Eat Out to Help Out may have been responsible for an "uptick" in coronavirus cases, new research suggests. Rishi Sunak's wildly-popular scheme, which gave diners up to 50% for meals in restaurants during August, was hailed with saving the hospitality and restaurant sector following lockdown.
But Oxford University researcher Toby Phillips suggests Eat Out to Help Out may have contributed to a 'rapid acceleration' in reported infections.
He wrote in the Conversation: "By the start of August, restaurant attendance had already bounced back to near 2019 levels,' the report reads. "People were basically going out as normal, so the half-price discount scheme didn't encourage a "return to normal"; it encouraged extravagant levels of eating out.