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A study carried out by the University of Stirling during May through August last year was published earlier this week. It has raised questions around how effective measures put in place by pubs were in reducing the transmission rate of Covid-19.

It was led by Professor Niamh Fitzgerald, director of the University of Stirlings Institute for Social Marketing and Health.

The study itself explored and observed business practices and behaviours of customers and staff in licensed premises in summer 2020 with a hope of understanding if and how COVID-19 transmission risks could be managed in settings where alcohol is served, commented Fitzgerald.

Business owners and representatives were interviewed before premises opened again in order to obtain a first hand account of the difficulties that were to be faced. These included the layout changes made to pubs and bars and the use of personal protective equipment (PPE).

Businesses expressed an intention to work within the guidance, but there were commercial and practical challenges to making this a reality, said Fitzgerald.

Common problems included: Staff not wearing PPE, or with the management of toilets, queues and other pinch points.

It was also noted that the upkeep of rules and regulations was especially difficult when customers were intoxicated. Other risks such as combinations of singing, shouting or playing music, mixing between groups and a lack of social distancing were noted in many premises; with no staff intervention happening in the majority of establishments.

It was concluded that even with the tireless work put in by premise operators and government guidance, potentially significant risks of COVID-19 transmission persisted in at least a substantial minority of observed bars.

In the face of this, however, comments were also made on the hardships faced by many in the hospitality sector due to the persistent closures, and that attention needs to be paid to employee hardship and ownership patterns in the sector.

Feature image credit: BBC

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Original post:
Study released on effectiveness of measures used to reduce Covid-19 transmission in pubs - Brig Newspaper

Staff

Feb. 16, 2021Updated: Feb. 16, 2021 12:22p.m.

Cristina Young

Cristina Young, LCSW, a parent educator, and a therapist, will present Managing difficult moments with teens, a conversation about mental health, substance use and tactics for deepening communication with teens in an effort to maintain strong connections during turbulent times, March 4, at 10 a.m.

The talk is the third in a series of The Community Fund of Dariens Our Darien events this year. The speakers are designed to educate parents about the dangers of substance use, youth mental health and how they can best support their teens.

Registration for this discussion, which is sponsored by the Depot Youth Center and YWCA Darien/Norwalk Parent Awareness, is free and required at: http://www.communityfunddarien.org.

Young is also a licensed clinical social worker in private practice in Greenwich. Young has more than 25 years experience providing professional support to children, adolescents, adults, and families in a variety of settings, including schools, hospitals, and residential treatment centers. She has lived and worked in the Fairfield County area for almost 20 years.

For the past four years, the fund in collaboration with the Thriving Youth Task Force, (TYTF), has educated teens, and adults in the town about the dangers of teen binge drinking through the Our Darien social marketing campaign. This public health initiative aims to shine a spotlight on the impact of alcohol on the teen brain, and to offer proven tactics towards healthier attitudes and behaviors. The Our Darien campaign is funded by a grant from the state of Connecticuts Department of Mental Health and Addiction Services.

YWCA Parent Awareness provides free support, and education to parents and children with the goal of encouraging the healthy, positive development of Darien youth and families.

The Depot Youth Centers mission is to build confident youth in our community offering a connected and inclusive environment while providing essential programming and leadership development.

Here is the original post:
Our Darien: Third talk will cover difficult moments with teens - Darien Times

It is my clear view that venues, when properly following the Government regulations are as safe as, if not safer than, many other areas of society, in particular much of the retail sector, public transport and workplaces.

As such we should be treated similarly and in line with the transmission risks when society begins to open up again.

However, we are already seeing reports that are once again scapegoating our sector, in particular one fromStirlings Institute for Social Marketing and Health.

There are various weaknesses in the analysis and conclusions drawn.

The key argument appears to be not that the precautions in hospitality were insufficient, but rather that they were not being followed properly in all places. There are two big problems with this.

Firstly, it is well out of date, having been carried out at the very start of reopening in July and August of last year. At that time customers and staff were all getting used to new regulations and ways of living. Eight months on we are all much more aware of and better at taking the relevant precautions.

More importantly they made no comparison of peoples behaviour in pubs to how safely they behaved in the other areas. Without any benchmarking it is an arbitrary and unscientific analysis.

I would challenge that other important areas of social interaction have far less control and oversight and therefore carry higher risks of transmission than pubs and bars.

For example, anyone who went shopping in December knows that once you are clicked through the front door of a shop it was pretty much a free for all.

On public transport you could be sat next to a stranger, albeit in masks, for half an hour and touch handrails that have been touched by many, many people that day without being cleaned.

Ask anyone going to work at the moment in a factory, office or building site and see how rigorous their spacing and sanitisation is? Familiarity is one of the main reasons why people drop their safeguards and workplaces are clearly a big area where this is the case.

None of these factors apply to pubs and bars.

The research was also carried out in just 29 pubs in Scotland, less than 0.1% of the UK pubs, and appears to have been carried out to support the Scottish Governments desire to close all hospitality venues.

I fully support that any venues not doing their best to keep to all the regulations should be tackled robustly by the Environmental Health Officer.

However, if it is being proposed that we should keep all 60,000 or so pubs, bars and restaurants closed because a few are not keeping to all the precautions in full, then logically we should apply the same rules to the other areas.

Under Covid, pubs are the most highly regulated, controlled and monitored areas in day-to-day society. Focusing greater restrictions on us versus other areas is damaging, a poor use of resource and most importantly highly ineffective in stopping the disease.

We should be allowed to open safely and securely at the same time as other areas and we should be fighting and challenging any arbitrary, unfair and unproven ideas that claim otherwise.

See the original post:
Are pubs safer from Covid-19 than public transport and shops? - MorningAdvertiser.co.uk

Two hospitality trade groups have lambasted a new report that found significant risks of Covid-19 transmission in a minority of bars, calling it a farce.

A new study into Covid-19 transmissions in bars has been criticised for being flawed

Researchers from the University of Stirling have published a report titled Managing Covid-19 transmission risks in bars: an interview and observation study, which observed business practices and behaviours in licensed premises across Scotland.

To produce the study, researchers said they conducted in-depth telephone interviews with hospitality trade associations and licensed venues ahead of their reopening in July 2020. The team also visited 29 bars in Scotland and observed behaviour and practices in response to the pandemic.

The study, published by professor Niamh Fitzgerald and her colleagues at the Institute for Social Marketing at the university, reported that despite the efforts of operators to minimise the risk of spreading the virus, potentially significant risks of Covid-19 transmission persisted in a substantial minority of observed bars, especially when customers were intoxicated.

Sham of a report

Trade body Scottish Hospitality Group (SHG) said the study was a sham of a report.

Stephen Montgomery, spokesperson for the SHG, said: Its a farce that this report is even on the table for discussion. It is an out-of-date witch hunt, that is wholly unreflective of our industry, and while Scottish hospitality businesses are left to fail daily, the government has paid hundreds of thousands of pounds on a six-month old study based on a tiny number (0.17%) of Scotlands bars and restaurants.

In reality we are talking about just a handful of premises. From those 29 targeted, criticism is levelled at in their own words a substantial minority of observed bars. You dont need to be a mathematician to work out that basing the closure of a 10.5 billion (US$14.6bn) industry on this sham of a report would be ludicrous.

The trade body recently published its own data, which found fewer than 1% of staff members contracted Covid-19. The SHG, which employs more than 6,000 people, said just 32 positive cases of Covid-19 were reported among staff from July to Christmas 2020.

Flawed in the extreme

Hospitality trade bodies have called the report flawed in the extreme

Trade body UK Hospitality also criticised the University of Stirlings report for painting an almost wholly inaccurate picture of the steps taken to minimise the spread of Covid-19 in the on-trade.

Willie Macleod, UK Hospitality Scotland executive director, said: The report appears flawed in the extreme. It is limited to just 29 licensed premises out of an estimated 9,000 across the country, with these venues only being visited for a maximum of two hours each.

The report states that research was also carried out during the period of May to August 2020, even though businesses were only permitted to reopen in mid-July. We do not agree that the efforts of the researchers are anywhere near enough to accurately represent even a reasonable proportion of the sector, never mind its entirety.

Macleod highlighted that the majority of business owners and managers in the hospitality sector have taken a diligent approach to conform with government regulations and guidance.

To meet hygiene and physical distancing measures, venues have been forced to remodel their premises, install new equipment and overhaul staff training to ensure venues are safe.

Macleod added: Hospitality businesses have not been responsible for Covid transmissions in any meaningful way, but they continue to bear the brunt of massively damaging restrictions.

They are too often the victims of alarming rhetoric and specious innuendo. Their future, and the livelihoods of their employees, is at risk if they are forced to shoulder any more burdens introduced on the back of misleading and misguided calls for further restrictions.

See the rest here:
Industry slams 'wholly inaccurate' Covid-19 bar report - The Spirits Business

When mapping out your influencer marketing strategy, the most common approach is to go for the biggest names, who'll offer you the biggest audience reach, and thus, the best return on your ad spend. But don't overlook the value of those with smaller, but more engaged, communities, who can also help connect you with the people who are increasingly more likely to buy from your brand.

These smaller-scale influencers are called 'micro' or 'nano' influencers, and they can be highly valuable to your businesses, despite their relative audience size. If a local nano-influencer, for example, only has 1,000 followers, but all of them are local business owners, that can have a significantly larger impact on your promotion than a broader reaching campaign.

There are many variations of this, and it's worth taking a deeper look into your audience analytics to ensure that you're utilizing the right approach to influencer marketing - which may not be driven by audience size.

To provide some more context on this, the team from Planoly recently put together this infographic on nano-influencers and the potential benefits of this form of outreach.

Continued here:
Nano Influencers: Who Are They and How to Work With Them [Infographic] - Social Media Today