Panic in China’s richest city as 25m residents of Covid-ridden Shanghai run out of food in world’s strictest lockdown China: Covid far from over Frustration, panic and anger is growing in Shanghai as millions of residents are struggling to get their hands on meat, rice and other food supplies while the government tries to contain a spreading Covid outbreak with anti-coronavirus controls that confine most of its 25m people to their homes, People in China’s business capital have complained [...]
New Covid variant spreading like wildfire across UK and Scandinavia: BA.2 ‘stealth’ mutation now half of all new coronavirus cases in Denmark and rapidly pushing Omicron aside New Covid variant in Europe Various media across Scandinavia and the UK are reporting the emergence of a new Covid variant that is so infectious and spreading so fast that nearly half of all cases in Denmark are now the new mutation, named BA.2, with more than 400 confirmed infections across the UK. The new mutation has reportedly also popped [...]
2021 in review: Furlough is government’s big success story, but Rishi Sunak’s £69bn lifesaver comes at a price Furlough Furlough has become a household word in recent years. The scheme that protected the jobs of nearly nine million Britons at its peak has been hailed as the big success story of the Government’s Covid support measures as the jobs market rebounds at an impressive pace. The warnings of soaring joblessness that struck fear into [...]
Covid researchers ecstatic: Christmas comes early as multiple studies confirm Omicron is mildest coronavirus variant so far and rapidly replaces deadly Delta December 23, 2021 Researchers in the UK are increasingly convinced the Omicron variant of the Coronavirus is much milder than the previous Delta mutation, and most likely the least lethal strain so far, thereby confirming earlier findings in South Africa. According to research by the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA(, people who get infected with the Omicron variant [...]
South Africa upbeat as battle of the Covid mutations rages: Omicron deaths still zero despite new coronavirus variant spreading twice as fast as deadly Delta December 8, 2021 Scientists and policy makers in South Africa and across the region are cautiously optimistic that the rapidly spreading Omicron variant is not going to cause a bloodbath as, so far, no deaths have been linked to the new Covid mutation. Despite a record number of new infections – more than 40,000 people tested positive in [...]
‘I told staff to delete the app’: Hospitality reacts to pingdemic crisis July 20, 2021 While the government was hailing the arrival of so-called “freedom day” yesterday, the threat of rising Covid cases and the “pingdemic” forcing staff to self isolate has left the beleaguered hospitality industry with little to celebrate. One restaurateur told City A.M: “Our ability to operate hangs in the balance by some fairly crude geolocation tech”, [...]
Corona Impact Series: The Walthamstow bakery that was saved by quick thinking and simple tech July 16, 2021 In this series, City A.M. looks at the financial and economic impact of the ongoing pandemic on a range of small and medium-sized businesses across London. READ THE ENTIRE SERIES HERE TODAY BREAD is an artisan bakery based in East London, founded in 2013 from a small flat in Walthamstow. The bakery was the passion project of Alexandre Bettler, who [...]
Michelin starred Pied à Terre in Fitzrovia stops lunch due to ‘Brexit and Covid’ June 21, 2021 In another sign of the post-Covid recruitment crisis, one of London’s oldest Michelin-starred restaurants has closed its lunch service until further notice. Fitzrovia’s Pied à Terre says Brexit and Covid have impacted recruitment so badly it is no longer able to open for the whole day. The restaurant said it could not “protect the welfare [...]
Staff crisis in hospitality: Act now or risk being the next France June 15, 2021 The hospitality sector is in the midst of a staff crisis. We always knew that staffing would be a challenge with full reopening post-Covid, that not everybody would return to work after furlough. Many of our French and Italian staff went back home during lockdown and had decided not to return to the UK or [...]
Corona Impact Series: Why some City workers are retraining as childminders June 11, 2021 In this series, City A.M. looks at the financial and economic impact of the ongoing pandemic on a range of small and medium-sized businesses across London. “The pandemic quite understandably caused people to re-evaluate what’s important to them, and make changes to align their lives with those values. But we couldn’t have predicted quite how much of an impact that [...]