www.theguardian.com/world/2021/mar/25/plans-to-let-pub-landlords-check-covid-status-face-backlash
Morning all,
A little late to the party today after another restless night laced with mild depression leading to "what's the point of anything anymore" thoughts which I fight with gritted teeth every day because resilience or something 
So having checked the press updates this morning I see that the theme of dropping a controversial idea via a "leaked" anecdote through the press which has dominated the whole pandemic has been used here. This of course allows Boris to say "Well it was just an idea, nothing to see here, moving right along" now that the pub industry, his opponents, civil rights campaigners and a fair proportion of Joe Public have gone "Eh? Are you NUTS?"
I did have a bit of a kneejerk reaction to it all myself when it broke, so very late it seemed last night, but I am having slightly more sensible thoughts this morning, though my gut feeling is still a bit closer to irrational - has anyone else noticed that many people have more extreme reactions to things related to the pandemic than might be usual for various issues? It might be a psychological effect worth investigating I feel - but I digress.
I have RTFT so apologies if I repeat things PPs have said very eloquently previously. Very reassuring that people are doing good analysis and seeing the flaws in this plan.
First of all, if this allegedly somewhat "off the cuff proposal" is being proposed as a public health and safety measure, it is utterly non-sensical. The only thing that might work to do this is masks and social distancing. It is dubious whether having the vaccine prevents transmission in any meaningful way - as others have pointed out it is known to prevent serious disease and hospitalisation, so it is not a magic bullet to prevent transmission, so effectively, proving your vaccination status only shows you have protected yourself and the NHS, not the wider community.
The next bit is of course providing proof of negative virus status via a recent test. This makes slightly more sense, however, except in work / school related settings, or perhaps if your entire household has tested positive, why would you take a test if asymptomatic? We had one symptomatic case in our household after Christmas. We dutifully isolated, but the other three of us had no symptoms. So we're in the realms of having to prove we're not a carrier / capable of utterly unwittingly transmitting the disease. Which all gets a bit Typhoid Mary if some poor sods repeatedly test positive with no symptoms (eg my poor MIL who tested twice in her care home with no symptoms at all thank God, the second time three weeks after her first jab).
So we're in the realms of the general populous having to test themselves every time they want to go to the pub, or do anything in fact if we get to the stage of other businesses wanting to exclude anyone with no proof of a recent negative test.
Part of me sees the value of that, as it would give the government a very clear picture of how this virus affects different people, transmission etc. However, as I say, if it is discovered that some people may be long term carriers but asymptomatic with a risk of transmitting it, a two tier society is still a possible result - if you have to responsiblt SI till you get a negative test, and you test positive repeatedly, you're a bit stuck aren't you? How do those people live? How does that affect the economy? Where does it end?
We haven't seen any evidence of this yet, of course, so I am wildly hypothesising, but if this hasn't been looked at maybe it should be. Also if it has been looked at, why haven't they released any info about it?
All of these things shout very loudly to me that this "proposal" is nothing to do with public health and safety.
So from an economic point of view for the pubs, it looks like a fabulous carrot on the surface - be stringent in your data collection and enforcing compliance and you can ram your establishment to the gills with no fear of government reprisal. AND no farting around with limiting numbers, table spacing yadda yadda yadda, which impacts how many staff you have on etc (DIL works as a pub supervisor so i have a little insight into how things were going when pubs were open - in her words a fucking nightmare).
BUT the industry appear to be as much in opposition to it as well. I can see why. A blanket legal health and safety directive from the government saves pubs from making individual decisions - if people kick off about a measure, you've got the de-escalation tactic to use of "Sorry mate, our hands are tied and we don't like it either" hopefully resulting in a bit of empathy from the complainer. If LLs are expected to make their own choice, not so easy - and if pre-loaded drinkers turn up en masse, it's a recipe for disorder, possibly needing police intervention tying up resources etc..... it has the potential to be quite the can of worms.
Then you have the issue of who's been able to have the vaccine versus who hasn't because of the schedule, and those who are currently medically exempt. And the smug vaccinated opining that it will only be for a few more months, etc etc.......while they sup their chilled pints snuggled up with a crowd of other smugs, inevitably leading to tension between the two camps. And as others have mentioned, the effect on unvaccinated staff, because they're young etc has to be considered.
All in all, to me it seems more like a compliance test in theory, rather than a serious proposal, and as we are "a nation of drinkers" it's the ideal ground to get the most widespread and vocal response.
Hypothesising again, if this was to be extended to independent retailers like myself, and I had to administer and police it I might not bother re-opening. I know alot of my old customers very well, and there is a raft of them with various conditions that might make them high risk for the vaccine. I don't want to have to make my customers uncomfortable, that's if any of them are confident enough to go out at all.
I've got Sky news on and have just heard Boris back pedaling so hard on the pub issue he's probably back somewhere in the middle of last week before this was even a coherent thought.
Also they're voting on extending general powers generated to control the pandemic later today, and some are supposed to last as far as October - only caught a bit of that so need to have a quick look at it all properly.
Honestly, the "path out of lockdown" is beginning to look more like an obstacle course with a side order of the Krypton factor.
Sorry for the long ramble, I just like having somewhere to put down my thoughts, and enjoy the virtual interaction.