Eat Out To Help Out: Brilliance or Lunacy?

[verdantverdure]

On the day the Covid Inquiry convenes I thought I'd ask your opinion on Eat Out To Help Out.

Covid case numbers and deaths were low, as we'd done a phased return out of the first lockdown.

Then we had Eat Out To Help Out and it all kicked off again within weeks.

What did you think? At the time? Now?

YABU Eat Out To Help Out was brilliant, I loved it.

YANBU Eat out To Help Out was a bloody stupid idea that was obviously going to help the virus spread, leading to another wave, more economic devastation, and tens of thousands of us dead. And it didn't even help the hospitality industry because it screwed up Christmas which is usually their most profitable quarter.

@SunnyEgg

Covid deaths were at close to zero for months in summer 2020.

Don't you remember?

Idiots were saying that covid was over.

Our country demonstrated for months that covid deaths could be prevented.

Nobody can tell you exactly how many could be prevented but in summer 2020, it was nearly all of them.

I can’t believe you are seriously saying that we needed even more severe Covid lockdowns.
Given that lockdowns have caused such enormous problems for the country with missed cancer diagnoses and a generation of children whose mental health has been so severely impacted, it seems rather a fanatical position to take.
Not everyone was fortunate enough to WFH.
I don’t know anyone who died from Covid but several who died due to issues created from lockdown.

Nooo how did you get here.

It was always suggested we’d have rolling waves, CW says this. It will go on long term. Plus we had more infectious variants.

You’ve made a really incorrect assumption from following summer 2020 numbers. It wasn’t ‘over’ of course not. Not many people had been infected by then, how could it be?

I can only suggest you listen to Sir Chris Whitty and understand what he says.

Listen to the inquiry from yesterday and today.

My friends and l used it 2-3 times a week. But then, we were all meeting up anyway all the way through so it was just nice to go out in public instead of secret meetings at the farm.

Nobody i know bought in to the hysteria so it didn't alarm me, it was cheap eating, it was great.

My preference would have been to understand the damage from lockdowns on everyone more and keep schools fully open, plus try to avoid some other harms

I don’t really care about the four days earlier for 1st lockdown as neither here nor there. But imo we flatlined numbers in that summer for little reason and should have thought about dc and young more

@verdantverdure

I don't think that you understand exponential infection rates. We'd have been at weekly doubling regardless - that's how covid works because the r number is what it is. Yes, cases could have doubled from a lower base, but with kids in schools there would have been enough mingling to make infection levels significant amongst students, parents, those who students and parents might be permitted to see, and teachers.

Chris Whitty was never trying to eradicate covid, just keeping levels low so that the NHS wouldn't be overwhelmed - just listen to Patrick valance and CW at the inquiry.

I understand that you want to see things differently, but I don't think that the evidence really supports you.

@SunnyEgg agreed!

So, @ChatBFP and @SunnyEgg

What's your explanation for why covid numbers were very low for months before EOTHO and at crisis point sufficient for Chris Whitty and Patrick Vallance to go on tv with their graph of doom three weeks afterwards?

After the first lockdown ended cases would always pick up.

The only way you could keep at summer 2020 levels was by keeping lockdown in place

That’s not a viable option long term

We weren't in lockdown when EOTHO happened @SunnyEgg

No but i had to wear a fucking mask to go round Tesco and put it on while walking round THREE pubs where people were hugging and kissing each other

It takes time for a wave to pick up but it was inevitable

You would always have another wave. Maybe brought forward by three or so days - look for statistician Sir David Spiegelhalter on this

You’d still get a wave.

All this freaking out over four days here or there is bizarre to me

We had much bigger issues such as damage to children despite negligible risk

Completely agree with you @SunnyEgg

Take it up with the people that made the rules @JenniferBooth.

@verdantverdure It was no surprise to me. I live above an abusive alchoholic who is likely classed as "vulnerable"

It was no surprise to me that the drinkers got a free pass.............AGAIN

So, @SunnyEgg

What's your explanation for why covid numbers were very low for months before EOTHO but at a crisis point sufficient for Chris Whitty and Patrick Vallance to go on tv with their graph of doom three weeks after EOTHO?

On 24 August 2020 Matt Hancock said they had already had feedback that EOTHO was "causing problems in our intervention areas" but that he had "protected Treasury" and "kept it out of the news"

On September 14th the Rule of Six was brought in.

On September 22nd numbers were already so bad that they introduced a 10pm curfew in hospitality and people were told to go back to WFH if they could.

On 30th September Boris Johnson said we were at a critical moment in the pandemic.

The Tiers were introduced on the 14th October.

The second lockdown began on November 5th.

And that was all just inevitable was it?

I’ve already said it.

We knew we’d get rolling waves - you do concede that yes?

The next wave was a few days earlier

To me that’s no big deal and other greater harms matter so much more

And yes waves were inevitable - did you listen to Chris Whitty at the inquiry?

One key point was so few got that it would be a long pandemic, ie the two years. That was a known fact right at the beginning.

So are you saying that a rolling wave is some kind of act of god that we mere mortals can do nothing about @SunnyEgg?

We just have to submit to it and sacrifice 85,000 British people?

I’m not saying it Chris Whitty did at the start and today pointed out many didn’t get it. There would always be waves and we’d need the vaccine to change that

Not sure why you are focusing on that number in particular but deaths were not avoidable, of course not. CW says this too

I take it you haven’t watched his evidence, that’s fine it’s long and time consuming, but if you really want to understand he’s great at explaining

It’s probably much better than unpicking each erroneous conclusion one by one!

Well yes. It’s a pandemic. People die. It’s shit and we all wish it hadn’t happened. But the economy tanking and lack of social interaction causes ill health and death as well. August was also when schools went back (in Scotland) and September (rUK). That had a significant impact on numbers too. But kids needed to go to school again.

I think some people honestly think that there was a course of action the Government could have taken which meant no one died. There wasn’t. Yes they f’d up yes more people died than needed to but it’s over 3 years ago now. Other than learning lessons of how to manage things in future there’s no point raking over all this time and again.

Lack of mixing and when it did finally occur people met outside as it was summer

What else was ever going to feasibly happen, EOTHO or not? Keep everything shut forever and not let people meet up?

So again, @SunnyEgg

What's your explanation for why covid numbers were very low for months before EOTHO but at a crisis point sufficient for Chris Whitty and Patrick Vallance to go on tv with their graph of doom three weeks after EOTHO?

1. Why were covid numbers low for months from mid May to mid-September 2020.

1. Why did they rise?

@verdantverdure

What @SunnyEgg said about rolling waves.

I'm sure that EOTHO encouraged some people to use hospitality settings more. BUT around the time of the launch of EOTHO, lockdown was removed, people could mingle in private settings again - even if no hospitality settings were open at all, people would have tried to catch up with friends and family as they were permitted to do.

Would you have kept all hospitality settings closed even without EOTHO?

Would you have banned private gatherings altogether?

Those happened around the same time at EOTHO - I'm not sure whether or not it was a good use of funds but don't think that you can say it is the only cause. Frankly, if people had decided to meet up in private homes because they couldn't meet at the pub, you'd have had another wave and the Treasury would have been utterly stuffed trying to support businesses who had to stay closed despite people being able to mingle elsewhere.

So what you are asking for, in order to mean absolutely no Covid wave after first lockdown, is that no one was allowed to gather socially indoors, in hospitality settings or otherwise. How long do you really feel people would have kept this up? And how long could we have afforded it?

I’ve already said

I would recommend learning and understanding more. Start with CW at the inquiry, also statistics generally (More or Less is good on R4)

You’re missing a fair of the basics though

If you’re assuming it was over after summer 2020 that’s the first basic error to be corrected

@verdantverdure I’ll add to @ChatBFP post were you expecting full lockdown from summer 2020 to when the vaccine rollout had passed through all vulnerable groups?