policy now in place has resulted from Ferguson’s work, supported by other modellers especially at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.

Ferguson has taken a lead, advising ministers and explaining his predictions in newspapers and on TV and radio, because he is that valuable thing, a good scientist who is also a good communicator.

Naturally mathematical modelling is only as good as the data fed into the computers. It was new information on the high rate of patients needing critical care in Italy and on the limited ability of the NHS to respond to the pandemic that caused Ferguson and colleagues to recommend a switch from what they called scenario 1 – mitigation – to scenario 2 – suppression of the virus, including the drastic measures that have emptied the pubs, closed theatres and is now to shut all schools.

The latest analysis comes from a team modelling the spread and impact COVID-19 and whose data are informing current UK government policy on the pandemic.

The findings are published in the 9^th report from the WHO Collaborating Centre for Infectious Disease Modelling within the MRC Centre for Global Infectious Disease Analysis, J-IDEA, Imperial College London.

Professor Neil Ferguson, head of the MRC GIDA team and director of the Abdul Latif Jameel Institute for Disease and Emergency Analytics (J-IDEA), said:
“The world is facing the most serious public health crisis in generations. Here we provide concrete estimates of the scale of the threat countries now face.
“We use the latest estimates of severity to show that policy strategies which aim to mitigate the epidemic might halve deaths and reduce peak healthcare demand by two-thirds, but that this will not be enough to prevent health systems being overwhelmed. More intensive, and socially disruptive interventions will therefore be required to suppress transmission to low levels. It is likely such measures – most notably, large scale social distancing – will need to be in place for many months, perhaps until a vaccine becomes available.”

He is a workaholic, according to his colleague Christ Donnelly, a professor of statistical epidemiology based at Oxford University most of the time, as well as at Imperial.  “He works harder than anyone I have ever met,” she said.  “He is simultaneously attending very large numbers of meetings while running the group from an organisational point of view and doing programming himself.  Any one of those things could take somebody their full time.

“One of his friends said he should slow down – this is a marathon not a sprint. He said he is going to do the marathon at sprint speed. It is not just work ethic – it is also energy.  He seems to be able to keep going. He must sleep a bit, but I think not much.”

Donnelly met Ferguson when they were both working for Prof Roy Anderson’s epidemiology group at Oxford University.  Their first project together was modelling the BSE epidemic in cattle in 1996 and then the variant CJD (Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease) outbreak in humans.

They came up with an estimate that was incredibly broad for the likely number of human deaths – between 50 and 50,000 – but that was at a time when some were predicting 2 million people would be infected. There were calls for the sort of NHS resources now going into Covid-19 to be directed towards vCJD. Ferguson and Donnelly’s modelling helped defuse that. In the end the UK had about 170 cases.

Next came foot and mouth, then Sars, then pandemic influenza. With every disease outbreak, governments have turned to the modellers. While Donnelly, with her statistical training, could have had a quiet life as a researcher in the pharmaceutical industry discovering new drugs, she is instead watching the predictions she and Ferguson have made hit the headlines on the TV news. She says both of them were attracted to “high-impact” projects.
Ferguson may have the symptoms of Covid-19 but he is still working. At 9am he joined an online meeting with his colleagues as usual. The stakes are too high for somebody with his dedication and central role in the crisis to stay in bed.

Slowing and suppressing the outbreak

The report details that for the first scenario (slowing the spread), the optimal policy would combine home isolation of cases, home quarantine and social distancing of those over 70 years.  This could reduce the peak healthcare demand by two-thirds and reduce deaths by half.  However, the resulting epidemic would still likely result in an estimated 250,000 deaths and therefore overwhelm the health system (most notably intensive care units).

The world is facing the most serious public health crisis in generations. Prof. Neil Ferguson Director, J-IDEA

In the second scenario (suppressing the outbreak), the researchers show this is likely to require a combination of social distancing of the entire population, home isolation of cases and household quarantine of their family members (and possible school and university closure).  The researchers explain that by closely monitoring disease trends it may be possible for these measures to be relaxed temporarily as things progress, but they will need to be rapidly re-introduced if/when case numbers rise.  They add that the situation in China and South Korea in the coming weeks will help to inform this strategy further.

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