You mean we could be stuck here until the end of next year???
Vaci-nation
Depending on who you believe, junior health minister Nadine Dorries may or may not have tweeted that the nation must stay in lock down until a Covid-19 vaccine is found. Which means that we might all have to stay cooped up like chickens until well into 2021 watching the hurriedly made 73rd series of Killing Eve (as an aside, I see this as an overreaction. I was never much of a fan of Shoestring but it wasn’t so bad that I was minded to murder the star turn).
All sorts of people weighing in on this and what a disaster it would be for the economy etc etc. But I don’t see what the fuss is about. Just in five short minutes of research, I have found several vaccines. For instance, I found Justin Hayward-Young here on Twitter, where I also found Freddie Cowan (sort of). And I found the whole lot of them on Instagram. So pipe down, give me a Nobel prize and let’s get back down the pub.
We gotta get outta this place
European Commission has published some guidance on how the 27 member states might emerge from lock down – which is a valuable read for those of you with newly created EU subsidiaries, EU colleagues or EU clients. But I know what you are thinking. “It is 16 pages long, Chris. Can’t you read it and tells us the salient points. That is your job after all”. And I could. But attached is a helpful precis that those nice people at BIPAR have done so I don’t have to.
Now don’t get me wrong, I strongly considered cutting and pasting this email, changing the font, tidying up the English a bit and passing it off as my own work. But, on balance, I felt that would be wrong. Just.
Andres Manuel Loopy Obrador
In the first of what I hope will be an occasional series, we bring you episode one of “Stark staring mad politicians and their reaction to the Coronavirus”. This time starring Mexican president Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador (or AMLO as he is known by his adoring faithful). AMLO can’t get the virus as he has lucky amulets and prays a lot. This has meant that he felt confident enough not maintain a social distance from Maria Consuelo Loera – the mother of Joaquin Guzman Loera (who seems to be turning up in these emails with disturbing regularity) – and, I believe, AMLO felt safe and healthy enough to shake Senora Consuelo Loera’s hand.
Now admittedly these are the actions of a man who is clearly b*****t crazy. Save for one thing. Covid-19 is certainly dangerous and life threatening. But it is as nothing compared to the risk associated with dissing Chapo’s mum. On balance AMLO probably did the sensible thing. And if he needs lucky amulets to give him the courage to do that, good on him.
StirLIMOSS
The first ever tribute pun. RIP.
Attached is the latest market service performance statistics from LIMOSS. Once again, no imagination whatsoever with the colour scheme.
Protected Bav-aria
Attached is the press release that Allianz has put out about its contribution to a rescue scheme for the hospitality sector in Bavaria. This is hot on the heels of the French insurance industry doubling its contribution to the national solidarity fund to €400m (and not €400 as Caroline Wagstaff pointed out I said yesterday – I mean I know the French are cheap, but…). And you may have seen Insider coverage of some plans Lloyd’s has. So our industry is responding to these challenging times. But there is more to do. We remain in close liaison with Lloyd’s over its plans and will bring more detail as we have it.
Web upgrade
We are putting the finishing touches to a new feature in the news section of our website. This will link you in to all the useful information we have scavenged from other websites over the past few weeks. We hope to have this available tomorrow.
That is more than enough for a Thursday. I am off for a bean and banana yoghurt.
20200415 – LIMOSS Pandemic update v1