COVER STORY
JAMES MARRIOTT, ALEXIS KRACHAI, RICHARD FIDLER AND GREG FELL DURING THE RECORDING OF THE FIRST UNLTD PODCAST
Greg Fell shares his views on some of the key areas of the virus, its impact, and the third lockdown ‘flashpoints’ Greg on … herd immunity and vaccination There’s zero evidence that we can effectively shield the very vulnerable and the very elderly just because of the way society works. You can if you want to lock them away, but no one wants to do that – we all want to see our gran, so there’s no way we can operationally affect a shielding policy. The only way to develop herd immunity is to develop a vaccine – we have that now and we are going at some considerable pace on that. It will take a while for us all to be vaccinated but the best way for us to develop herd immunity with any infectious diseases is through vaccination.
Greg on … global lessons We’re a libertarian economy and that brings benefits for all sorts of reasons, but we’ve seen some of the downsides, too. Lots of South East Asia benefited from having direct experience of SARS first time round. We hadn’t been through that and hadn’t learned those lessons as a society. Global learning will be important from this. While it is fair to say the UK has not had a great response, we’re in a big club – a lot of the world hasn’t, while some countries have had a spectacularly good response. There are things have worked well for us and there are plenty of things that have not worked so well.
Greg on … lockdown three being ‘more lax’ The rules are less strict than last time, but the rules are being enforced, there’s no two ways about that – if the police and Environmental Health see people obviously breaking rules they will enforce the law. The media is full of a narrative of ‘everyone is breaking the rules’ but the evidence is actually to the contrary. The vast majority are observing the rules but where rules are allowing something to happen, people will do it – if retail is open people will go shopping. So while the rules are a little more lax compared with first time round and that makes it harder to control the spread of the virus, most people are observing the rules that are there.
Greg on … lockdown ‘flashpoints’ The key flashpoint around rule observance is people who can’t afford to isolate for 14 days. It’s alright for me, I can sit in my back bedroom for another nine months, thank you very much. But if I drive a taxi and I have four kids to feed £500 a fortnight is not enough. Another strong narrative in the media is that those on low wages and insecure contracts can’t afford to observe the rules in the same way I can and there’s more that needs to be done in those terms. That’s the single most important thing by far in terms of suppressing the viral spread.
unLTD’s first podcast episode, is available through all your usual podcast providers. For the full discussion search ‘unLTD business’.
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