Why is the UK Government attacking the Hospitality sector?
Politicians and media journalists don’t seem to understand that science is not an absolute collection of facts. It is a continual process of improving understanding. Aristotle was wrong, Newton was wrong, Einstein was wrong. Just because someone is a scientist does not mean they are infallible and know everything. Different scientists have different opinions and journalists are not challenging the opinions of SAGE scientists. Scientists with different views are being dismissed as crackpots by journalists and editors who are unqualified to make that judgement. Calum Semple declared on BBC Breakfast,
“Most of the outbreaks are happening within and between households and then after that, it’s in the retail and hospitality sector.”
I was horrified that the journalist didn’t even wince at that statement, let alone ask a follow up question asking for evidence.
This is the opinion of a scientist, not a fact. It is not “science”. There is no scientific, peer-reviewed study that the government has provided that proves this statement. Public Health England’s data indicates that this is factually incorrect as schools, care homes, workplaces and hospitals all show much higher traceable infections than hospitality. Therefore, it is a hypothesis (an understandable, but flawed one) that needs testing if SAGE want to submit this as a scientific argument against keeping hospitality venues open.
Closing businesses is a violation of basic Human Rights principles and it is even more ethically disturbing if it is done so with no scientific evidence to support it and refusing to compensate people appropriately.
The “they wouldn’t do this on purpose to government income streams argument” misses the point that our current leadership’s main motivation seems to be managing the opinion of the public so that they can continue to stoke their ego and allocate public money to their family and friends. The head of Test and Trace is married to the government’s anti-corruption champion so if you can’t see the nepotism here, you’re not paying attention.
They cannot admit that higher rates of transmission are taking place is schools and care homes because the government are responsible for implementing safety procedures in these sectors and Boris insisted it was “safe”. There are no absolutes in probabilistic situations. In terms of spreading Covid-19, it is statistically safer to go to a restaurant than to go to school but neither can be categorised as completely “safe”.
Why are they doing this? It’s most likely because of cognitive dissonance. They think they’re doing the right thing because they aren’t prepared to change their mind as that would threaten their ego and U-turns are seen as politically devastating. We just need to apply Hanlon’s razor rather than jumping to conspiracy theories…
“Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity.”
