Coronavirus - will we survive?

karlypants wrote:Breaking: All schools in the UK to close this friday!

Has a nursery teacher my mam has just been told she has to take forced leave without pay. What a joke of a country.

Leeds_Trotter wrote:

karlypants wrote:Breaking: All schools in the UK to close this friday!

Has a nursery teacher my mam has just been told she has to take forced leave without pay. What a joke of a country.

My local nursery is still open. Boris asked for private schools and nurserys to follow suit but it wasn't madatory I thought?

Could this not be perceived as constructive dismissal?

Leeds_Trotter wrote:

karlypants wrote:Breaking: All schools in the UK to close this friday!

Has a nursery teacher my mam has just been told she has to take forced leave without pay. What a joke of a country.

It's happening all over KP because the Government's "business support package" is unattractive and insufficent.

Today we sat down and did some planning starting with the cost of keeping my missus' business running for the next 6 months and it's eye-watering numbers.
A double whammy because in it's simplest form, the essence of the business is that we employ, support and upskill young people (apprentices) then "rent" them out to (mainly) construction companies who then pay us the value of their wages plus a small fee for doing the admin, PAYE, pastoral care etc as an hourly rate for the time our youngsters are working and training - so when the building sites close not only do we not get paid but we then have to find the wages out of our own pocket. Our only significant overhead is payroll.

3 of the smaller customers today informed us that the closing down and making everyone redundant and that's just today - more to follow.

We have a moral responsibility to keep the apprentices and the support staff but we're going to lose our ass - and given that the Government are only offering bridging loans we lose it now or we lose it later.

Brainstorming all day to see what we can do with our office and support staff in a remote working environment for the next 6 months that will put us in a position to start to earn the money back quickly if and when the situation starts to return to normal - but of course nobody can predict accurately when that will be.

Easy option is to fire everyone and take the money and run but we just couldn't live with ourselves.

Make no mistake, the Government's strategy for business is going to send a lot of companies to the wall and a lot of employees to the dole - unlike Denmark where the Government has pledged to cover 75% of payroll costs providing they agree not to cut staff. Article here.

And that's because the Danish Government realise that the cost of paying people to be unemployed, the long-term loss of business tax revenue and the growth-stunting employer shortfall will far exceed the cost of supporting payroll in the short term.

Sunak was quick to justify increased public borrowing last week on the basis that rates are very low, so surely he can borrow to plug the payroll gap for a few months to keep people in work and businesses afloat so that they are in place to rebuild the economy when the situation improves?

y2johnny wrote:

karlypants wrote:

y2johnny wrote:So apparently we are in lockdown from Friday,  prince Philip died two days ago this is all from a trusted journo from a respectable paper........trusted journo and respectable paper just screams bullshit to me from the off.

And the news coming out of China as to the progress being made........the secret state is telling porkies nat..... no proof or evidence of it being either way. 

And whilst the way Martin said what he said wasn't the best way to put it, ultimately the bit about them eating anything with a pulse is both true and disgusting in equal measure. 

If we do go into lockdown on Friday is going to be a nightmare.

It's the racist words used Johnny calling them slit eyed fuckers.

My Mrs is half Chinese.

I don't think you would appreciate it if you were in the same position mate.

Lockdown is the way to go with this to stop it spreading like other contries have IMO.

I doubt the truth with China on having only one case is true also but not a clue on Prince Phillip.

I agree with you KP.  His terminology was abhorrent, but the fact remains that the traditional Chinese markets that has the blood of dogs, cats, bats, sheep just running down the street is what has led to this.

Unless you’re a vegetarian I don’t think it’s a fair criticism to make - apologies if you are of course.

The fact we value a dogs life higher than a cows is nonsense, there’s no ethical justification for eating meat.

I quite agree. Brits get on their sanctimonious high horses(no pun intended) because some horrible foreigners eat horses, or, heaven forbid, dogs. 
My mum remembers a shop that sold horse meat exclusively during the war, so we're no strangers to the stuff. 
Cats are quite tasty apparently.

I agree that there is no moral distinction between eating meat from cows, horses, dogs or any other animal.

However I think the point that is being made is that some Chinese eat exotic animals and in some of their markets they have very poor hygiene standards which has led to the coronavirus jumping from bats to humans. This has happened before with SARS for example.

Of course nothing justifies the vile racism shown by one or two posters on this site.

I don't particulary have a problem with eating dog, it's more the other shite like eating baby mice when they are alive or eating bats and rats etc.

Go veggie. I'm fit, look about 24, have a full head of hair, a huge brain, and I bang nails in with my knob.
Ditch the meat.

boltonbonce wrote:Go veggie. I'm fit, look about 24, have a full head of hair, a huge brain, and I bang nails in with my knob.
Ditch the meat.

The pig household is on day 2 of our lockdown and no one has killed anyone yet which is a result. Trying to get an online Tesco order is proving tough as they keep altering and cancelling stuff but we are due a delivery on Saturday so can just about manage till then.
More worryingly for me is that my beer fridge is nearly empty 

As me and Mrs Pig work fore the NHS we had to break the news to the kids that after the self isolation finishes then they will have to go back to school. My eldest was far from pleased 

I'm on the verge of running out of booze too and it's the thing that keeps you going in times like this.

I may chance it and put my mask on a pop to my local Lidl to see what's left late tonight.

Have you been playing on Fifa to keep you occupied all day Norpig?

Afraid not KP, been tidying my Daughters room which was an absolute pig sty. May have a game now though.

Norpig wrote:Afraid not KP, been tidying my Daughters room which was an absolute pig sty. May have a game now though.

Sounds like the Mrs has got jobs lined up for you for this isolation period.

When are you starting on the DIY?

karlypants wrote:

Depressing!

I was talking to the manager of the local Co-op and he said that overall sales had more than doubled this week.

When is the hoarding going to stop?

xmiles wrote:Depressing!

I was talking to the manager of the local Co-op and he said that overall sales had more than doubled this week.

When is the hoarding going to stop?

The government should be doing more to stop the hoarding, I still think that is more of a threat than the virus itself.

If it does come to real food shortages there's going to be rioting, looting and worse.

Thankfully I'm in the penthouse suite, and the only one with the code for the lift. The tradesman's entrance has been barricaded shut.

Natasha Whittam wrote:

xmiles wrote:Depressing!

I was talking to the manager of the local Co-op and he said that overall sales had more than doubled this week.

When is the hoarding going to stop?

The government should be doing more to stop the hoarding, I still think that is more of a threat than the virus itself.

If it does come to real food shortages there's going to be rioting, looting and worse.

Thankfully I'm in the penthouse suite, and the only one with the code for the lift. The tradesman's entrance has been barricaded shut.

So you are no longer allowing access to your tradesman's entrance. Well we all have to make sacrifices in times like these.

Natasha Whittam wrote:

xmiles wrote:Depressing!

I was talking to the manager of the local Co-op and he said that overall sales had more than doubled this week.

When is the hoarding going to stop?

The government should be doing more to stop the hoarding, I still think that is more of a threat than the virus itself.

If it does come to real food shortages there's going to be rioting, looting and worse.

Thankfully I'm in the penthouse suite, and the only one with the code for the lift. The tradesman's entrance has been barricaded shut.

I was about to post saying the same.

I guess I can say that I not the only one going through the emotions with all of this and right now I feel rather angry.

I heard a couple of women talking walking past the house commenting that it was ridiculous this around 8:30am.

I can only assume it was a free for all in Lidl this morning and the shelves were empty in about 30 seconds they were commenting on.

I can't remember the last time I saw bog roll in store either and I'm getting rather worried as we will run out soon and I have resorted to fitting a proper douch to use over the bog just in case we definitely can't get any.

I would have thought this would have started to calm down by now but as Xmiles mention in a post futher up that freezer sales were on the up, everyone is off to full those fucking things too.

karlypants wrote:I guess I can say that I not the only one going through the emotions with all of this and right now I feel rather angry.

It makes me angry too, sadly the majority of folk are selfish. There's clearly enough food for everyone, but if people are hoarding everything in a freezer it can soon go tits up.

This could easily be nipped in the bud, but the government have to do it because the supermarkets aren't going to stop the flow of cash into their tills without a fight.

Aldi, my local supermarket, has been pretty good actually. Foods flying off the shelves but the guys on the till are stopping people buying more than the allotted 4 items.

We need to get a shut down in place in my opinion, I live in London and still hear that the tubes are busy and pubs are open. Brits don’t respond to nudge theory, we need a strong government response on this.

As both Karly and Nat rightly say people are either too selfish or too thick to react reasonably.