UK: 1 in 5 Retailers Say They Won’t Ever Reopen, 1/3 of the Economy has Shut Down

1 in 5 retailers in the United Kingdom say they’ve closed for good, and the government is saying that they may extend the lockdown for another month.

They are completely destroying the country with their insane experiment.

Daily Mail:

A third of the UK economy has ‘shut down’ because of the coronavirus pandemic, MPs were warned today.

Adam Marshall, director general of the British Chambers of Commerce, made the astonishing revelation as pressure increased on Boris Johnson to plot a way out of the crisis.

Mr Marshall warned that another third of businesses were functioning ‘with some difficulty’.

Retail, hospitality, catering, leisure and manufacturers were among those worst affected he said as he appeared remotely in front of the Business, Energy, and Industrial Strategy committee this morning.

It came as a fifth of retailers suggested they will not reopen after the pandemic has passed, creating  huge gaps in an already under-pressure high streets.

Andrew Goodacre, chief executive of the British Independent Retailers Association, told the same committee  it has been the ‘worst time ever for retail’.

Official figures today showed that two-thirds of UK businesses have applied for Government help paying wage bills for furloughed staff, but less than a fifth have received support so far.

Mr Marshall said: ‘We’ve seen significant impact right across the economy, right across the UK.

‘About a third of the economy is functioning as normal, a third is functioning with some difficulty and about a third has shut down due to the lockdown.

‘Our data is showing that retail, hospitality, catering, leisure and manufacturers have had some of the biggest impacts to date.

‘We are also seeing a big impact in international trade. We have seen volumes drop in some of our trade indicators of around 25 per cent over the past six weeks.’

Boris Johnson is set to signal lockdown will stay until June today as he gathers Cabinet to thrash out an ‘exit strategy’ – and then fronts a daily coronavirus briefing for the first time since falling ill.

The Prime Minister is expected to dash hopes of an imminent end to the draconian curbs crippling the economy, stressing that allowing the killer disease to run rampant again would do even worse damage.

Government sources have indicated he will also defy calls to treat the public like ‘grown ups’ by spelling out ways in which the lockdown might be eased, saying it is ‘too early’.

Yeah, it’s too early, because vaccines for coronavirus are estimated to be ready in no less than 12 months, and lifting the lockdown without a vaccine means that the virus may spread.

This is what the media and government want people to picture in their heads when they hear “lockdown.”

Of course, the virus is already spreading and hospitals aren’t even near full capacity, as evidenced by plenty of videos showing health care workers dancing in their workplace, so there’s really no reason why they couldn’t at least allow one lockdown-free day per week to allow people to meet and move around while allowing the virus to spread in a kind of controlled manner in order to build herd immunity.

But they don’t want to build herd immunity without a vaccine.

They want to continue forcing people to live like prisoners indefinitely.

They want a situation of complete control, where all people end up dependent on the government for basic sustenance in the same way that the minorities have been for decades.