When drink is taken, hard-learned caution is the first casualty

WELL, what did you think was going to happen? After almost four months of locked pubs and shuttered restaurants, what were the chances that even the partial re-opening of the hospitality sector would be a quiet and restrained affair?

Perhaps we were lulled into a false sense of security by the responsible behaviour of the public to the return of other non-essential services over the past few weeks. Hundreds of people stood calmly in line, or waited patiently in their cars, when Ikea, Penneys and McDonalds finally opened their doors, and maybe there was an expectation that the same caution would apply when the pubs resumed trading.

We have, after all, got used to factoring social distancing into our day-to-day activities. You know to do your grocery shopping first thing in the morning, or after tea time if possible, so as to avoid the biggest queues. You automatically reach for the hand sanitiser, the wipes and the sterilising sprays before you pick up a basket or unhook a petrol pump. You instinctively give strangers a wide berth on the pavements or in the shops.

So we had, it seemed, successfully internalised the message that’s been drummed into us with the nightly press briefings and the daily information campaigns since last March. Wear a mask if you’re using public transport or otherwise find yourself unable to maintain a safe distance from others. Use hand sanitiser and wash your hands. Sneeze or cough into an elbow or a disposable tissue. Don’t mix with others, especially vulnerable or elderly folk, if you’ve any symptoms, and treat every stranger as if they’ve got it. Remember the virus can linger on hard surfaces for up to three days so be mindful of the things you touch in public: open doors with your shoulder, turn on taps with your elbow, press the buttons on a keypad with a knuckle. Yep, we got all that.

Impossible

And it was all working out so well, and we’d flattened the curve and it even seemed as if our Covid death toll was considerably lower than originally reported, so it looked good for the next stage of the reopening … except here’s what we forgot: when you add alcohol to the equation, then the concepts of ‘social’ and ‘distancing’ instantly become mutually exclusive.

We have built an entire tourist industry, and international reputation for friendliness, approachability and hospitality, on the very Irish trait that makes it impossible to be both ‘social’ and ‘distanced’ when you’ve got a drink in your hand.

Most people who went out this weekend set off, I’ve no doubt, with the best of intentions to stick to the rules. They were going to stay in their ‘pods’ with their own friend groups. They’d be cautious when using the bathrooms, and they’d wear their masks on public transport getting home. And then they had a few drinks. And alcohol, as we hardly need telling, is a drug that reduces inhibitions, eases social reservations and makes the most unwise behaviour – from a latenight text to a drunken hook-up – seem like the best idea ever.

So now we’re being threatened with a new tightening-up of controls around the pub trade, following those scenes of revellers flouting the rules at weekends, but really, how’s that going to work? Wherever people have access to alcohol in a public place, they’re going to drop their guard. They might be ultra-cautious about wearing their masks in the supermarket, or their unions might be demanding strict precautions before they can return to work, but give them a few pints and they’re rubbing shoulders with strangers and pawing bathroom taps without a second thought.

Here, then, are our options. We can follow the South African model, and ban all alcohol sales at weekends. Which, by the way, is a big improvement on that country’s strictest lockdown measures, when all alcohol sales were strictly banned.

Their pubs are still closed, and will stay that way for some time, and you can’t buy alcohol for home consumption on a Friday, Saturday or Sunday night.

Alternative

The only way to prevent a recurrence of this weekend’s scenes is simply to close the pubs and restaurants on Friday and Saturday nights.

There was, after all, no huge surge of activity throughout the week nights after they reopened on June 29.

The alternative, it seems to me, is to accept that there will be spikes in infection numbers, as the country embraces the new normal, and hope the hardworking frontline staff can continue to manage them.

There is no prospect of a vaccine for this virus in the foreseeable future, so either we change our fundamental nature, and learn to socialise and distance at the same time, or we live with a level of risk for months, and maybe years, to come.