Our ability to overcome should never be in doubt
We are being told to prepare for significant changes to our way of life. Within weeks, perhaps sooner, the government will require anyone over the age of 70 to stay in their homes.
The health secretary, Matt Hancock, says that when the order comes it will last “for a very long time”, while Public Health England yesterday said the epidemic in the UK could last until next spring, and may cause 7.9m people to be hospitalised.
The implications are profound, and the social response required to meet such conditions will have to be of a scale unprecedented in peacetime.
As the government ramps up its coronavirus strategy, we will hear and witness things not spoken about or seen within the memories of most of us: emergency laws, civil contingencies, requisitions.
The government will grant itself the authority to seize property for conversion into hospitals, close ports and detain vehicles. Factories are being asked to stop producing engine parts and consumer goods and repurpose for the manufacturing of ventilators and medical equipment.
All of this looms even before a state of emergency is declared, which would grant the government sweeping executive authority.
Ministers and their advisers are haunted by the question of how we, the public, will cope with such disruption. Over the weekend, Mohamed El-Erian, chief economic adviser at Allianz, said that all businesses, politicians, policymakers and members of the public must prepare for “a huge paradigm shift for economies, institutions and social norms” that will result in “unprecedented sudden economic stops”.
He suggests that the coming economic disruption will be comparable to crises normally endured by developing countries and failed states. That things will be different on the other side of this disaster is not in doubt.
Families will have been visited by tragedy and businesses with us today may not be with us tomorrow. Support for corporate Britain will have to be made available, on a scale far larger than the measures announced in the Budget.
Small firms in particular will need immediate relief. El-Erian demands, with an eye on both the economic and social hardship confronting us, that the moment is met with unambiguous, honest and transparent communication from all leaders — prime ministers and chief executives alike.
It is wise advice, made salient by the irresponsible and reckless decision by an anonymous source to brief much of the government’s planned next steps to a single journalist ahead of any formal announcement. Assuming the government regains the ability to speak with one voice, it will find a public willing and able to absorb the shocks.
The social fabric will hold. In fact, it will likely strengthen. Our ability to adapt and overcome a national emergency should not be in doubt. And so, as the news twists and turns — and even darkens — we must not lose sight of the temporary nature of this disaster, even if its consequences stretch beyond the immediate impact.
Nor should we recoil from considering life beyond the crisis. This newspaper has always exhibited an optimist’s instinct; a sense that, even against apparent evidence to the contrary, life is getting better and the trend will continue. That it may be hard to see the value of such a claim at times like these is exactly why it should be stated.
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