Businesses on the Isle of Wight have already been given a total of more than £11 million in rates support grants, to help them through the coronavirus (Covid-19) emergency.
Around 800 businesses have so far received the payments.
The grants, made available under a national government scheme, are distributed by the Isle of Wight Council to eligible businesses ratepayers.
So far more than 2,590 business ratepayers have filled in a form to provide their details for direct payment, which can be found at www.iow.gov.uk/covid19_businessadvice.
Council leader Dave Stewart said:
“With many more millions to go out in the coming days and weeks, this lifeline will help our Island businesses at this crucial time.
“We understand that cash-flow is key to the survival of a business in these unprecedented times and I would like to thank the council staff working to get this money to our Island businesses as quickly as possible.
“I would encourage any business that thinks it is eligible for these grants to contact us through our website so that we can arrange to get these funds to you.”
Article continues below this advertisement
Bob Seely MP has said:
“I urge all small and medium sized businesses on the Island to see if they are eligible. Even if you don’t think you’re entitled, it’s worth checking.
“We need to keep our businesses and our economy going so that when we emerge from lockdown we are in the strongest position we can be to rebuild our economy and get people back into employment as quickly as possible.”
IMO, it is wrong to fool people into believing that ‘once the lockdown’ is over, things will almost return to normal. They won’t.
The lockdown ending will occur as less people die in hospitals, which will not be a result of the virus being eliminated, but as a direct result of the ‘lockdown’.
So as soon as people are more active in the community once more, even if following distancing, etc, then, it only takes one to unknowingly take the virus home, on shoes, on clothing, on the car keys, edge of the car door, a myriad of items, to infect for day, unknown a partner, a child, who, in turn will then infect others, and they in turn will do like wise………the whole thing starts again.
HMG know this, and we will have to accept a year of the same amount virtually of people dying, just over a longer time span, until an anti virus jab is found and is effective.
So WHO will wish to go to a restaurant, who will wish to go in a pub, buy an ice cream, still knowing that it only takes one careless handler working there, as many are, as low paid, OFTEN cash in hand types, thus risking infecting members of your family.
This has a long way to run yet, it is NOT all about ‘when the lockdown ends’ and to think differently is madness.
around 10600 people a week die in the UK of a multitude of different things. There were about 6000 more deaths in the first week of april, above this average and 3,475 mentioned covid in this figure. This does mean that over 16,000 died in the first week of april and is about 6000 higher than than the weekly average of five years.
once the death rate from covid drops and we see a return to normality, there will still be around 10000 people dying each week – that is the normal death rate for the UK each week.
as soon as the lockdown is lifted, all those that have had this or been ill will be out like a shot, however, others will be fearful of going out.
Problem is – if you have been hiding away indoors, have not been exposed to the virus and therefore have no immunity – you may get it as soon as you go out. The virus is never going away – it will be part of the family of coronaviruses that are around all the time.
there may be an effective vaccine in some time, however, society and the economy cannot be in lockdown for ever – it will all collapse before then.
If you are worried then stay indoors until a vaccine is proven to work and handed out – the rest of society needs to get back to normal, before it all collapses, as this lockdown and high proportion of society not working cannot go on for very long.