Following the science on COVID-19 pub restrictions?
Below are a couple of paragraphs from an Observer report (18.10) on COVID-19 pub restrictions. A link to the full article is also below.
If such restrictions were reasonably certain to limit infections they would be worth it-with a furlough for staff and support for businesses. As it is the report suggests that what is being proposed is not science at all but simply a mantra.
Manchester leaders had also had problematic meetings with Prof Jonathan Van Tam, the government’s deputy chief medical officer for England, which made them wonder if there was any science at all behind the plan. They had asked Van Tam if he could guarantee that closing pubs and clubs would bring the virus under control in their areas – and Van Tam said he couldn’t.
At 10.30am, things got even more fractious when the 29 local Labour and Tory MPs began a meeting with junior health minister Helen Whately. Van Tam was present again. When Van Tam told the MPs – who included five Tories who had won their “red wall” seats for the first time last December – that people in pubs and bars who talked above loud music were more likely to spread the virus, the Labour MP Lucy Powell was so cross she un-muted herself and told him in no uncertain terms that for 12 weeks it had been table service only in Greater Manchester, and that households had only been able to mix outside anyway.
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