COVID-19: SECOND LOCKDOWN? WHAT ABOUT THE ARTS, SPORTS AND NIGHT TIME?

At a local venue 2019

The heading of this blog says "All about getting back to normality by defeating COVID-19 disease".  Not doing so has meant millions have lost out on concerts, theatre, sports and much else over the summer.  Virtually all the summer music festivals cancelled.  

All those sectors of the economy still closed.  For Night Time, the Night Time Industries Association claims that the UK night leisure sector alone contributes £66 billion to UK GDP (6% of total GDP) and employs 1.3 million (8% of the UK’s total employment).  Certainly substantial.

Summer Festival 2019 not 2020

But not just the millions who have lost out on their favourite entertainment.  All those musicians, actors and sportsmen (and women) who have lost all or most of their income since March.  Becoming a drain on the country's finances in terms of financial support instead of making a major contribution. With the suggestion of re-training adding insult to injury.

Then there are all the amateur musicians, actors and sportsmen who have had their favourite hobby curtailed.  

The first lockdown simply hasn't ended.  This is Lockdown 1b, not 2.

We cannot carry on like this through 2021.  Whilst we might hope for vaccines and better testing, it is going to be some months before any widespread benefit will be obtained, and even then the virus will fight back.

We found in the summer that low infection rates weren't low enough to re-open venues.  It has to be very low rates, #NearZero, given Zero is too difficult to achieve, given the UK's links with the world  That will also allow schools to function without sending kids home, and would solve a multitude of other COVID-19 problems.  Not least letting the NHS get on with treating other medical problems:

SO WHAT DO WE NEED TO DO?

Once the Government, MPs and the general public realise the economic and other benefits of a #NearZero Strategy, we need to do four things:

1. Formally adopt a #NearZero Strategy
2. Hold a 3-week Firebreak, like Wales but preferably stricter, to take advantage of the virus's lifecycle
3. Implement a range of measures to help keep infections levels very low, which will become easier as new technology becomes available, thereby allowing all or most artistic and sporting activities to re-open
   
4. Repeat 3-week Firebreaks on probably a 3-month cycle to include the next two half-terms
   

That becomes a 6-month plan, which will individuals and businesses to plan ahead, to be re-assessed next Spring 2021:

 

Further details are here

 

GETTING VENUES OPEN

If infection rates are very low, #NearZero, we can think of re-opening venues for gigs, concerts, theatre, sports and even night clubs.  Certainly pubs beyond 10pm.

The Night Time Industries Association published a report in August as to how to re-open venues that included:

• Inside and outside
• Crowd control through use of licensed security personnel
  
  
• Entry controls:
• ID scans upon entry
• Temperature checks upon entry
• Other rapid tests when they become available

• In the venue:
• Sophisticated ventilation systems
• Insistence on wearing face coverings
  
• Frequent and high intensity cleaning and hygiene regimes
• Contactless payment
  
• Often large square footage venues, allowing for social distancing

Why keep venues closed when there is a viable strategy to allow them to re-open?  We need the economy back to as near-normal as possible, and our lifestyles.  Better for lives, livelihoods and the economy. 

 

#NearZero with FireBreaks is the strategy.

 

Where's England's 6-month Plan? 

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

My scientific and business experience means I can take a far broader yet in-depth view than a typical University professor.  I'm able to take a unique 360 degree view of the COVID-19 situation, having a background in science, business processes, finance and much else besides:

• For the last 40 years I have been solving problems and implementing solutions for Board level personnel in FTSE, AIM, private and start-up businesses.  Plus the UK subsidiaries of multinationals such as Sony and Alcatel, including doubling profits of their UK business

• That work is leveraging technical, financial, systems, commercial and people expertise and understanding. Often for biotech and other hi-tech businesses.

• This is based on being:
• Achiever of top Oxbridge degree in sciences, including cells, genetics, chemistry and spectroscopy
  
• The Thames Valley overall first prizewinner in final ICAEW examinations, covering all the various financial and management subjects
  
• Member of Institute of Management Consultants

The tough problems require taking an all-angles view of the situation, and all the available evidence, before proposing a solution.  I only ever propose a solution that I would be happy to implement.  I have been studying COVID-19 and the responses internationally for more than six months now.

In that sense, I regard how best to tackle COVID-19 as just another problem.  Not as tricky as some I have solved, which had stumped other CAs or the directors thought the problem was insoluble.

That's not to say how best to tackle COVID-19 is easy.  There is no painless  solution.  But balancing lives, livelihoods and the economy to allow education, the health system and business to flourish, whilst minimising the net cost to the Treasury, does have a far better solution than the UK government has proposed, as outlined above.