uber worrying

As my bike is still out of action I used an Uber to reach Dan and Joey’s, where we drank gin for sanity. Even within the space of ten minutes of the ride there was lots of worrying coronavirus chat.

The taxi driver had just dropped off a customer who had been dismissed on the spot from her job at a hotel. The driver himself had been unable to find cooking oil in any shop. The main customer base of university students had been advised to leave the city. An Indian friend two months away from achieving permanent residency may have to leave the country and start the process again. Concerns from the driver about his income to cover the finance on the car: ‘if I lose the car I lose everything.’

One piece of cheer is the government’s announcement that Universal Credit will be able to assist more of the self-employed who can’t achieve a minimum income during the crisis. I hope the administrative complexities of this don’t cause people to become destitute and that they will pour in more resources to act efficiently. We’re going to hear some tear-jerking stories in the coming years.