Nowhere is the smell of battle between the UK Government and its subjects more pungent than in one of the country’s greatest and most enduring institutions, the British pub. Due to a raft of draconian government COVID policies, the country’s hospitality industry is now crumbling (along with tens of thousands of jobs), and with Boris Johnson’s government standing over it – seemingly eager to deliver the final death blow this winter.
Besides the obvious economic devastation to the hospitality sector, this issue is becoming increasingly divisive to society – indicative of a government-contrived class and cultural wedge issue. Government cuts in operating hours have meant a substantial loss of income for independent business already on the ropes from forced lockdowns over spring and summer. Moreover, with pubs only open for limited service but with large crowds, it also raises questions of policy inconsistency like: why are pubs allowed to open and not gyms? Why is the State’s notorious “Rule of Six” not applicable to pubs, but supposedly enforced in people’s homes, and even outdoors in parks? Why are crowds allowed in restaurants and pubs, but health ministers and NHS have barred partners from accompanying pregnant women for scans or appointments, and not even allowed to attend an early labour session?
Meanwhile, the Government and mainstream media have cleverly framed the argument to set people against each other, as “one person’s laxity or enjoyment is ever more taken as a direct insult to another person’s caution.” This, along with a clear concerted effort by media to disingenuously blame young people and their social lives for a ‘surge in COVID cases’ – while they routinely fail to mention that youth are at near zero risk of any health complications from carrying a coronavirus.
SCOTCHED EARTH POLICY: Prime Minster Boris Johnson and his Health Minister Matt Hancock presiding over the wholesale destruction of UK hospitality and entertainment industries.
In the end, it is the reactionary Government policy decisions, and not COVID-19 itself, which is currently crushing British society and culture.
Christopher Snowden from The Telegraph reports…
have some sympathy with politicians trying to make evidence-based decisions in unprecedented times. The wheels of peer-reviewed science turn slowly. When it comes to specific policy measures, such as what to do with the hospitality industry during Covid-19, we are in uncharted territory.
Nevertheless, it does not inspire confidence when the Chief Medical Officer, Chris Whitty, is passing around a dodgy dossier in private meetings with MPs. Whitty seems determined to find evidence that pubs are a significant source of transmission, so they can be closed down.
When the Scottish Government announced the closure of most of its pubs on Wednesday, it could only muster the claim that around 20 per cent of people with the virus had visited a hospitality venue in the past week. Scotland’s Chief Medical Officer admitted that this did not prove that any of them had been infected in a pub, nor that they had infected anyone else in a pub. Correlation doesn’t equal causation and this was barely even a correlation. Without knowing how many non-infected people go to the pub each week, the statistic is meaningless.
More useful are the NHS Test and Trace figures showing where infected people have had ‘close, recent contact [with other people] and places they have visited’. The most common exposure, by far, is in the home. Only 5 per cent of individuals with the virus report having had close contact with other people in what Public Health England unhelpfully classifies ‘leisure/community’. This is an extremely broad category that lumps together ‘eating out, attending events and celebrations, exercising, worship, arts, entertainment or recreation, community activities and attending play groups or organised trips’.
Despite the wide range of activities listed, only one in twenty Covid-19 cases mention having been involved in any of them. The number of people who visited a pub specifically must be significantly lower than five per cent and the number of people who were infected in them lower still.
This takes MSM propaganda prize for shameless selling Gov't #ProjectFear – Express Newspaper stupes to lowest level of demagoguery yet, using death a 82 yr old grandpa, allegedly catching #COVID after "going to pub to watch football"… 1/4 pic.twitter.com/25nbkTho2V
— Patrick Henningsen (@21WIRE) October 10, 2020
The 10pm ‘curfew’ is now widely acknowledged to be a mistake. Empirical evidence is again lacking, but there is plenty of anecdotal evidence that it has led to crowds on public transport and an increase in house parties. It is easy to imagine a further surge in unregulated private gatherings if pubs are closed down altogether.
When the curfew began two weeks ago, the seven day average of new Covid-19 cases was running at around 6,000. It has since doubled. In Bolton, pubs have been closed since 8 September. When the shutdown began, the seven day average was running at 88 new cases per day. It now stands at 109. Pubs reopened nationwide on 4 July, but it was not until late August that the virus began to grow significantly. In Leicester, pubs remained closed until 3 August and yet the rate of infection continued falling in the city until September when, in common with rest of the country, there was a resurgence.
In short, there is vanishingly little evidence to support the idea that shutting down highly regulated hospitality venues breaks the cycle of transmission. It might even make things worse.
Instead of resorting to a socially damaging and economically disastrous shutdown of the hospitality industry, the government should revisit these measures, strengthen them based on lessons learnt, and ensure consistent enforcement.
Continue this story at The Telegraph
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