Covid bulletin #21

Aug 20, 2020 | Sector & policy

This is the twenty-first of a series of bulletins produced by ISE to update members on key data and policy on Covid-19. Due to leave, we missed a week last week and so this bulletin covers the two week period from 06/08/2020-19/08/2020.

You can access all of the Covid-19 bulletins on the ISE website.

Latest Covid-19 data

Data taken from Wikipedia and from the government’s Number of coronavirus (Covid-19) cases and risk in the UK webpage.

The number of new Covid cases has continued to increase throughout August. The number of deaths was declining throughout July and August, but last week showed a small rise.

The government has a new Covid-19 dashboard. As of the morning of the 20th August it says that the UK has had 321,098 cases and 41.397 deaths from Covid-19.

Analysis is beginning to emerge setting out what factors contributed to the UK having the worst Covid outbreak in Europe.

Ending lockdown

Leicester’s lockdown has steadily been eased over the last two weeks with the opening of pubs, restaurants and hairdressers and then nailbars and some new opportunities for socialising but the local lockdown remains in place.

Lockdowns are also continuing across much of the North, with concern about the number of cases growing in Preston and Oldham.

Schools

It has been a tumultuous two weeks for the government around publication of A level results, the outcry about the use of an algorithm to calculate grades which seemed to exacerbate social inequalities and then a U-turn ending up with these grades being scrapped in favour of teacher assessment.

Universities warn that the last minute U-turn on A level grades creates major problems for the admissions process to university.

The political fallout from the A level U-turn is still unfolding. Gavin Williamson has sought to assign blame to Ofqual but others (including 40% of Brits) are calling for him to resign.

Further problems are still unfolding around the publication of BTec and GCSE results.

Plans are beginning to take shape on how the return-to-school is going to work in September. There is agreement that the return to school is critical, but some scientists are calling for routine testing.

Post-secondary education

Robert Halfon (Chair of the Education Select Committee) sets out how he thinks the government could make an apprenticeship guarantee a reality.

A new body has been established to advise universities about managing Covid during the return to campus.

The Career Development Policy Group have published a critique of the government’s current plans on career guidance which they argue will not help enough people.

Higher education careers services are of key importance during the pandemic. Laura Greeves writes about careers services and Covid-19 and Tristram Hooley and Gabi Binnie discuss how they can navigate the current storm.

The economy

The UK economy has entered the deepest recession since records began and is currently experiencing the worst recession of any G7 country.

The ongoing decline of the high street has been exacerbated by the pandemic.

The Eat-out-to-help-out scheme announced by the Chancellor seems to have been highly successful in stimulating the use of restaurants.

The labour market

Concerns about the approaching crisis in jobs continue to grow as the furlough scheme begins to wind down. Redundancy announcements continue to grow with three-quarters of a million workers already falling off of pay roles, one in three firms expected to cut jobs in the autumn and the number of applications for new jobs soaring.

Corin Egglestone sets out an evidence based summary of what the government should do to respond to this economic shock.

The student labour market

Career progression for young workers has been slowing down and may be further slowed by the pandemic finds new research from the Institute for Fiscal Studies.