Rishi Sunak last week called his £12bn package to buttress the economy amid the spread of coronavirus “temporary, timely and targeted”. He was applauded – for a day. The measures, which included £5bn for the NHS, quickly looked peashooter-sized when, in the current jargon of financial markets, a big bazooka was required.
The chancellor’s headline policy definitely qualifies as big – £330bn of loans and loan guarantees for business hit by the coronavirus is equivalent to 15% of GDP. The UK has never seen anything like it, even if similar policies are already being launched across Europe.
Some of last week’s budget measures were also scaled up. Business rates have been scrapped for a year for a large swathe of the economy, covering retailers, pubs, clubs, theatres and restaurants. Cash grants of up to £25,000 for small and medium-sized businesses in affected sectors have also been boosted. Sunak called it a £20bn handout, on top of the budget moves. Householders also get a three-month mortgage holiday if required.
What is Covid-19 – the illness that started in Wuhan?
It is caused by a member of the coronavirus family that has never been encountered before. Like other coronaviruses, it has come from animals.
What are the symptoms this coronavirus causes?
The virus can cause pneumonia. Those who have fallen ill are reported to suffer coughs, fever and breathing difficulties. In severe cases there can be organ failure. As this is viral pneumonia, antibiotics are of no use. The antiviral drugs we have against flu will not work. Recovery depends on the strength of the immune system. Many of those who have died were already in poor health.
Should I go to the doctor if I have a cough?
In the UK you and your household should stay at home for 14 days if you have either:
- a high temperature
- a new continuous cough
This will help to protect others in your community while you are infectious. Do not go to a GP surgery, pharmacy or hospital.
You do not need to contact NHS 111 to tell them you’re staying at home.
People who are self-isolating with mild symptoms will not be tested.
Is the virus being transmitted from one person to another?
China’s national health commission confirmed human-to-human transmission in January, and there have been such transmissions elsewhere.
How many people have been affected?
As of 17 March, more than 180,000 people have been infected in more than 80 countries, according to the Johns Hopkins University Center for Systems Science and Engineering.
There have been over 7,150 deaths globally. Just over 3,000 of those deaths have occurred in mainland China. 79,000 people have recovered from the coronavirus.
Why is this worse than normal influenza, and how worried are the experts?
We don’t yet know how dangerous the new coronavirus is, and we won’t know until more data comes in. Seasonal flu typically has a mortality rate below 1% and is thought to cause about 400,000 deaths each year globally. Sars had a death rate of more than 10%.
Another key unknown is how contagious the coronavirus is. A crucial difference is that unlike flu, there is no vaccine for the new coronavirus, which means it is more difficult for vulnerable members of the population – elderly people or those with existing respiratory or immune problems – to protect themselves. Hand-washing and avoiding other people if you feel unwell are important. One sensible step is to get the flu vaccine, which will reduce the burden on health services if the outbreak turns into a wider epidemic.
Have there been other coronaviruses?
Severe acute respiratory syndrome (Sars) and Middle Eastern respiratory syndrome (Mers) are both caused by coronaviruses that came from animals. In 2002, Sars spread virtually unchecked to 37 countries, causing global panic, infecting more than 8,000 people and killing more than 750. Mers appears to be less easily passed from human to human, but has greater lethality, killing 35% of about 2,500 people who have been infected.
Is it enough? Almost certainly not. Last week’s experience shows that the definition of “whatever it takes” shifts by the day. And Sunak, to be fair, hinted at more to come in coming days – specifically for airlines and airports and generally for employees and individuals.
The latter may be the crucial part in establishing a sense of medium-term confidence in the economy. The US is publicly contemplating sending $1,000 cheques to millions of Americans, a policy that is close to being “helicopter money”. Sunak did not deny the UK could do the same. The technical work, one can assume, is being done in the Treasury.
The £330bn loan package can also be viewed another way – as merely a large sticking-plaster. Loans can alleviate cashflow crises where companies are confident demand will return, but a loan is not a handout. Some employers may decide it’s better for them to shed staff or shut up shop, the behaviour Sunak is trying to discourage. The threat of mass redundancies looks large, with effects that could last years.
The next logical step – highly expensive for the public purse – would be for the government to underwrite a chunk of companies’ payroll costs, an approach that has already been adopted by some Scandinavian countries and France.
Supporting half of Britain’s wage bill would cost the government approximately £40bn a month, according to estimates by Close Brothers Asset Management, a funding firm. “This is the sort of protection that might be required to ensure that when we come out the other side, consumer demand returns to pre-crisis levels and the economy isn’t damaged beyond repair,” said Robert Alster, the group’s investment chief.
Adding £40bn a month to government spending would clearly bust current deficit projections but the deficit is not the worry. Bond markets show no alarm at the prospect of governments writing large cheques. The yield of 10-year UK government IOUs is just 0.5%. Indeed, a backlash from the bond market is more likely to occur if the government is judged to be spending too little to protect the economy, not too much.
Economic orthodoxies, in other words, are being overturned, and we should not be surprised. A global recession is now almost certain to happen in 2020 and some economists are talking a potential hit to economy in the April to June quarter, covering the predicted peak of the virus, of 15%. Again, that is unheard of during peacetime.
So the outpouring of war-like “whatever it takes” rhetoric is legitimate. The initial reaction from business groups was favourable, but don’t read too much into that. These policies were “first steps”, said Sunak, and they are usually the easiest to take.
