Will I lose my job due to this epidemic?

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I'm so worried about what's going to happen. Spring is my favourite season and yet I have to spend it worrying and stressing.

I work for a bus company (as a bus cleaner), and with lots of people having to shut themselves in for two weeks, flights being cancelled, schools being closed and events being cancelled, people won't be using the buses as much, therefore the companies won't be making money, and might end up going bankrupt and everybody in every bus company will lose their jobs, as well as no more bus services. That is what keeps on going round and round in my mind and is getting me into such an anxious state.

I can't afford to lose my job, I really can't. My partner is unemployed and we are relying on my wages to pay the bills. He gets unemployment benefits but it's not enough, and I don't want to end up on unemployment benefits because I find looking for a new job very stressful to the point of not wanting to do it. I'm happy in my job too.

Is this all heading for disaster?

Here’s an article on government measures to help small-medium size businesses cope with the financial impact of the virus:

UK budget 2020 coverage FT.

I would expect that if the situation worsens additional spending measures to safeguard the finances of transport and haulage companies will be forthcoming: buses, trains and road haulage are too important to the economy for any prime minister to risk them going bankrupt en masse.
By all means keep a concerned eye out: but I doubt they’ll let your employer go under.

Possible, but I think the drivers are in more of a danger of losing their jobs than the cleaners. Less customers could lead to shifts, which would mean less drivers needed. However, with an epidemic ( or pandemic?) going on, cleaning staff is more important than ever. So, unless the goverment orders the busses to stop driving, which I find very unlikely, you should be pretty safe. Fortunately you don't clean hotels for a living.

I'm sick of it, when I first heard about this coronavirus I thought it would be the same as the Swine Flu epidemic where there's a bit of freaking out and news statistics but not like this. They've sold out of toilet paper everywhere and a lot of supermarkets are literally having queues of people right out the door! I've never seen it like this before.

When will this be all over? Will it go on forever?

I'm just worried about the bus companies not making enough money to keep all the employees in jobs and every depot closing down. Will everything pick up financially after this epidemic? It's so worrying, I feel sick with worry, I've got bills to pay I cannot afford to lose my job.

And if everyone has to stay indoors like they are in Italy, will this mean there will be nobody to run services like electricity or internet? So we've all got to sit doing nothing in the dark for 2 weeks? I'm telling you, that is going to cause more problems than this stupid virus.

I mean, if you get it, you get it. Even some elderly people recover. It's just as risky to the elderly and the vulnerable as anything else. It's life, we just have to tough it out. It's really getting out of hand.

Don’t you work for a public bus company?

I doubt that the government would allow this bus company to go bankrupt.

Even private bus companies receive government subsidies, and there are ways the government can prevent bankruptcy.

Bus transport is vital in large cities.

I don't think electricity will be shut off, there are workers who will keep operating the power plants worse case they would be quarantined at the power plant. Sure not all the workers would remain on the job, just the required personnel to keep things running and monitor things. My boyfriends dad works at a nuclear power plant and would be one of those workers...but I suspect its not just nuclear plants with that sort of policy so you probably don't have to worry about sitting in the dark at least. And not sure the internet needs many workers to keep running so probably fine there to.

Yes but with lots of people working from home and the stigma that buses have about being the germiest places (even if well-cleaned), it's going to affect the bus services. Where I come from the bus companies make most of their money from school, college and university students, airport workers, elderly people, shoppers and people traveling to offices - and all of those groups are being affected; the schools and colleges are closing, the flights are being cancelled, elderly people are most advised to stay indoors, shops are running out of stock and could be closed if we have lockdowns, and people who work in offices can work from home. So trains and buses are going to lose out on a lot of money, and without money most businesses collapse and thousands of people get laid off.

Well, China got the whole world into this mess, China can get it out. If businesses lose out on money then it should be China's problem and they should bail us out.

Are there many people who have started working there later than you? If there are layoffs, they would be laid off first. Are you in a Union?

I’ll be pulling for you.

Experts here say that the worst should be over by the time summer starts. There might still be some restrictions to big events and traveling, but society should start working for the most part.

This will naturally affect economy and lots of people will lose their jobs, but companies will recover eventually and new ones will replace the ones that can't get back on their feet.

It's extremely unlikely that electricy or water would end up being cut off. Those places have lots of counter measures to handle different types of crises since they're so essential.

The elderly and otherwise vulnerable have the right to live, too. If this was like a common virus for sure, it wouldn't have even reached the news. It's not yet known what it can cause, including the long term effect it can do to those who only get mild flu symptoms. I assure you, this all is not for nothing. Besides, it's better to overreact than underreact because the former is less likely to cost lives than the later. Companies can be rebuilt, savings can be re-earned, but you can't get back the lives that have been lost!

public bus companies in the uk are often government funded so even if buses lose out on customers they will still be backed up by the government
i know this cos im a bus driver myself

Im more worried about catching the covid19 or whatever its called cos my immune system isnt too strong since i got meningitis a few years ago and thankfully survived it but its left me vulnerable to some viruses out there

Well that's a relief.



I'm worrying about the actual virus too now. More people in the UK have died from it in the last couple of days.

I'm having sleepless nights over it. My partner is a smoker and has a bad cough and chest anyway, how will we know if he's got the coronavirus or if it's just his normal cough? He's also not very hygienic - yesterday he started eating in a public place with his bare hands without washing his hands. Now that's just asking to get the coronavirus, innit? Even before this coronavirus existed, I've always washed my hands before eating after being in public places, probably because I have a phobia of catching worse viruses like norovirus.

Please tell me, will this all end some day? My boyfriend likes to watch the news but if I'm in the room with the news on I start melting down in a panic because I just can't cope with the uncertainty of it all.
I just want everything to return to normal. Even my dreams are more normal than real life right now. But even if I take a sleeping pill to relax me, I just cannot get to sleep, so I can't even escape this nightmare. My chest is hurting from panic. It is sheer panic.

Additional, but slightly tangential point to Caz72’s post: you mentioned concern over the electricity system (and by implication I’d assume water and gas as well). These, and the railways for that matter, are also massively subsidised by the government: it also occurred to me whilst drifting off to sleep last night that the various engineering regiments of the army can be deployed to run these core facilities in the event of a national lockdown, like when the army runs the fire & rescue service when the union calls a strike.

Could you come up with a legitimate reason why you have to be out of earshot of the telly when the main news is on every day?

I've heard that all this panic buying is leaving nothing left in the stores for the elderly people. So there's a selfish act for a start. Personally I'd rather have the elderly and the vulnerable and people with babies be the first priority for stocking up so that they can stay indoors, while the rest of us carry on as normal (unless of course you live with any type of vulnerable person). A healthy 30-year-old like me is more likely to get the symptoms mildly and recover, and I do not want to be cooped up indoors for 14 days. Fresh air, exercise and sunshine has always helped me get through viruses, unless the temperature is cold. But it's springtime, the most wonderful season of the year.