CORONAVIRUS continued to dominate the comment sections of the newspapers, with the pub trade, Christmas and Matt Hancock’s personal experience among the topics raised.

The Daily Mail

Janet Street-Porter said the £1,000 handout to ‘wet’ pubs - the ones that don’t serve food - to help them survive lockdown was hardly worth the effort.

“ Boris claimed that the British pub was ‘at the heart of our communities’ - but if that was the case, why were so many closing long before Covid arrived on our shores?,” she asked. “In 2019 almost 900 pubs shut - at least two every single day of the year. The number of small pubs - employing less than ten people, has halved since 2001.”

She said society had changed and, with dozens of channels available at home and cheap supermarket alcohol, people had simply stopped going to pubs.

“Boris was right when he said that pubs and restaurants ‘have born the brunt’ of the economic crisis caused by Covi,” she said. “But his lack of a coherent and simple strategy is responsible for their current woes.”

She said that even when pubs can reopen, they might have to demand that customers have been vaccinated.

“The Minister in charge of overseeing the rollout of the new vaccines has dropped a heavy hint that although take-up of the jab will be a matter of personal choice, hospitality, entertainment and sports venues could insist that patrons show an ‘immunity passport’ to gain entry,” she said.

“But if that sends some of the worst pubs to the wall, is that the end of the world? I note there’s been no stream of angry women moaning about the demise of the wet pub. And I certainly won’t shed any tears over them.”

The Guardian

Devi Sridhar, chair of global public health at the University of Edinburgh, said she was repeatedly asked what families should do over Christmas.

“I’m torn between giving people the emotionally reassuring and comforting answer they want to hear or sticking bluntly to the best scientific evidence we have about transmission and suppression,” she said. “The truth is the virus that causes Covid-19 does not care that it is Christmas or New Year’s Eve. It rapidly spreads indoors and in poorly ventilated settings, particularly in households, when people gather together.”

She said sitting two meters apart and disinfecting surfaces wasn’t going to stop transmission.

The only truly safe way to spend time with relatives, she said, was to self isolate for two weeks ahead of meeting up. With the virus taking 14 days to incubate, a negative test today might not show negative tomorrow, or next week, she added.

“While we all clapped for months for the NHS staff, we should keep them in the forefront of our minds this winter,” she said. “NHS doctors, nurses, support staff and cleaners have to show up each day to work in hospitals and GP practices and deal with whatever is thrown at them.

“We all need to play our part in keeping the burden off health services. This might mean postponing group gatherings until the spring or summer next year, and doing our best now to avoid getting the virus and passing it on to others.”

The Daily Express

The newspaper’s leader column reflected on the Health Secretary’s news that his step-grandfather had died of coronavirus when he spoke on Tuesday night.

“”In my family, as in so many others, we’ve lost a loving husband, a father, a grandfather to this awful disease,” Matt Hancock said. “So from the bottom of my heart, I want to say thank you to everyone in Liverpool for getting this awful virus under control.”

The column said he described 2020 as a “shocker” but confirmed members of the public would receive the vaccine “from next week”

“The Government said the approval of the vaccine follows “months of rigorous clinical trials” which found it met its standards of safety, quality and effectiveness,” it said.

“England finishes the second national lockdown today and returns to the regional tiered system of restrictions.

“Mr Hancock tweeted on news of the vaccine: “Help is on its way. “The MHRA has formally authorised the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine for Covid-19.

“The NHS stands ready to start vaccinating early next week.

“The UK is the first country in the world to have a clinically approved vaccine for supply.”