Although I read that as you trying to be a bit positive about it, by the same token one can also day it's still down 7.9% despite all the restrictions.
Assuming you mean GDP, from 2008 Q1 to 2009 Q1 - during the financial crisis - it 'only' dropped 5.9%. And we felt the effects of that for much of the next decade.
Yes, despite all the doom and gloom plenty is doing ok. While Andy Burnham tried to claim the sky would fall in if the pubs in GM had to close, it hasn't!
The difference then is we were still heading downwards at this point a decade + ago, we had five declining quarters (nearly 6) in a row. This time we had two declining quarters (1 very deep) and have been recovering since (70% of drop recovered) and many parts of the economy are doing ok and the financial system is in good shape this time. The effects are very uneven. We also had a record recession free period since then, so may be we got a bit too used to the economy always doing well?
There is a very high chance that the total reduction in GDP will be less (excluding lack of free trade deal and other 1/1/21 impacts) than last time with better ability to grow as the financial system is in better state.
Many retail groups were already close to the edge (e.g. Debenhams already in administration once pre Covid and questions already being asked about the rest of Green empire too) and many private equity owned restaurant chains were already making sweeping closures pre-Covid so it is hard to say what the true impact is. In some cases Covid may have brought forward the inevitable for some firms.
When the shops have been open post Covid, the relative change in physical vs internet market share has been equivalent to 4-5 years of typical internet retail growth.
The 2020 Q2 GDP figures may be quite warped as the ONS got no survey returns from quite a few firms as the staff were furloughed / too busy hence the picture may be revised slightly in the future.
So why did government deem it necessary to protect Pfizer from legal action? I’m not anti-vaccine, but alarm bells start ringing when you see that news...
Pfizer’s UK boss refuses to explain why the business needs protection from legal action
www.independent.co.uk
Same as for other vaccines for several decades, which is why the boss was struggling to answer because it has always been the case for a long time in the UK (and lots of other countries too). The reporter needs to be better informed and stop ignorant scaremongering.
It isn't news, if the headline matched reality and was "Pfizer vaccine treated like every other approved vaccine" it would have been used as bit of space filler if they still had print edition and nothing more...
The FT wouldn't have published this as it would have failed their internal fact checking processes.