The English (finally) find their way to pubs

To the delight of their customers, the pubs served their first pints of beer, marking a major new step in the end of containment in England, which raised fears of excess and new contamination by coronavirus. Hairdressers also reopened on Saturday July 4.

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"We 've been waiting three or four months to come back to the pub!" Nick says, walking down a pint with two friends to a London Greenwich establishment. This is the second pub that this 38-year-old accountant visits, after a first beer that " smelled of disinfectant " and a visit to the hairdresser.

Nearby, the staff at "La taverne de Greenwich" have flowers in vases to welcome their first customers. " I was so anxious to get back to work and take care of people again ," said Dorota Pilarczyk, one of the managers, " impatient " behind her visor and plastic gloves.

Precautions

Having entered containment late, the United Kingdom is even more behind than its European neighbors in getting out. Far from being defeated, the coronavirus that killed 44,000 people in the country - the heaviest death toll in Europe - has recovered in Leicester, in the center of England, leading the authorities to reconfigure an area of ​​600,000 inhabitants . In the rest of England, pubs, hotels, hair salons, cinemas and museums reopened on Saturday. More reluctant, the other British provinces have adopted their own deconfinement calendar.

" My hair was upside down, I had to use hats to hide it, " laughs Sandra Jacobs, one of the first customers to cross the doors of a hairdressing salon in London's Camden district at midnight. . " It's such a relief, you have no idea!" ", She confides to the British agency PA. However, in salons as in pubs, recovery is not without precautions. Table service rather than at the bar, dedicated signage, distance of one meter between tables, maximum two people in the toilet: conviviality is no longer the same at " La taverne de Greenwich ". " It's really different from what we did before, " concedes the other manager of the establishment, Gabriela Stancu, " but I'm happy that we are now able to open ".

Fear of cascading bankruptcies

While a large number of Greenwich pubs are keeping doors closed for the moment, the City Pub Group, which brings together 47 of these establishments in England and Wales, nevertheless expects a " historic " day for the sector. The closure of pubs, unprecedented since the plague of 1665, has led to an unprecedented drop in beer consumption. Their reopening could attract 6.5 million visitors this weekend, according to the CEBR think tank. But by the end of the year, the British Beer and Pub Association fears the closure of 40% of pubs, or 18,000 establishments.

Finance Minister Rishi Sunak, visiting a West London pub, hailed the " good news " of the reopening of these establishments, recalling that they were a " vital element " of the British economy, employing 500,000 people . In an interview with The Times, the minister encouraged the British to " eat out to support " restaurant jobs. But in a joint statement, representatives from hotels, pubs and the police called on customers to behave " responsibly " in the face of health risks. Police expect as much activity as New Years Day, said Tim Clarke of the Metropolitan Police Federation, who represents the officers.

Hospitals, which barely blow after the peak of the pandemic, fear increased pressure. " Before Covid-19, on Friday and Saturday, emergencies sometimes looked like a circus of drunken clowns ," said Brian Booth, head of the West Yorkshire Police Association. " We don't need it to start again ". Will many English people cross the threshold of their favorite pub? According to a YouGov survey for Sky News, 70% of those polled do not feel comfortable going to the pub or the cinema, 60% to the idea of ​​going to a restaurant.