'Eat out to help out' a key driver of the second wave - study finds

[annabel85]

Coronavirus: Revealed - the impact Eat Out to Help Out had on infection rates
Research suggests that between 8% and 17% of newly detected infection clusters can be linked to the scheme.

news.sky.com/story/coronavirus-eat-out-to-help-out-accelerated-second-wave-of-covid-19-study-says-12118285

I know they were trying to get the economy going again, but what a ridiculous initiative this proved to be? I know people in hospitality who said it was bedlam on the days of discounted food, so it's no surprise.

100% of cases were from people getting too close to each other and breathing the same air.

I work in the restaurant industry- it's scary how many restaurants went out of business in the full lockdown. If they had no help via the eat out to help out, I dread to think how many more would be out of business now.
Yes there has been a spike and it probably will continue, but this is going to continue to have such a heavy impact on thousands more lives!

@CoronaIsWatching

I didn't partake in EOTHO as it's obvious that places would be packed/not sticking to rules and it would massively spread the virus. Yet I'm against lockdown rules and the removal of civil liberties. I wear a mask and sanitise and conduct social distancing. It's called COMMON SENSE people

I did take advantage of the scheme and none of the places I went to were packed and everywhere stuck to the rules, clearly they didn't realise they were meant to cease normal precautions, the cases in my area didn't start to rise until the university students returned.

I assume you live no where near me, EOTHO genuinely doesn't seem to have been a factor here

Didn't take a genius to work this one out. Yet the buffoons in power couldn't see it or didn't give a damn. Not sure which is worse tbh.

That and people coming back from advise
abroad.

from abroad (typo)

A greater proportion of people willing to travel abroad and to eat out in restaurants are likely to be willing to take risks, whether at home or abroad, in a restaurant, at Granny’s house or in the gym, than those who choose not to travel or eat out at the moment. Likewise, schoolchildren are mostly happy to take the risk of going to school, whereas most adults would insist on working from home if the alternative were to work in an office with 30 other people not wearing masks, and university students by and large went off to their halls of residence rather than insisting they be taught virtually from the safety of their own homes. As already pointed out, the virus spreads because people get too close to each other and breathe the same air. The virus doesn’t care whether you catch it in a Spanish nightclub or an English restaurant, or at your cousin’s wedding - the more often you mix with others, and the more people you mix with, the more likely you are to catch the virus. You could holiday overseas and come into contact with fewer people than at home if you want, or you could go the whole hog and go overseas and eat out every night there, have a few one night stands then come home and go straight to the pub.

[quote MRex]About 80% of cases came from a Spanish variant. Restaurants weren't the issue, holidaymakers were. www.ft.com/content/2782655a-0441-4d38-bb03-5c4e67ead110[/quote]
Both.

If the government had spent the time and money creating a truly functional T&T instead of eat out to help out then we could have easily contained these new infections entering the country.

@lljkk

"key" ? The study says "8-17%" of the increase was down to EO2HO. I mean... 8%? Really, we should worry about 8%? What was the 83%???

This

More “look! Squirrel!” To try and deflect from the fact we all know it’s spread in schools and unis

university students by and large went off to their halls of residence rather than insisting they be taught virtually
I thought the majority of uni students were learning online?

@ivykaty44

with the Spanish flu in 1918

they had a second wave that was more deadly than the first, and now we have a second wave that is taking Europe by surprise. Media are looking for anyone to blame, but its happening just like it did 100 years ago but thankfully so far on a smaller scale of death

This 'second wave' is taking nobody by surprise who has paid the slightest bit of attention.

Everyone I know has used the summer to catch up on things (dentist, haircut, seeing loved ones etc.) in the sure knowledge that things would turn to shit again in the autumn. Because nothing has been fixed.

I keep hearing 'every pandemic has a second wave' but this is not what we're experiencing. This is just more of the first wave that was suppressed during the spring lockdown, catching up with us now because nothing was fixed - there was never an exit plan.

It's like turning the water off at the mains, dealing with the flood, failing to fix the burst pipe and expecting not to have another flood when you turn the water back on.

If we had went in hard on this at the start- instead of the wishy washy way we have- we'd be in a much better position

Like Spain and Italy?

I think we were going into the summer we should have had SD and masks but then just got on with things.

The longer we try to avoid this thing the worse it will be.

walkaround you are one of the few voices of reason. I know exactly how Covid-19 has spread in my home town as I work in this area. Its um.. getting too close to people and breathing the same air. Thats it. Its that fucking simple. Eat out to help out isn't to blame. It was who you ate out with. was it with your partner? Or your partner and two other couples?
Mixing causes covid infections to rise. Its not wafting around down the high street. We KNOW that people transmit it when they don't have symptoms. People don't think they will get it from friends or family. So if you want to avoid covid avoid people as much as you possibly can.

Like pp say it was largely down to our unrestricted borders. People flying off on their foreign holidays.

The scientific expert advising the Scottish government, Professor Devi Sridhar says:

Two approaches: either keeping borders largely open like the UK, but adopting harsh domestic restrictions to try to combat community transmission; or having very tight border controls, like Taiwan and New Zealand, but few restrictions on everyday life.

Europe paying for summer holidays with winter lockdowns.

theguardian.com/world/2020/oct/30/coronavirus-strain-from-spain-accounts-for-most-uk-cases-study

This was last week, 150 in one venue and 70 in another: www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-birmingham-54754841. It isn't EOTHO, it's idiots.

@YuckYuckTea

university students by and large went off to their halls of residence rather than insisting they be taught virtually I thought the majority of uni students were learning online?

What on earth was the point of such ridiculous selective quoting? Why miss out “from the safety of their own homes”? As university students themselves have pointed out, why encourage them to move to halls of residence if 100% of their tuition is to be online and they are to be forced to isolate in said expensive halls of residence and blamed for huge spikes in cases in university towns? They weren’t expecting that.

We made use of the EOTHO.

Everywhere we went tables were at a distance, not overcrowded, servers with masks and texting your order so servers had minimal contact with diners.

Fwiw it was a lifeline. I don’t know if I could have coped without being able to go out.

@12in21

Except the rates didn’t actually start to go up until schools and universities went back?

This

I feel like the senior schools and universities returning full time in person fuelled this spike far more.

Walkaround

I made no comment on students living in halls rather than at home. I merely questioned your post as, to my knowledge, almost all University courses in England are currently taught online. There's the odd lab sessions with a handful of socially distant students. As I understand it, Universities don't actually allow more than a certain limited number of people on campus that includes support and academic staff. So yes, online teaching is happening across the board.

I made no comment on students living in halls. It's not something I know much about as I never lived in halls myself but shared with friends or lived at home when I was studying. It's up to the student and their parents at the end of the day to decide where they do their online studying from.

Yet spending £650 million of taxpayers money on half priced Nando's was very effective in buying support for the Government and Rishi in particular.. For the average person a half priced restaurant meal is much more important than causing in the infection rate to rise.

Hence why I didn't do it 🙄 Not sure why everyone relaxed for a month not knowing the shit would hit the fan

It’s not only about bringing the virus back from Spain , it has mutated .

And unless you study all the countries involved and what they did then don’t generalise that you know the cause .

The curve is very similar in most of Europe and they have not done everything in parallel .

I would say in here everyone is blaming the government and yet it’s about 50 50 split about lockdown or no lockdown .

And also when the relaxation of lockdown did come then I am sorry but in the bars and restaurants they were not social distancing . Give people an inch and they take a mile .

@1dayatatime

But people apparently could not do lockdown it was inhuman , not necessary. Etc etc .

You can’t win . Lockdown and suffer MH problems because you have no job and your freedom has been curtailed.

Don’t do lockdown and you have more chance of not surviving.

Not an easy decision. And trust me even without lockdown things are going to stop as employees will all be off sick or isolating.

@Oliversmumsarmy

We made use of the EOTHO.

Everywhere we went tables were at a distance, not overcrowded, servers with masks and texting your order so servers had minimal contact with diners.

Fwiw it was a lifeline. I don’t know if I could have coped without being able to go out.

Lifeline for you and death sentence for other people now....