A ration book

Until such time as a vaccine has been rolled out to enough people to push the coronavirus underground, if not to extinction, we need to ration the things that we do that involve other people - on the straightforward inference that more involvement spreads more virus. With papers talking of another bout of lock-down being needed, after the event, to pay for a liberated Christmas.

One way to deal with this would be for us all to have personal ration books, in effect a bank book keeping track of our viral account. The government would pay everyone in virals on the last working day of every month. One might have it that the number of virals one was paid was simply a function of age, with age seemingly the biggest single determinant of vulnerability. Or one might further trust the government to reward good behaviour and to punish bad behaviour through our ration books.

Anyone whose viral balance was negative would be confined to whatever quarters they were in at the time they went negative. Leaving those quarters only permitted for very special occasions, requiring very special authorisations. Leaving those quarters without permission would trigger severe sanctions. Internal exile to the Isle of Man?

Otherwise, any qualifying activity would result in a deduction being made from one's ration book. So going to an old persons' concert at a place like the Wigmore Hall would cost you 100 virals up front plus 50 virals an hour. Going to the average public house would cost you 10 virals an hour. Ditto the average children's playground. Going shopping in a place like the Tier I Sainsbury's store in Kiln Lane, here at Epsom, would cost you 5 virals an hour. Part hours charged at the full hour rate. Getting less than 2 metres away from the mouth of a person who was not in your bubble would cost you 3 virals a  minute. 

So the general form of these charges would be 'A + B×time' where A and B were suitable non-negative constants. Some activities would be charged the same flat rate, however long you were at it, so B zero; some would simply be charged according to time, so A zero; and, some would be in-between, that is to say both A and B would be positive.

Checkpoints would be established at all qualifying venues, checkpoints equipped with enough electrical gadgetry to update the ration books of everybody passing through them. With a uniformed attendant with full powers, just in cast there was any problem.

Consideration would need to be given to whether trading in virals was to be allowed.

Consideration would need to be given whether virals were to be time limited to prevent hoarding.

A whole new section would be created in the Cabinet Office which would be charged with, devoted to listing qualifying venues, listing qualifying activities and setting the viral charges. Supervising the roll-out of checkpoints. Reporting directly to the Rt. Hon. Micheal Gove (or one of his cronies). Publishing an annual report which would include a substantial statistical supplement, for which the recently mentioned reference 1 might be a good model.

The sort of bank book snapped above would not do. This ration book would be digital and would have to be kept on a qualifying mobile phone - which would be almost certainly exclude my mobile phone from Microsoft, even if their Reading operation were to win the ration book contract - and the ration book app would have to be loaded and activated. Otherwise confined to quarters, as above.

Or perhaps, in the interests of speed and efficiency, don't bother with a conventional procurement competition, just give the contract to the people doing track and trace.

Reference 1: Facts and figures about the Church of England – The central board of finance of the Church of England – 1962.