Coronavirus: Revealed – The Impact of Eat Out to Help Out...

The Eat Out to Help Out program caused a “significant” increase in new coronavirus infections, according to a new study.

According to the University of Warwick, there was a sharp spike in COVID-19 infection clusters a week after the program began.

The government’s initiative was supposed to boost the economy after the national lockdown and allow pubs and restaurants to offer heavily discounted meals on Mondays, Tuesdays and Wednesdays in August.

Research by the university showed that between 8% and 17% of the newly discovered infection clusters could be associated with the system.

In areas where Eat Out to Help Out was highly uptake, new infections also decreased a week after the program ended.

In places where it rained heavily around lunch and dinner, infection rates were lower than places with nice weather.

Restaurants participating in Eat Out to Help Out saw visits increase between 10% and 200% compared to the same period in 2019 – but scholars concluded that the economic benefits of the program were short-lived.

Dr. Thiemo Fetzer said the program “contributed to community transmission” and “accelerated the second wave”.

He told Sky News: “There has been a massive explosion of cases in the UK that has not been seen in any other country.

“It is this program that helped bring about an earlier second lockdown and restrictions on the restaurant sector that was determined to help economically.”

Toby Phillips, executive director of the Oxford COVID-19 Response Tracker at the Blavatnik School of Government, said the results were believable and in line with his previous work on the increase in restaurant visits during the Eat Out to Help Out program.

He added, “The Eat To Help” program was part of a general package of guidelines and communication over the summer that encouraged people to go out and adopt a “back to normal” mindset.

“That creates this whiplash if you are told in a month that you are going out there, have confidence, go back to work, get back to normal – and a new step-by-step scheme will be introduced next month.”

He told Sky News the “pendulum swing” was not conducive to promoting the behavior necessary to live with the virus in the long term.

“We shouldn’t subsidize people to congregate indoors,” he said.

Earlier this month, Boris Johnson admitted that Eat Out to Help Out may have contributed to the surge in COVID-19 cases.

“If this scheme has contributed to the spread of the virus, we must of course counteract it with the discipline and measures that we propose,” he told the BBC.

A Treasury Department spokesman said, “We do not recognize these numbers – which, as the study itself admits, are back-of-the-envelope” calculations.

“Many other European colleagues have seen an increase in some cases – regardless of whether similar measures have been introduced for the hotel industry.

“We continue to work closely with companies to help them be COVID-safe.”