Read on Twitter
I don't know what amount is right to pay people to isolate, and think it's probably just as important to pay close contacts. BUT this is the sort of Treasury Brain thinking that only sees one side of the ledger. Important question is "would this reduce cases." https://twitter.com/MrHarryCole/status/1352581807858978816
Treasury Brain here defined as a seemingly chronic inability to think more than half a step ahead in terms of the impact of policies. E.g. let's get people into restaurants to restart the economy (followed by inevitable expensive lockdown)
The *aim* of paying people to isolate is so that there are *fewer people with the disease* and as such the other costs associated with the ongoing public health interventions fall, because you don't have to be in full lockdown all the time.
The penny-wise pound-foolish crowd, epitomised by HMT, have had an absolutely awful 12 months, just drubbed intellectually at every turn. The fact that they do not feel any embarrassment at this way of viewing things yet is a great shame.
The UK borrowed £34.1bn in December. I'm pretty dovish when it comes to ramping up public debt for pandemic control, but surely even the hawks here don't think another £2bn makes a proper difference? The only important thing here is preventing cases. Almost nothing else matters.
