In a time loop.

Byline: Irfan Husain

IN these days of the coronavirus, the passage of time can be measured by the gradual emptying of a tube of toothpaste.

As in a sporting event, you can get a body count on the victims of Covid-19 to determine how the deadly game is progressing. The Dawn website carries a daily tally on its front page, giving a province-wise breakdown of the infected and the dead.

As I get the daily Guardian in the idyllic county of Dorset where I find myself under lockdown, I can only look forward to page after page of virus-related news. Op-eds and editorials contain little else. Even the sports pages have been reduced to only carrying reports of past sporting events. There are pages full of graphs and charts containing details of infections and deaths, broken down into cities and counties. Soon, all these lines and numbers blur into a single set of identical data.

I guess you can't blame the editors for this Covid-19 overkill, but it makes for dreary reading. Also, there is very little to report or comment on: the opposition, led by the recently elected Labour leader Keir Starmer, does not want to be seen as playing politics at a time of national crisis when thousands have already died.

The only political argument these days is over when to return life to normal. After six weeks of complete lockdown, people are getting a bit stir-crazy with bored children at home with little opportunity for sports during an exceptionally warm and sunny spring.

One day morphs unnoticed into the next.

And yet, the fear of the disease has persuaded most to support the government in its efforts to enforce an extended lockdown. In a recent poll, only 17 per cent of Brits thought the conditions to impose the ongoing restrictions had been met, while 67pc thought the closure of schools, universities and restaurants should continue. I can see why people want to work from home as they can avoid long commutes and still get paid.

This is in contrast to all those running businesses of every kind. The media is full of interviews with the owners of cafes, bookshops, barbershops and bakeries to find out how they are coping. The inevitable response, of course, is that they aren't. High rents and other fixed costs have hammered them, while staff - even though paid an 80pc subsidy on 'furloughing' by the state - still costs owners 20pc for staff doing nothing.

Fearful of the future, people are spending less, thereby reducing sales and manufacturing. The only companies to...