Covid-19, Second Wave or Tidal Wave?
As we decided to include the possibility of this in our ‘Five Looming Dilemmas for 2020’ series, I hadn’t thought that by the time we came to produce the article we would be right in the middle of the event! Many of you will be under local lockdown, or back to working-from-home due on the latest government advice. One of my favourite authors, Adam Kay (best known for the book This is Going to Hurt), summarised it quite well in a recent tweet. Adam said, “I can’t believe the government’s plan of keeping cases down by telling us to go back to work and eat at restaurants as much as possible hasn’t worked.” I feel as though the UK response has appeared muddled at times. History and understanding For those who have been living in a cave, or recently arrived in 2020 via time machine, Covid-19 is a strain of Coronavirus that originated in China in 2019. Its highly contagious nature has resulted in a rapid spread throughout the globe and current statistics show it has infected over 38m people, with an excess of 1m deaths. The effect on consumers and world markets was initially one of panic, with toilet roll less prevalent than diamonds for the first time in recorded history, as supermarket shelves were stripped bare. Stock markets initially tumbled, with the FTSE100 dropping from around 7,400 in February to a low of around 5,000 in March, a near 39% drop. We currently sit around 5900, still 22.5%