COVID-19

You would have thought the megaminds would’ve worked that out.

 

I'm surprised they can tie their own shoe laces.

 

If that was the case the pub/restaurant owners wouldn’t be complaining against it. If it just shifted trade they would be for it as their overheads will be less.

In reality some may do what you say but a majority will not and trade will be down significantly.

 

We'll see. I doubt it but it's possible.

Everyone has known pubs have been an issue for a while so it's not a surprise action has been taken in that area.

If people do as you say and it makes no differnce then I'd expect them to be closed full stop within the next few weeks.

 

Your defense for the government and their actions is embarrassing.

Of course a lot of people with aim to go to the pub earlier and drink faster. Seriously mate! What like the virus knows what time it is! It's a joke mate.

The government need to help the pub industry now. 3m people work in the hospitality sector. This is a stupid move. 6k jobs gone straightway from Wetherspoons.

 

I'm going to say it one more time because I know you're a little slow. It's not about the government and I'm not defending them.

As I said we'll have to see. Walking around the city centre late at night recently has been carnage, like the warnings didn't even exist, so we'll see if that changes in the coming weeks.

You need to make your mind up. The first part of your post says that it will make no difference but then the second part says it's going to have a massive impact on the sector. Which is it?

 

Where's that come from?

 

Oh good. More economic disaster.

It'll probably be a mixture of both. I fail to see how it makes a difference in restaurants, or what benefit it could possibly derive. I could see some rationale in pubs, on the basis that as people get more drunk the more they lose self discipline. But as I say, if you're out for a sesh, most people will just go out earlier.

Owners are kicking off because its just the latest in another set of disastrous and draconian measures that only present downside. If you're owning and running a business, its now become next to impossible to maintain any sense of control.

The whole thing is a farce, and completely unnecessary.

 

But is it an issue? Seriously? Is there any evidence to demonstrate that transmission is particularly prevalent in pubs, or that setting a 10pm curfew makes a difference? Human behavior, is human behavior.

I'll offer what I think is a reasonable alternative scenario - when it gets to 10pm, anyone who's socializing in their 'group of 6' will squeeze their last couple of drinks in, in one of their houses. So you'll have groups convening in smaller spaces and creating just as much, if not more 'risk'.

The whole thing is farcical. If you're under 60 and in reasonable health, you should be living your life as normal. Get the economy, health system, education system, leisure, hospitality and tourism industry going, and protect those at risk in more targeted ways.

 

(Disclaimer! I have just read this back, and it seems I have gone a bit "War and Peace"! Sorry!)

Over here in Estonia, pubs haven't been told to shut down throughout CV19, but there have been curfews. During the "state of emergency" it was 10pm. That was lifted a few months ago, but on September 1st, due to rising numbers, Tallinn was told that no alcohol is allowed to be served after 11pm. Then last week, we were told that there is to be a national curfew, with no alcohol allowed to be served after midnight. So bizarrely, in Tallinn we get an extra hour.

The logic behind this, is that when people are in a higher state of intoxication, they are more likely to forget the social distancing rules.

I own a bar here in Tallinn. During the week, we close at midnight, so I only lose an hour of trade each day, but on the weekends we close at 2am, and the 11pm-02am shift is one of my most busiest, so I'm losing a lot of trade. My bar staff lose 13 hours work, and my DJs go home two hours early. My regular taxi driver for the staff is not needed anymore, because the girls can get the bus/tram home as they are still running until midnight, and they are going straight home, because all the nightclubs are closed.

So what changed with the drinkers? Over here, it's not really a done thing to go out after work. Many people stay home and "pre load" or share drinks with friends, before going out around 10pm/11pm on weekends. There's no last orders here, and it's not unusual for bars and parties to go on til 6am. However, I have seen a small change, with people coming into bars around 8pm/9pm, and also in a much more drunk state than previously. Obviously, people are starting at home a bit earlier, then coming into bars to finish off the night. This is generally on a Friday. Saturdays I've seen that it's much more quieter, with most people looking at the clock and thinking they'd rather stay in with a bottle of wine, than go out for a few hours. Alcohol sales in the supermarkets are going through the roof. Pubs are closing down.

And of course the more drunk they are, the more difficult they are to handle the "last orders" call. Its very difficult trying to get people to drink up when they haven't had to before. And what happens at 10:59pm when the guy orders 4 pints? This is why we've decided to close an hour after the last orders, to try and let people drink up without rushing them. But then of course, someone comes into the bar after 11pm, and sees people "drinking", and demands a drink and gets mad. It's all more hassle for my staff. This is old news in the UK, and I don't think there will be any problems, as you lot are used to drinking to the clock. There's also the ambiguous nature of the rule "no alcohol sold after 11pm". There's talk of people selling vouchers, or charging 10€ on the door after 11pm, but that includes two free beers. There's also whisperings of places having lock ins, and those that have opened up as underground bars. There's also talk of bars openingly serving drinks after 11pm, and rumours of these ones paying off the police.

However, this alcohol rule is currently the only rule that is place in Estonia. There's no masks, there's no 2 metre rule, there's no limit on numbers gathering, and there's complete freedom of movement. On Saturday night, when my bar had to close at 11pm, directly outside, was a concert with 800 people attending until midnight. Sitting on shoulders, crammed together. It was sad to see, when I'm shutting the bar down and sending my workers home, and all that is going on right on my doorstep. Nightclubs are pretty much bankrupt here because of the curfew, and most DJs are out of work. I've tried to compensate with the guys who play records at my bar, by letting them start at 7pm or even 6pm, but most of them are playing to an empty room, so I'm half thinking what's the point, but I'm trying to support their business, because a lot of them depend on this as it's their job. As mentioned - same with taxi drivers. The town is dead by midnight, and that's the time when most of them pick up their business. Same with the streetfood sellers. People eat before they go out, and now eat when they go home. I expect a lot of kebab shops in the UK will close down! My beer orders are down because I'm not selling so much anymore, and that has a knock on effect to the brewers. My monthly turnover is down almost 40% because of the early closing.

The main gripe, as will be in the UK, is what's the point of having a time limit? It's not explained. I've heard that it's because people get more drunk after 10pm, and mingle more closely together, but as I've pointed out, and some of you have referred to here, people just start earlier. In fact, in Tallinn, it's made the whole vibe of the city a different place, with people drunk on the streets at 9pm, when normally that is not the case. And over here - the whole social distancing bollocks is irrelevant, if concerts and public gatherings are allowed. It's heartbreaking for us bar owners to see this going on. Tallinn is now a ghost town. The once vibrant old town is now deserted. There's no tourists and there's no locals. So many places have gone out of business.

I totally understand containment, and I understand the principle behind the rules, but having a 10pm curfew is just a half arsed way of going about it. It's awful to say, but it's better off the Government having some balls and saying all bars must close. But of course, that leaves them open to paying out support, so the 10pm closures is a bit of a get out of jail clause for them, as it is over here.

All messed up!! I feel very very sorry for the pubs in the UK, who have just got back on their feet, only to be knocked down again. To imagine pubs in the UK without the social vibe that has made them famous the world over, is a very sad image. I'm longing for the day when I can come to Bradford, and experience the atmosphere of the Corn Dolly and Record Cafe pre match, but I can't see that happening very soon, if ever again. To think, i was reading the news in bed one morning in December, and turned to my Mrs and told her there's "something weird going on in China", and we had a laugh about making bat soup for breakfast. And now all this.

Hope you guys all pull through!!! I was planning my first trip to England in three years in June, bringing the kids over for the first time, and of course it was cancelled. I hope we can all come over soon, and we'll be in the pubs and stands like the good old days, but I think we'll have a long wait for that to happen.

Take care, and sorry for the long post, but I just wanted to share my experience with the pub closure situation.

 

I think there's plenty of evidence to suggest that some large spreading events have occured in pubs. The Aberdeen outbreak for one and the Bolton news story recently, there's probably more if I Google it.

I'm not sure whether it will have any effect but if rates keep rising they will no doubt keep pushing the boundries of 'allowed' social interactions downwards because in reality what else can they do?

If they move back to their houses and stay in groups of 6 (debatable) then I suppose that still limits things a bit. It's certainly better than the groups of 20 or 30 or more that have been congregating in the streets at 1am recently.

As for your last point I completely agree in an ideal world. What I can't figure out is any meaningful way to separate the over 60s from the rest of society completely so while they're integrated the only thing that can be done is decrease the number of infected people they could come into contact with. But if there is some way to keep them separate that I haven't considered I'm interested to hear it.

 

You've posted the start of September. All my links showed the fall in the two week since then in southern regions. If you want to look at maps, try this more up to date one where you can see nothing in loads of southern cities - don't they have pubs and young drinkers socialising? Why have cases fallen in most southern areas in the last two weeks?

https://www.arcgis.com/apps/webappviewer/index.html?id=47574f7a6e454dc6a42c5f6912ed7076

 

I can’t remember the last time I was in a pub after 10pm. Daytime drinking and a kebab on the way home for your tea is where it’s at.

 

I don’t think anyone is THIS stupid on here. But if your on furlough and your work phones up to call you back in, don’t give the old ‘wife has corona symptoms’ then plaster pictures of how much of a good time you’re having in Scarborough on Facebook the same day.

 

It's the governments official map not mine, it was the one used in the briefing

The exact same issue as always. If you use the latest data then you don't get the full picture because of reporting delays. At this point we can't be sure the last 2 weeks are falling if it takes 6-8 days for instances to be reported. Same old same old.

The South is running behind the North at this point ? Is that the answer you were looking for?

 

This is an over-simplification - but given that social interaction is criminalized for everybody, why not define a set of rolling social restrictions for over 60s, over 70s and over 80s? Part of me shudders at the thought of anyone being criminalized, but why isolate EVERYONE when it would surely be easier to figure out a system for isolating and supporting the smaller group of vulnerable people?

 

This about sums it up. I've said previously how you have to knock off 400 per week for babyboomer demographics to get the correct excess deaths trend. Measuring against the 5-year average is poor practice unless the demographics are stable. In the UK, they are not. The numbers of 70+ have been rising.. This graphs here adjusts for demographics. There's not a lot to see. It's our worst year for deaths since 2008 and most years before that. I don't recall locking down in 2008 and preceding years.

Https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-54228649

"And if you look at the age-adjusted mortality rates, which take into account the size and age of the population, you can see that while 2020 has undoubtedly been a bad year compared to recent years, what has been seen in terms of people dying is not completely out of sync with recent history. It is actually comparable with what happened in the 2000s."

 

So shut the pubs down then? All this will do is kick the can to earlier in the night. It is not solving anything. The scenes you saw at 1am you will see at 10pm. We have always had the booting out time. It will just push it to another time and not solve anything.
Pubs have Already done enough here. All that money spent on extra protective measures. Tables only otherwise you can’t get in. This is just another one to try and show the government are doing something when in actual fact they’ve lost the plot

 

How would that work though? I am genuinely interested?

Would you be allowed to see your parents or grandparents?If you're under 60 and you live with someone over 60 do you have to seperate? If the grandparents give childcare are they allowed to do it? If you're 60 are you allowed on public transport or to go into work?

If this is easier than closing the pubs at 10? I'm not sure.

 

You are kidding if you think all pubs are table service only already!!!!

Would you be happier if they shut the pubs completely? I know I wouldn't.

And as i keep saying we'll just have to see whether it moves the 1am problem forward to 10pm. There's no point guessing either way at the moment.