You've not been to the pub yet have you? The price of creating fear.

So I'm having a haircut, first since February, and chatting to the barber. I've known him since he opened his first barbers over the road from my house about 20 years ago. We were (I suspect like plenty of others) talking lightly about the current pandemic, its effect on businesses and on behaviour.

"So, Simon. You been to the pub yet?"

"Yep, I was there on the first day they re-opened."

The chat continued in this vein - the barber was in the same camp as me but a little concerned about getting caught in a local lockdown (and the resulting closing of his business again). But he confirmed to me a feature of this re-opening - that a lot of people are putting off going back to the pub or out to a restaurant: "going to leave it a bit" seems to be a common response. It is interesting too that this attitude seems to be more prevalent among younger people, the sort who you'd expect to provide the bedrock of business for a lot of pubs and restaurants.

I'd had this sort of conversation with others - Jo who runs The George in Cullingworth said it had been really quiet since they re-opened (we were there for a meal) and the people who I play RPGs with on-line are all mostly in the "I'm not risking it yet" camp. None of these folk are in the "Anybody Going to a Pub is a Terrible Person who Will Bring About a Second Peak" category you witness on social media sites but they all pretty much buy the idea that the second peak is a real, even likely thing, and therefore sitting home for a while longer is the way to go.

Hardly a day passes without another report of a high street restaurant or pub chain going into liquidation, receivership or announcing restructuring. Just today my local paper had two of these - from Bistrot Pierre and the owners of Pizza Express and Zizzi. We've seen pub chains close, restaurants shuttered and fast food groups clobbered. The hope had been that, once we were allowed out to eat and drink, even with the 'social distancing' controls, the result would be a flood of custom for these businesses. It hasn't happened and I fear for the future of many, for the livelihoods of thousands, and for the job prospects of millions.

Twitter though can always be relied on for a unique take on not going out to a pub or a restaurant. I challenged one person who tweeted this from their Cornish holiday let: "(w)ell, we don’t want to go inside pubs or restaurants, so we’ll make our own private bar and eating area for the week". I observed that this seemed to reflect the triumph of fear and would mean pubs and restaurants dying and got this back:


So somebody who isn't ill or affected by this virus decides not to go out for a meal when on holiday because other people might be frightened? And it's like saving the planet (or something). Anyway I asked for an explanation because it didn't make sense for someone who wasn't fearful, wasn't in a risk category and wasn't ill to stay at home to "minimise" their impact.



Got it? If you read the words it is clear that this isn't about compassion at all but about avoiding people whose "lives may be serious(ly) impacted by this virus". You can, if you like, see this as 'love and compassion' but it looks to me like a strange rationalising of what can only be called fear - fear of catching the virus, fear of the 'second peak'. And it is this fear that, right now, presents an existential threat to businesses like pubs, cafes, bars and restaurants plus all people who supply them and the jobs of people who work in them.

If we want a high street left, if we want the local pub to stay open, if we want seaside cafes and country inns, then at some point we have to stop being scared witless at the prospect of either getting the virus or creating this much talked of 'second peak'. What we see though is inconsistency everywhere - from ministers, oppostition, media and public bodies. The roadside is still brightened by flashing signs telling us to stay at home, local councils issue portentious press statements about how it's not safe out there, and ministers flip flop between get back to normal and don't go out if you don't have too it's bad out there. All urged on by opposition and media more interested in news ratings or opinion polling than the future of high street businesses, pubs, bars and restaurants.

I write this, not to have a go at those who fear going back to the pub, but to get across that our leaders - public, business, cultural - need to step up and start getting people to reassess the basis of their fears. The personal risk from the virus is very small right now (not nothing and the thing hasn't burnt itself out) especially if you are young and healthy, but near every public pronouncement is couched in terms designed to reinforce the heightened level of worry and fret created to ensure high levels of compliance with lockdown and social distancing. Until officials, ministers, councillors and media folk start saying it's safe - or at least that your chance of getting infected with the virus is very small and the chance of you being very ill with it smaller still - then we'll continue to see people opting for a rickety table and some canvass chairs on a patio rather than a little local restaurant or the corner benches in the pub round the corner. And that restuarant and the pub may just end up going bust.

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