Cast your mind back to the start of the pandemic and the focus was all about getting equipment for life support. Amid huge demand, ventilators were in short supply globally and were critically needed to keep the sickest patients with Covid alive.
In the business world here though, life support of a different kind was also needed, as firms whose turnover had collapsed needed an urgent injection of cash to survive and maintain their staffing.
The Temporary Wages Subsidy Scheme (TWSS) and its later successor, the Employment Wage Subsidy Scheme (EWSS), were quickly introduced as a vital mechanism for keeping the relationship between businesses that were vulnerable but viable, and their staff, intact.