Eat out to help out did not help out
Quick reflections on emerging evidence on this scheme from the Covid-19 Inquiry.
The Eat Out To Help Out (EOTHO) scheme that Sunak launched in August 2020 has been in the news again this week as part of the Covid-19 Inquiry. During this scheme the government subsidised cut price meals out Monday to Wednesday, but only if eaten on the premises.
I spoke to Radio 4’s Today programme today about the scheme (full interview at the end of this post), and summarise the main points below.
What was its impact?
Two studies have examined the impact of the scheme on new infections and on the economy. The first, by Thiemo Fetzer, found that “that the eat-out-to-help-out scheme may have been responsible for between 8%–17% of all newly detected COVID-19 infections (and likely many more non-detected asymptomatic infections) in late summer.” The second, by Pampillon et al, found that while there was evidence of modest increases in footfall and hospitality jobs due to EOTHO, the impact was temporary and did not extend to other sectors.
Reckless not to even ask SAGE scientists about its possible impact
While Sunak’s written evidence to the Inquiry said that he wasn’t aware of any SAGE scientific concerns over the scheme, Vallance in his testimony said that he considered that unlikely. However, what no one disputes is that SAGE was not asked to model EOTHO and first knew of the scheme when it launched.
More than 50,000 people had died from Covid by the end of June 2020 but over 90 per cent of people had not yet been infected. There were precious few treatments and there was not yet a vaccine. We’d already seen case increases linked to hospitality in other countries as they opened up. To launch such a scheme with no scientific input whatsoever was very reckless.
Sunak’s general (and more damaging) disregard for scientific advice during the pandemic
I think EOTHO was a terrible idea, but it is most important as an early demonstration of Sunak’s tendency to do politics over policy, whether ignoring science (“The government should [handle] its scientific advisers rather than the spread of Covid-19”) or asking different scientists to brief him when he didn’t like the SAGE advice. To my mind, the most damage was caused by Sunak’s resistance to properly supporting people to self-isolate. SAGE repeatedly recommended financial support for those required to self-isolate, but little help was ever forthcoming - even as other countries covered up to 100% of people’s salary for two weeks. Not being able to afford to isolate, not only contributed to almost 60% of people not fully self-isolating but also stopped many testing in the first place. The UK spent billions of pounds on testing and then tracing the contacts of those who tested positive. But contact tracing only works if people actually test and then if cases and contacts actually isolate. Sunak’s failure to countenance, let alone push for, financial support for self-isolation directly hurt our Covid response in 2020 and 2021.
Eat out to kill gran, more like.
When Eat Out to Help Out was launched in August 2020 -- at the same time as similar domestic travel subsidy programs were also launched in Italy and Japan -- British people had endured a traumatic spring and early summer of social isolation and suffering. There was pain from the disease itself and just as much pain from the lockdown measures. If this scheme helped to "break the ice" for some people and nudge them to get out of the house and reintegrate with society to some degree, it almost certainly had social benefits that you are ignoring in your analysis.