Britain’s Covid-19 strategy simply adds up to many more jobless people | Larry Elliott

Britain’s Covid-19 strategy simply adds up to many more jobless people | Larry Elliott

It's the textbook example of being caught between a rock and a hard place. The number of people being treated for Covid-19 in hospital is rising fast and is currently higher than it was when the UK went into full national lockdown on 23 March. Worse is to come.

Simultaneously, the threat of mass unemployment looms ever larger. More workers were made redundant in the three months to August than at any time since the period when the banks almost went bust a decade ago. Worse is to come here, too.

Opinion is divided on what to do next. There are those who think the second wave of Covid is potentially so serious that a full national lockdown is necessary, whatever the cost. Labour's plan for a two- or three-week circuit breaker