The boss of Wetherspoons has said further Covid-19 restrictions could wipe out pubs and hospitality businesses.
With new cases of Covid-19 doubling every week, ministers are considering new measures, including a temporary two or three-week 'circuit break' in an attempt to break the virus' chain of transmission.
The move could lead to pubs and restaurants being ordered to close or face a 10pm curfew, with the latter measure already in place in some areas of the north of England.
Scotland's national clincial director has warned that Scotland is looking at how to restrict other households from meeting each over, including in hospitality.
The Scottish Government is set to announce further lockdown restrictions after a sudden surge of cases of coronavirus, with the First Minister warning that we are in a "serious situation."
Professor Jason Leitch warned that people mixing with other households both in homes and in hospitality poses "the biggest risk" to the virus spreading.
He said: "We are at a point where you might describe the dashboard as flashing amber, so imagine you were running the power station and the dials were just creeping up to the point where you had to pay attention.
"The main risk is mixing households, so if you were the public health advisor to the First Minister, what kind of things would you try and restrict?
"That takes you into the territory of trying to stop people meeting in houses and trying to stop people meeting across households in areas like hospitality, that's the biggest risk, that's where the virus spreads."
It follows a warning by Professor Neil Ferguson, of Imperial College London – whose modelling led to the original nationwide lockdown, that the authorities needed to act “sooner rather than later” if they were to avoid a return to the infection rates of last March.
Tim Martin, who employs 43,000 people in Wetherspoon’s pubs and hotels, said restrictions would be “even more devastating” for a sector hit hard by the pandemic.
And Greene King chief executive Nick Mackenzie, who is responsible for staff at 2,700 hospitality businesses, said the Government needed to provide further clarity and assistance.
“The sector is fighting for survival — we are already seeing pubs in areas where there are additional restrictions are performing less well, especially those in Scotland,” Mr Mackenzie told The Times.
“New measures such as a 10pm curfew will cause further damage and hit city-centre pubs most, especially in London.”
Kate Nicholls, chief executive of lobby group UK Hospitality, warned that the 900,000 hospitality workers who are currently on furlough are at risk.
She added that venues where curfews had been imposed were suffering a 40% to 50% reduction in trade
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel