Just had the misfortune there of watching a Newsnight interview with a spokeman for the hospitality sector. Whingeing rat complaining about 'collateral damage' of "restrictions"....one 'kin hour off opening times.
Horrendous little maggot. The BBC handing 15 minutes of air time over to him to push his filth is a disgrace.
I imagine he's a bit worried about the sector, the economic impact on communities reliant on the sector, the long term financial, social, physical and mental well-being of those areas.
It is possible to want to limit the impact of Covid19 while simultaneously looking to mitigate risk in the hospitality industry to keep it from crumbling.
Confidence is not going to return just because a few people 'say what about us?' due to all these new restrictions. There haven't been a lot of people out (round here at least) since it blew up. With the R factor increasing the death rate will climb and less people will go out anyhow as it may be easy to ignore now but it won't be when hundreds/thousands start dying per day if left unchecked.
Of course it will help the businesses temporarily with cashflow if they had less controls but it's also true to say it will just speed up that outcome if everyone started going out more, leading to a quicker total shutdown. Make no mistake the business models are on its ass. Less and less people have disposable income, so they are not going to be flocking out which in turn will make more people redundant, which leads to less...and so on.
In that respect I know it's usually good to have balance in the news but it's another case of mixed messages, 'Look this person says it's fine to go out until 3am' etc. People shouldn't be taking in what these with vested interests say, just like Karen Brady's 'stadiums are safer than your living room' statement, but you can see some do.
We need some way of mothballing these industries and business that don't get enough footfall to survive with a decent basic income from the government and help from financial institutions in regard to landlords/mortgages so they can surive this winter and come out the otherside. That or we lockdown completely for a month and control our borders to stop it being reintroduced. You can't have the virus and keep the economy pushing on, the two don't go together without Joe public completely buying in and not just following the rules but going further than the rules to protect themselves and others. Any thinking otherwise leads to the 'please go back to work' and then a few weeks later 'please stay at home' reactions that further confuse the narrative.
Tldr summary: The hospitality industry is screwed and no amount of wishful thinking is going to help.
