John McAfee just made a bold coronavirus prediction
Good news for beleaguered retailers and other businesses hurting in the current climate, the coronavirus will soon be mostly gone in the northern hemisphere.
Well, that’s the view of tech magnate and crypto advocate John McAfee, anyhoo.
“Covid-19 is a cold weather virus. It's seasonal, like the flu. By the third week of May it will be mostly gone in the Northern Hemisphere. I predict countries around the world will claim victory for for this natural occurence. Just watch,” he tweeted today.
“For arguments against it being seasonal: I've had my say. I'll say no more. If I'm right, it, like the flu, will be all but gone - (let's say ... less than five deaths daily, worldwide, per million population) - by the third week in May. It's just three weeks away. Relax,” he added.
McAfee, it should be pointed out, once predicted that Bitcoin would reach a price of $1 million by the end of 2020. He even promised to eat his own penis if it didn’t. So, there’s also that…
Returning to action
Meanwhile, various bricks and mortar retailers are now plotting the long way back to post-coronavirus normality. Greggs, for instance, is set to reopen 20 stores on 4th May.
A ‘controlled trial’ will take place over two weeks in the Newcastle area. Only takeaways and deliveries will be offered and there will be shorter trading hours and a limited product range.
McDonald's UK is also carrying out tests and Starbucks is prepping its way out of the shutdown with mobile tech. Elsewhere, Homebase has fully reopened an additional 50 stores across the UK today, after trialling 20 at the weekend. The remaining UK locations will all return for customers to browse and shop from Saturday.
And John Lewis is drawing up a blueprint that it will be ready to activate within weeks. Andrew Murphy, John Lewis Partnership's Executive Director of Operations who has led the strategy, has stressed that the company would wait for a signal from the government and health chiefs before triggering the operation.
He revealed that John Lewis is “modelling for scenarios where different sizes of shops are able to open at different points in time… That seems to us to be reasonably likely. Even in a scenario where we are theoretically able to open all our shops on the first day, we wouldn't do that. We would open in a minimum of three tranches.”
