Coronavirus outbreak

[Sterlo]

Demand rebounding for Rolls Royce:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-53995886

Echoes a few conversations I have had in the last 10 days or so with 4 business owner friends (commercial property, carpet supply, IT infrastructure supplier and candle maker) with work forces ranging from 12 to over 160 - all are, apparently, now running flat out.

Would agree with this, the company I work for has just had a record month for sales and we're struggling to get a lot of supplies.

 

[SpokeyDokey]

Would agree with this, the company I work for has just had a record month for sales and we're struggling to get a lot of supplies.

We've just ordered a new car and the dealership that we dealt with are also extremely busy.

My wife works in commercial property and demand for high street shops and industrial units is very strong - started picking up around 4 weeks or so ago.

Builders are virtually impossible to get hold of at the moment too according to several friends of ours who are wanting some fairly high value work carried out on their homes. They are being quoted earliest available dates of well into next year.

 

[johnblack]

Would agree with this, the company I work for has just had a record month for sales and we're struggling to get a lot of supplies.

There's has been huge demand, some pent up, but mostly genuine incremental in my company. Also a friend runnning a company supplying high end automotive and racing fabrication has been as busy as ever. Long may it continue.

 

[Flick of the Elbow]

I wonder how much new building demand has been created by lockdown and working from home, to build garden rooms and home office conversions/extensions.

 

[marinyork]

I'm just awaiting the workplace spikes. It's coming. I'm WFH as back office Uni staff, but I can see some of our 'class group bubbles' having to self isolate in the next few months - even with the best plans, one group test's positive, lecturer may also have to self isolate, and any of the other groups they teach. Whilst the Uni buildings and classes can be safely controlled, what happens back in their student accommodation, who knows ! I suspect there will be a fair amount of this going on.

It will happen. It's just better than it happening in an open plan office in a building with >1000 people working, which is precisely what happened in March at my uni. They were one of the early detected cases.

Student accommodation hopefully they'll be a pragmatic attempt at testing.

 

[marinyork]

No, as stated a few posts above, I’m referring to my gym membership. The gym is attached to the university so most of its users are students or lecturers. But at £30 a month it’s good value for us non university types too.

There are a lot of gyms touting for business right now. As with pubs, there seems to be a lot of variability in what's going on there.

My gym has banned groups so I'm looking for another one. Some gyms having 1/2 people going in at certain times. Others very busy.

 

[tom73]

So lockdown lifting for areas of Manchester come in at midnight and now the government has brought the back. local lockdowns are messy enough and hard enough to get people to buy into them. Without this sort of ball's up.

 

[SpokeyDokey]

So lockdown lifting for areas of Manchester come in at midnight and now the government has brought the back. local lockdowns are messy enough and hard enough to get people to buy into them. Without this sort of ball's up.

Real time: things change. We need to get used to it and it's not necessarily a balls up.

 

[marinyork]

Real time: things change. We need to get used to it and it's not necessarily a balls up.

It depends where you look at. France and Spain are both in small second waves, but there cases climbed relatively slowly over fair chunk of time.

It's also not clear how much can be done about that - France supposedly has the highest percentage of people physically back at work.

 

[tom73]

Real time: things change. We need to get used to it and it's not necessarily a balls up.

Not really the figures did not add up before they changed it. Areas with low numbers had to carry on and areas with high numbers had restrictions lifted. It's true things can and do change quickly but the governments track record is not exactly quick to acted.

 

[SpokeyDokey]

It depends where you look at. France and Spain are both in small second waves, but there cases climbed relatively slowly over fair chunk of time.

It's also not clear how much can be done about that - France supposedly has the highest percentage of people physically back at work.

Not sure of your point there tbh.

***

Specifically the Manchester decision:

A decision was made based on the available facts at the time and the decision was to be enacted at a specific time.

Prior to that specific time the facts changed and the decision was (wisely) reversed.

I'm not sure how that can be described as a balls up.

What should have been done instead?

Boris/Tories - damned if they do, damned if they don't.

It's all right Burnham banging on about chaos but how about Burnham & Co reacting a bit faster and more heavily on the localised incidents that have led to the uplift in figures?

***

@marinyork Not having a toot at you btw.

 

[SpokeyDokey]

Not really the figures did not add up before they changed it. Areas with low numbers had to carry on and areas with high numbers had restrictions lifted. It's true things can and do change quickly but the governments track record is not exactly quick to acted.

But even when they do act quickly it's condemned as a balls up. They can't win.

 

[roubaixtuesday]

A decision was made based on the available facts at the time

Indeed, the relevant facts taken into consideration being the views of the local Conservative MPs, not those of local public health, and not the infection rates, which were higher than some authorities who would have stayed under the measures.

This became untenable with further increases, but was always illogical and expedient, not evidence based.

 

[roubaixtuesday]

But even when they do act quickly it's condemned as a balls up. They can't win.

I'm really struggling to think of many instances where they've acted quickly.

The only one I can think of is the current policy of rapid quarantine of countries with rising rates.

That has my support.

Perhaps you have other examples in mind...

 

[tom73]

But even when they do act quickly it's condemned as a balls up. They can't win.

If only they did at quickly when it matters this is more a u-turn than anything else. No doubt they will wheel out Dido to give some waffly statement as to why the case numbers magically went up.