THREAD: There is an emergent left programme on #COVID_19uk - the obvious elements are: 1/ Universal Sick Pay and/or immediate helicopter payments to sustain demand and facilitate taking sick leave...
2/ Workers rights to safe working conditions, including for NHS/Social Care staff; 3/ Massive fiscal stimulus with redistribution at its core...
4/ Massive state-directed emergency investment in testing, intensive care beds and social care; and state-directed/globally co-ordinated vaccine research programme aimed at massive generic roll-out...
5/ Democratic scrutiny over government/medical technocrat decisions on travel restrictions, event bans, testing etc: act early, act from below, act on the basis of evidence not Boris Johnson's "weirdos and misfits"
6/ End the nudge strategy: produce clear public information or we, civil society, via unions, devolved administrations and social movements will produce it from below...
7/ My own addition: when this is over, every Health Secretary and Chancellor since 2010 should face a public inquiry with special powers to prosecute for negligence. We're facing this with a depleted health service because politicians made choices...
8/ Once we mitigate the virus, and the economic meltdown, there will be a legitimate case to reshape our economy so that never again do we face exogenous shocks with depleted and impoverished public services... oh, and...
9/ "Herd immunity" may, or may not, be the best strategy but the social quid pro quo is that, economically, *everybody is in the herd* - no more private hospital wings - and sick pay for all.
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