It might not be the world’s biggest news story, but it’s news in the UK where I live: my local newsagent is refurbishing his store. He replaced the front of the shop, stripped back the walls, threw out old fittings and installed new ones. He bought expensive chiller cabinets for food and drink. It cost a lot of money and time and he has been working non-stop, because when you sell newspapers and other goods seven days a week you need to take deliveries, yes, seven days a week. And that’s where it’s gone wrong. A third of his new shelves are empty, including the ones he hoped would be full of soft drinks for the summer. He’s also waiting for supplies of ice cream. The problem is Britain’s “pingdemic”.
Delivery drivers, shop workers, food production workers, school children and others are being notified by text on their phones that they should self-isolate because of coronavirus. At least 600,000 are off work. Our local florist has shut with a sad sign saying: “We are now closed until autumn unfortunately due to lack of staff.”
For my newsagent, “it is like going into the boxing ring every morning waiting to get beaten up” because he never knows what, if anything, of his stock will arrive because drivers and suppliers may be told at short notice to stay at home. Customers are annoyed. The newsagent is losing money and he is paying for the refurbishment of a shop with all those empty shelves.
The way it works is that if you have downloaded the National Health Service phone app, it “pings” when you are in close proximity to someone who has tested positive for coronavirus, even though you may not be infected or perhaps you are double vaccinated. Unless the rules have changed while I am writing this you are supposed to self-isolate for 10 days.
A true Freedom Day would mean small family businesses like my newsagent’s need to survive the pandemic and the 'pingdemic'
One of my daughters had to self-isolate two weeks ago because a temporary helper at her school tested positive. That meant all my daughter’s classmates, 32 children, were sent home, even though she tested negative and none of her friends has, as far as we know, caught coronavirus.
Another friend tells the story of a neighbour in Bristol who was “pinged” and self-isolated at home, only to be “pinged” again a few days later when she had not left her house. Then she realised it was almost certainly because her apartment is above a busy shop. The NHS app must have detected someone in the shop, about three metres below her, through the floor, who tested positive.
Supermarket chains are worried that they are not getting all the deliveries they need. And even when deliveries arrive there are not enough workers to stack the shelves. One supermarket group, Iceland, wants to hire 2,000 temporary workers to fill the gaps. In all of this I have some sympathy for the British government. Having a test and trace app is a good idea, but the rules on who should be pinged and what they should do about these alerts need to evolve.
We have seen a summer upswing in coronavirus cases, but the government also, as always, has to balance public health with keeping food supplies and transport services moving. Unfortunately many of us have lost trust in the government since Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s slogan about following scientific “data not dates”, while at the same time he removed coronavirus precautions last week and called it “Freedom Day”. Repeatedly, Mr Johnson has set dates for changing the rules and then ignored data that contradicts his coronavirus calendar. His trumpeting of “Freedom Day” when coronavirus cases have been going up proved to be freedom only from common sense.
In the most recent YouGov poll 60 per cent of British people said they thought Boris Johnson was untrustworthy. An opposition MP, Dawn Butler, was thrown out of the House of Commons last week for calling Mr Johnson a serial liar, even though the evidence overwhelmingly supports her statement.
But there have been some coronavirus bonuses. Modernisers within the NHS have tried for years to introduce up-to-date data and communications software. Experts have told me the pandemic has done more in 18 months to get the NHS to modernise its communications than all the discussions and planning over the past 20 years.
But a true Freedom Day would mean small family businesses like my newsagent’s, the backbone of any country’s economy, need to survive the pandemic and the "pingdemic". Mr Johnson and Health Secretary Sajid Javid should be sympathetic. After all, they have also both been “pinged", and are both in self-isolation. It may be too late for Mr Johnson, but if a period of isolation were to result in a period of reflection, he might promise less, use slogans less and achieve more.
The "pingdemic", in other words, is only a part of our problem.
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Europe wide
Some of French groups are threatening Friday to continue their journey to Brussels, the capital of Belgium and the European Union, and to meet up with drivers from other countries on Monday.
Belgian authorities joined French police in banning the threatened blockade. A similar lorry cavalcade was planned for Friday in Vienna but cancelled after authorities prohibited it.
Emergency
Director: Kangana Ranaut
Stars: Kangana Ranaut, Anupam Kher, Shreyas Talpade, Milind Soman, Mahima Chaudhry
Rating: 2/5
MATCH INFO
Uefa Champions League, last 16, first leg
Liverpool v Bayern Munich, midnight (Wednesday), BeIN Sports
More from Rashmee Roshan Lall
More coverage from the Future Forum
The biog
Family: Parents and four sisters
Education: Bachelor’s degree in business management and marketing at American University of Sharjah
A self-confessed foodie, she enjoys trying out new cuisines, her current favourite is the poke superfood bowls
Likes reading: autobiographies and fiction
Favourite holiday destination: Italy
Posts information about challenges, events, runs in other emirates on the group's Instagram account @Anagowrunning
Has created a database of Emirati and GCC sportspeople on Instagram @abeermk, highlight: Athletes
Apart from training, also talks to women about nutrition, healthy lifestyle, diabetes, cholesterol, blood pressure
'My Son'
Director: Christian Carion
Starring: James McAvoy, Claire Foy, Tom Cullen, Gary Lewis
Rating: 2/5
UK’s AI plan
- AI ambassadors such as MIT economist Simon Johnson, Monzo cofounder Tom Blomfield and Google DeepMind’s Raia Hadsell
- £10bn AI growth zone in South Wales to create 5,000 jobs
- £100m of government support for startups building AI hardware products
- £250m to train new AI models
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Thor: Ragnarok
Dir: Taika Waititi
Starring: Chris Hemsworth, Tom Hiddleston, Cate Blanchett, Jeff Goldblum, Mark Ruffalo, Tessa Thompson
Four stars
Libya's Gold
UN Panel of Experts found regime secretly sold a fifth of the country's gold reserves.
The panel’s 2017 report followed a trail to West Africa where large sums of cash and gold were hidden by Abdullah Al Senussi, Qaddafi’s former intelligence chief, in 2011.
Cases filled with cash that was said to amount to $560m in 100 dollar notes, that was kept by a group of Libyans in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso.
A second stash was said to have been held in Accra, Ghana, inside boxes at the local offices of an international human rights organisation based in France.
Key findings of Jenkins report
- Founder of the Muslim Brotherhood, Hassan al Banna, "accepted the political utility of violence"
- Views of key Muslim Brotherhood ideologue, Sayyid Qutb, have “consistently been understood” as permitting “the use of extreme violence in the pursuit of the perfect Islamic society” and “never been institutionally disowned” by the movement.
- Muslim Brotherhood at all levels has repeatedly defended Hamas attacks against Israel, including the use of suicide bombers and the killing of civilians.
- Laying out the report in the House of Commons, David Cameron told MPs: "The main findings of the review support the conclusion that membership of, association with, or influence by the Muslim Brotherhood should be considered as a possible indicator of extremism."
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Wednesday's results
Finland 3-0 Armenia
Faroes Islands 1-0 Malta
Sweden 1-1 Spain
Gibraltar 2-3 Georgia
Romania 1-1 Norway
Greece 2-1 Bosnia and Herzegovina
Liechtenstein 0-5 Italy
Switzerland 2-0 Rep of Ireland
Israel 3-1 Latvia
The Melbourne Mercer Global Pension Index
The Melbourne Mercer Global Pension Index
Mazen Abukhater, principal and actuary at global consultancy Mercer, Middle East, says the company’s Melbourne Mercer Global Pension Index - which benchmarks 34 pension schemes across the globe to assess their adequacy, sustainability and integrity - included Saudi Arabia for the first time this year to offer a glimpse into the region.
The index highlighted fundamental issues for all 34 countries, such as a rapid ageing population and a low growth / low interest environment putting pressure on expected returns. It also highlighted the increasing popularity around the world of defined contribution schemes.
“Average life expectancy has been increasing by about three years every 10 years. Someone born in 1947 is expected to live until 85 whereas someone born in 2007 is expected to live to 103,” Mr Abukhater told the Mena Pensions Conference.
“Are our systems equipped to handle these kind of life expectancies in the future? If so many people retire at 60, they are going to be in retirement for 43 years – so we need to adapt our retirement age to our changing life expectancy.”
Saudi Arabia came in the middle of Mercer’s ranking with a score of 58.9. The report said the country's index could be raised by improving the minimum level of support for the poorest aged individuals and increasing the labour force participation rate at older ages as life expectancies rise.
Mr Abukhater said the challenges of an ageing population, increased life expectancy and some individuals relying solely on their government for financial support in their retirement years will put the system under strain.
“To relieve that pressure, governments need to consider whether it is time to switch to a defined contribution scheme so that individuals can supplement their own future with the help of government support,” he said.
More from Neighbourhood Watch:
On Instagram: @WithHopeUAE
Although social media can be harmful to our mental health, paradoxically, one of the antidotes comes with the many social-media accounts devoted to normalising mental-health struggles. With Hope UAE is one of them.
The group, which has about 3,600 followers, was started three years ago by five Emirati women to address the stigma surrounding the subject. Via Instagram, the group recently began featuring personal accounts by Emiratis. The posts are written under the hashtag #mymindmatters, along with a black-and-white photo of the subject holding the group’s signature red balloon.
“Depression is ugly,” says one of the users, Amani. “It paints everything around me and everything in me.”
Saaed, meanwhile, faces the daunting task of caring for four family members with psychological disorders. “I’ve had no support and no resources here to help me,” he says. “It has been, and still is, a one-man battle against the demons of fractured minds.”
In addition to With Hope UAE’s frank social-media presence, the group holds talks and workshops in Dubai. “Change takes time,” Reem Al Ali, vice chairman and a founding member of With Hope UAE, told The National earlier this year. “It won’t happen overnight, and it will take persistent and passionate people to bring about this change.”
Desert Warrior
Starring: Anthony Mackie, Aiysha Hart, Ben Kingsley
Director: Rupert Wyatt
Rating: 3/5
Brief scores:
Day 1
Toss: India, chose to bat
India (1st innings): 215-2 (89 ov)
Agarwal 76, Pujara 68 not out; Cummins 2-40
