Posted on by Lukasz Kwiatkowski

Who took your nuts?

Why economy’s live matters

In the mid 1990’s, four out of a thousand American children had nut allergy. So, schools started banning nuts and everything related to nuts including foods produced alongside nuts. Some schools with less pupils might have never even had anyone allergic to nuts, but still banned them. This meant parents were instructed not to let their kids bring these foods to school. Not that school simply stopped serving them at lunch. I think it’s a little overreaction. Preventing all kids from having nuts just in case one (hypothetical) student may be allergic. This is what we have done to our economy, in my opinion. A very small percentage of cases resulted in death (almost exclusively of people in the high risk category) and we stopped the entire country and have taken baby steps to restart it and surprise, surprise, you will never be allowed to bring your metaphorical nuts to school ever again.

In the proceeding paragraphs I will attempt to argue that we should be allowed to keep our peanuts. That is our jobs, our businesses, our education, our future plans and dreams and human interaction, and we can’t or shouldn’t be forced to give them up in case someone somewhere might get a reaction. I won’t argue that lives don’t matter. Of course, they do. I will simply express my opinion why saving the economy should have been our goal given the COVID19 death rate looks a lot like the 1990’s nut allergy.

The fall of High Street

I went into my local shopping centre the other day. I bumped into a friend of mine who is a cleaner there. He is from Algeria. His nametag reads Mark, but this is just a familiar name he goes by at work. That’s also the name I know him by. We followed the arrows towards the escalator where we parted ways. During our short conversation he pinched his orange uniform with Intu Centres logo on it and disregarded it as irrelevant.

‘This uniform, we wear just for show. The company, Intu, it’s finished, gone!’, he said and explained that the Intu staff are no longer employed by Intu. He added that if nobody saves them in the next few months, the centres will get closed down. ‘I’m going back to my country, there is nothing for me here’ he said just before we headed off in separate directions.

Later that day I checked what exactly he had meant. Turned out the Intu Centres had gone into administration. The one in Watford, previously known as and still referred to as The Harlequin by the locals, had just had an enormous upgrade. They had spent a couple of years expanding, renovating and adding new retailers to their newly built space. This investment cost them a whooping £180mln and resulted in 1.4ml square ft of retail and leisure space and this was meant to be the next chapter into an exciting future of The Harlequin and Watford.

Cineworld, Hollywood Bowl and Debenhams all cut their ribbons less than 2 years ago. Debenhams spread across three huge floors and hosted numerous brands selling anything from beauty products, fashion to home. They recently announced that some of their branches would not be reopening and would get closed down permanently. Their new-born baby, the Watford branch didn’t make the cut. It will not reopen. Now, Debenhams had been in trouble before lockdown, but it looks to me like it sealed their fate. It is said the closure of their branches will cost thousands of jobs. This would include their staff, various brands which had their booths and kiosks on their shop floor, possibly warehouse staff and anyone working for other companies that do any kind of work with Debenhams. Currier companies for example might not need as many delivery drivers now that Debenhams and many other retailers closed their doors permanently.

The Harlequin’s 30 years of existence might be coming to and end

And now Intu Watford is stuck with an empty unit that won’t be easy to fill. There already are M&S and Primark in the centre and both are spread across three and two floors, respectively. John Lewis have just announced that a number of their stores will not reopen, including the one in Watford. The store has been part of Watford town centre for thirty years and as the locals know it today, it’s spread across, I believe four enormous floors selling everything from birthday cards to furniture and big screen televisions. But John Lewis Watford is no more. The Harlequin welcomed their first customers in the early 1990’s. Their recent investment and extension were meant to rebrand the town to a new shopping destination for people in surrounding area. This dream made other businesses see Watford in a new light and it resulted in numerous cafes and restaurants introducing themselves to the people of Watford. Will the closure of Debenhams and John Lewis mean the end of Intu Watford and will it destroy other businesses who have come here searching for the big success?

With over a hundred stores, the centre provides work for thousands of people and now whether they realize it or not, they are all facing an uncertain future. I used to work at one of these stores. We had a team of less than twenty people. There are of course bigger stores with a lot more employees Boots or Sports Direct. I wouldn’t be surprised if they had close to a hundred staff members. The closure of the Harlequin could, in my opinion indirectly cause loss of jobs in other unrelated areas of economy. Take bus drivers for example. No shopping centre means less people coming to Watford, both as customers and employees. Some hard decisions will have to be made in not only in bus companies but many others. And this is just one of the shopping centres in the Intu empire.

Take Rob for example. Rob has been working for TNT curriers for fifteen years. He complains about his job sometimes, but he likes it. He likes driving his orange truck delivering pallets upon pallets of cartons filled with stock to retail shops. He likes interacting with the stockroom staff who greet him with a smile every morning. He knows every one of them by name. You never see Rob wear trousers, always shorts. “Cause when it rains, the trousers get all wet and if you wear shorts you can just dry your legs and you’re good to go.” It kind of makes sense. “Even in Winter.”. He’d never let you struggle with your delivery all by yourself. He’d always give you a hand. This job pays good enough money for him and his family of two children live comfortably and never worry about the future. Until now. Now Rob’s future at TNT is uncertain. Sure, if it comes to it, they might transfer him to another department, maybe have him do home deliveries instead, but this just means others, like Rob will lose their jobs. Or maybe it will be more cost effective in the long run to let Rob go and keep those who are on a lower wage instead? I sure hope Rob’s fate is not sealed.

Chances are, Intu Centres are not going to be saved. Who would want to invest in shopping centres right now when the government can order them to close whenever they think the risk of keeping them open is too great? Nobody will want to invest. The government can enforce a local lockdown anywhere and anytime like they have done with Leicester. What is going to happen instead, is these shops are going to close, jobs are going to be lost and the whole retail space will be abandoned, and its value is going to go down dramatically. Only then will it be bought and transformed into something different. Blocks of flats or modern apartments is my guess. Maybe Amazon warehouse? Who knows? All other retailers around will give in too and the High Street will no longer be where you go to buy clothes and trainers.

Andy is a store manager. He is in his late twenties and he has spent over ten years working his way up the retail ladder. He’s had his eyes set on becoming an area manager and he has been working hard to get there and it seemed like it would happen for him soon. The shop he has spent all his career at is facing closure because it is located inside Intu Watford. Andy picked up this shop when it was in pieces and turned it into a fun and challenging workplace for all staff. He has made sacrifices not many of us would even dream of. He has been recognized as a manager of the year and he’s always kept his eyes on the ball. Now, if retail goes extinct, what can someone, who’s spent over ten years building a career in it, do? Sure, we learn various useful skills in any job, and we can take them with us to the next one, but something tells me the job market will not look the same after coronavirus. Many businesses will fail to make profit as they adapt to the new rules and measures. Many jobs will become a thing of the past as machines become more reliable, productive and can’t get sick.

Can hard work save the High Street or is that just wishful thinking? (Getty images)

Economy is such a dirty word, baby!

Economy has become a dirty word. People who want to save it, don’t mean to sacrifice innocent lives. They understand the importance of healthy population being able to carry the economy on their shoulders, and they understand the importance of protecting the vulnerable people from the virus. Others think we shouldn’t care about the economy. When they say economy, they think about the greed of capitalism, the sins of corporations and their executives. But the economy is made of us and our jobs. And most people think their job is waiting for them on the other side but as I have shown above, the future is uncertain for all of us. Hopefully, I have made a compelling case why we should be allowed to keep our nuts (our jobs, business and livelihoods) and not have them taken away to protect hypothetical people with allergies.

The government has imposed the lockdown and has kept us on house arrest for nearly four months as if this pandemic were the next Spanish Flu, which it is not. If it were, I would be writing a completely different article. The death rate is extremely low (even though the numbers have been boosted by false death certificates and wild guesses of the medical staff), and as harsh as it may sound, the vast majority of deaths was people who died because their time had come. The elderly who survived last year’s flu season fell ill in the last few months and their weak immune system couldn’t fight it this time. Others had other serious life-threatening conditions that would have killed them in the next few months. So, the lockdown hasn’t saved lives. It has postponed some deaths while making living all about staying alive. It has taken away the fun and joy of living life to the fullest and making the most of the time we have left, which is what living should be all about,  Most of us think we have many years left in our life’s calendar. Unlimited number of days, birthdays, holidays and countless hours with our loved ones. Some people don’t have that luxury and the house arrest might have kept them alive but deprived them of the very reason for being alive. I am not trying to suggest we should let the vulnerable die. I am saying we cannot cheat death and we cannot keep everyone safe forever. What I am saying is that it is more than likely the people who died in the last few months, would have died if they had caught another virus. We can all try to keep peanuts away from our vulnerable loved ones, but we can’t keep them from peanuts. At least not all the time and not indefinitely. And we definitely can’t forbid everyone from opening a bag of M&Ms just because someone may or may not have an allergic reaction. In the end we are all responsible for ourselves and no government intervention is going to make us care about hypothetical people who may or may not get sick and may or may not die from it, when our lives and lives of our immediate family are at stake. This also means providing food, protection and a sense of security.

Flu directly kills thousands if not millions of people worldwide while COVID19 seems to be just finishing the job of the underlying conditions sick people have and still managed to kill less people than seasonal Influenza. By all means, let’s try to keep our vulnerable loved ones alive. Let’s provide them with help and support they need to stay alive and to live their final years the way they see fit. The rest of us should have never been kept locked inside our homes. We should have been allowed to work and make a living while the vulnerable are protected if they so wish. If you have a loved one who is high risk then by all means, do whatever you believe is necessary to keep them healthy but in the end we are wired to care about our immediate family first and makes sure they are healthy and live with dignity. We can’t be forced to give up our nuts, the only way to feed our loved ones,  because someone, somewhere might have an allergic reaction.

Economy is important. It is important for you and for me. For the healthy and the sick. If you have a job, you can buy medicine for your child. If you buy a pair of jeans, someone else will put food on their table. It is a never-ending cycle. We are all in this together. We all support each other with our purchases, but we are all individually responsible for ourselves. We can’t expect the world to stop to accommodate us. We can’t expect the system to slow down so we can catch up. We can’t expect the whole town to get shut down because grandad is sick. We need to keep going but it seems like this option is being taken away from us.

Do you agree? Do you think I am wrong to think we should have thought about the economy? Do you think High Street will survive this massive blow? Are you going to be affected by any of this? What is your plan looking ahead? Let me know

Posted on by Lukasz Kwiatkowski

The Dark Side of Contact Tracing

Will contact tracing allow us to go back to our lives?

Who knew that our mobile phone would be the device that would keep us safe from the big and hairy claws of the Coronavirus monster? Turns out it was that simple. All you have to do now is just download the government app and let it do its magic. And it is so simple. You can get your life back, go shopping, visit your friends and go to the beach.

All you have to do is download the app that will track your every step and warn you when you’ve been in contact with a person who tested positive for COVID19. In order for this to work, you will have to be closer than 2 meters with that person for more than 15 minutes. When that happens, as it stands, you will receive a phone call ordering you, or maybe just advising you to stay home for 14 days. At the moment, the app is voluntary, but Hancock has said they won’t hesitate to make it mandatory if not enough people do the right thing and download the app.

I have a few problems with this whole idea. I am sure it was well thought of by smart and sneaky people, who after all have good intentions and our health, wellbeing and safety in mind.

As it stands to work now though, you will call your Corona consultant if you suspect you have the symptoms of this deadly disease. You will be advised to stay home and you will either be visited by your advisor or sent a test kit I believe. If you test positive you will then be called, by your friendly Contact Tracer, who will politely ask you details of your recent interactions. They will need to know people’s names, phone numbers, possibly their email or even home address. On top of that, for the safety of the public and yours, they will ask you what places you’ve visited recently. What train you’ve taken and when. The exact time you went food shopping last. They will then use the data you’ve provided to contact as many people as possible starting with the friends you’ve met and tell them to self-isolate for 14 days. I don’t know how much choice they will have but I can imagine their workplace might be contacted too and they will be told by their employer to not come in and take unpaid time off.

They are also talking about tracing our phones. Now if your phone is close to a phone of someone who has tested positive or who has been in contact with someone who has been in contact with someone who has stood in a queue to Tesco next to someone who tested positive, you will be contacted and advised to stay home for 14 days. The word advised is just a moderate way of saying ordered, really.

I have seen a few different news stories about the contact tracing and how it would work. Some say it would require everyone to download an app and it would be voluntary. Some say it would rely on Bluetooth regardless if the app is downloaded or not. There is however an even darker and scarier version of it which I will get to in a minute. If you own a smartphone and you have installed the most recent system update, you will find your phone now has an option to enable a COVID19 tracing app to work if you choose to download it. If you have an Android phone, all you have to do is go to settings/Google and you will see COVID19 exposure notifications. I assume Apple users can find it in their respective settings too. This new feature still requires an app but who knows how long this will be up to us? I read a Men’s Health article the other day that said smart watches can also pick up COVID19 symptoms. I understand that if you’re genuinely scared of getting the virus then giving up your privacy like this is a small price to pay. But we have to ask ourselves, where will this stop? How can we be sure our sensitive data won’t be shared with advertisers or worse, used against us? Maybe not now. But one day. Think about it.

Your recent system update makes tracking and tracing possible

First let me tell you what a trained Contact Tracer in California has to say about it. I know what you’re thinking, “California? Why would I care about it if I’m in the UK?” Well you said the same thing about the virus 4 months ago when it was in China, so let’s think clearly here because the draconian measures and freedom restrictions have followed the virus around the globe and they aren’t about to stop now. I’ll attach a link to the video so you can take a look. Some of the things she said are already making their way into our lives as we “go back to normal”. The lady in the video, who is a trained and certified Contact Tracer, says that if a person’s test comes back positive, they need to self – isolate for a minimum of 10 days. Isolation in this case means, they are not allowed to be around anyone of their household and they have to have access to their own bathroom. So, if they don’t live alone and have only one bathroom, they may be asked to go to a hotel. What happens if they refuse? Well the authorities threaten the use of force. The Contact Tracer can also request a video proof showing that the infected person has access to their own bathroom to successfully isolate in their own home. It doesn’t stop there. The Contact Tracer will also ask who this person spent time with recently and even if those people are healthy, the Contact Tracer will ask them to quarantine themselves for 14 days. She says that if the person who is self – isolating or the person who is self – quarantining has kids, and nobody to take care of them, they will come and take the kids away. Can you imagine the government overstepping that much? All this even if you’re healthy and someone sick was near you at some point. Not to mention that when you come out of the 14-day quarantine and go to a pub or a restaurant and someone has symptoms or tested positive again, guess what? You have to go into quarantine again. They will take your kids if you have them and it can go on forever. If this sounds like it would never happen or be allowed or that people would rebel against it, let’s just look back at the last 4 months and see what’s happened, what has been allowed and what people haven’t rebelled against. I mean we’ve had police patrolling parks and harassing people sitting on benches and fining couples for Netflix and chilling. Government has taken away your right to make informed choices and take your own risks and now they are also telling you to cover your face and take your right to breathe fresh air away from you and you have stickers, some traffic Marshalls and police on the High Street restricting your movement. Five or six months ago this would have sounded like something out of a sci – fi movie about a failed utopia.

You might be asking yourself how they will know what pub or restaurant you went to and when. This brings me to what is already being introduced in the UK as well. Let’s start by explaining that going to the pub is not going to be the same. You will be required to stay at your table, order drinks through an app (Wetherspoons have had an app-based table service for a while now). No more going up to the bar, dancing or flirting with members of the opposite sex. Before you even go to the pub, you will be required to register with your mobile phone number or email address and that is how they will know where you are and who with. I know what you’re saying. Maybe you will give out a fake phone number or email, or you will create a fake email address and even go as far as buying a cheap mobile phone if they send a confirmation text or something you have to present to the bouncer. But how many of your friends will do the same? What if they do tell the Contact Tracer you were there with them? What if you get caught on CCTV or tagged in somebody’s Instagram post?

Will pubs ever look the same as before the pandemic?

Hair salons, barber shops, cinemas, maybe even supermarkets eventually, will all quite possibly adopt the same system where in order to use their services you will have to confirm your attendance with a valid phone number. If you are a member of a gym, then you can expect similar restrictions. Most gyms already have a system in place that helps them monitor who is in the gym at any given time so a Contact Tracer would just need to request details of people who attended the gym while a confirmed patient was in the building. They may not stop there at all. If you don’t want to quarantine yourself for the third time in the space of 3 months, they may not call the police on you but they can contact your employer who will then order you to stay home for 14 days and if you are seen outside or aren’t careful with your social media, you can lose your job or the time spent at home will be unpaid. I can’t be sure but if I have thought of it then I am sure they have too.

I encourage you to watch the video which can be found here https://youtu.be/9Yoa4zCeHAc where it is explained in a greater detail how dangerous contact tracing really is. Chinese citizens live under such regime on daily basis. They are under constant surveillance, spied on everywhere they go by the social credit system, which is like credit score but much more sinister. I learned about it a long time before the pandemic and already saw signs of similar things taking place in the UK, but I believed and hoped it would never get to that stage. Yet here we are. Three months into lockdown and the government is introducing a tracing system that looks a lot like the one in China. Someone commented on a link I shared to my Facebook wall a couple of months ago. He said, “We’re not turning into China”. I wanted to reply but the comment disappeared as he deleted me. If there is one thing I’ve learned from the pandemic is that there is a small step from advice to mandatory.

Is constant surveillance a small price to pay for safety from a virus that may or may not get you?

And even if government doesn’t find a way to make sure everyone has an app on their phone, there are other ways. Think of it like going through a gate at the airport. You don’t have to have your boarding pass on your phone. You don’t have to do everything electronically. You can print your boarding pass but how many people will choose the convenience of having all their details on their smartphone? The same thing might be done with the app. You don’t have to download it but going about your life, like going through an airport gate, will become more difficult. Cinemas, gyms or pubs will require people to prove they aren’t supposed to be self – isolating or quarantining and if they can’t, they may need to find another pub or gym. But for how long? How long before they give in?

If you have an Android phone, then you probably noticed that it’s impossible to remove Facebook app. Up until recently it was even impossible to delete your Facebook account on Facebook. Think about it. Your Samsung phone comes with Facebook as a default app and best you can do is disable it. Who’s to say that every phone from now on won’t have some COVID19 app on it and you will not be able to delete it?

Whether it will be convenient for you to have the app or if it just comes with your phone or next system update, it doesn’t matter. What matters is you won’t be able to go about your life without constantly proving your quarantine status. Maybe even police officers will have the power to look at your phone when you’re outside. Kind of like a random stop and search. This happens on daily basis to every Chinese citizen. Everywhere they go. Phone checking by the authorities multiple times a day. If you want to learn more about the Chinese social score, I suggest using your search engine, preferably different to Google, to look it up. Some people have to scan their face to be let out of their gated housing. You might think this is great technology but what if you are asked to stay at home for 2 weeks but think this is bollox and want to get on with your life, go for a run or exercise? In a system like in China, the camera controlling your gate would refuse to open it for you.

Convenience VS Freedom

One thing that is really bugging me as I write this, is what about the old people? Old people who don’t have a smartphone? See, all this time, throughout the lockdown we have been reminded over and over again, to think about the old people and their safety. Even if our approach to the tracking and tracing doesn’t turn out to be as harsh and tyrannical as in China, the old people without smartphones will still be left out. Not only from tracking and tracing but also from participating in their social life. They won’t be notified that someone next to them on the train tested positive. They also won’t be able to enjoy a movie in the cinema without a smartphone. What about the old people then?

Unless… unless it was never about them. If it was, then we would create a system that protects them. Instead we put everyone on house arrest. Instead we create tracing system that will leave a lot of them to fend for themselves until they die. Maybe that is the whole point? They will die within the next 10 to 20 years and will be replaced with generations raised with smartphones. Let’s think about it. They created this illusion that we have to protect the elderly. They have shamed everyone who opposed the lockdown so that we can just sleepwalk into this tracking and tracing future still believing we are helping. But I ask, how does this system help older people or people without smartphones in general? If they aren’t able to confirm they aren’t ill or ordered to self – isolate, they won’t be allowed to go to the cinema, a restaurant, maybe even hospital or get an uber, definitely not on the plane, but who cares, right? They will die soon and their old brick mobile phones along with them. Their fragile final years on this planet have been weaponized against us and taken away from them at the same time. Maybe protecting them was never the plan. After all they already suffer from other illnesses and life-threatening health conditions and haven’t been able to get any appointments throughout this lockdown. Some of them didn’t even want to see their doctors because they were scared of catching the virus or they didn’t want to be an inconvenience for the busy medical staff.

What about them?

The way I see the tracking system is this. It relies on people having smartphones or being accurate and honest about places they’ve been and people they’ve seen. What if a husband or wife visit their lovers? They may not be willing to share that information but if it’s not up to them, they will get caught. Cheating might be immoral but it’s not illegal but a Contact Tracer has the power to end marriages or perhaps in the future even blackmail unfaithful spouses into giving up the details of their recent contacts while promising confidentiality. It may not even be a Contact Tracer anymore. Some other company might get hold of that sensitive information too. Unfaithful partners aside, it looks to me like this tracking system is designed to control the population and not isolate people who are sick. Old people without smartphones will not have the app and will be left to die and live the rest of their days in fear of others. Their children and grand children will reduce visits to keep them alive without realising that staying alive is not living. While the people who contribute the least to the society, slowly die off of old age, neglected cancers and other diseases, loneliness and depression, the young and healthy workforce will remain under constant surveillance. Their privacy taken away along with their freedom of movement and right to take risk. All that will be taken while they are distracted by the illusion of having a choice. And this is only a beginning.