The British capital has just entered the high risk traffic light system at tier two with much of the north of England in the very high risk category.
Households can no longer meet in London, and no more than six people are allowed to gather outside. While in the north, all pubs and bars have been closed with only schools, workplaces and essential services remaining open.
The return of cold weather has returned an increase in new cases, with France in particular seeing some 22,000 a day while Germany is also preparing new restrictions.
The leader of the opposition, Keir Starmer, called on Tuesday for a national lockdown as cases rise in UK, but the financial support this time in UK is less than in March when a three weeks lockdown became three months.
While previously the chancellor Rishi Sunak warned that taxes would have to rise to pay for the spring-summer lockdown with debt already at 100% of GDP.
This debt is likely to continue increasing at an exponential rate following these new restrictions, with the economy not having much room to breath a recovery.
Hence London stocks have fallen today by some 2.3%, with American stocks expected to fall by at least 1%, while German and French stocks are down 2.5%.
Bitcoin and eth have also fallen slightly by 0.8% and 2.3% respectively, with it unclear how they will react to another lockdown.
What appears to be different this time however is that the lockdowns are not complete. Schools generally remain open as do workplaces and shops.
People are therefore going out somewhat normally with face masks on the streets being mandatory in much of Europe.
Suspicions that treatment is being withheld run high, with both Boris Johnson and Donald Trump recovering in three days, while many ordinary citizens are departing.
Nine months on now since January when this first began, and the circa $7 trillion a year global health industry has still come up with nothing that costs less than $90,000 which purportedly was the cost for treating Trump.
As such, a blanket policy is seemingly being implemented where those not at risk bear a huge cost, while those most at risk are not quite being protected.
Bitcoin and most assets fell severely during the first lockdown, but it is quite unclear what they may do this time besides falling slightly.
The first lockdown was unexpected in as far as no one thought such blanket policy would ever be applied to the capitals of finance in London and New York.
It was also uncertain in as far as people had to read between the lines to figure out what was happening, and a lockdown is as bad as it gets outside outright war, but on the other hand the rulers and the rich all kept claiming they had covid, suggesting it wasn’t that serious.
Thus we have the sharp drop and the sharp recovery in asset prices, with the most informed probably already expecting this to go on for about two years.
A year has now nearly passed, with some suggesting March would be when what most likely would be herd immunity puts a stop to restrictions.
Therefore bitcoin and other assets might not panic this time, but just what they will do remains to be seen.
