No room at the inn

BBC One's One Show was in Manchester last night to look at how pubs might reopen after some of the restrictions on social distancing are relaxed, and the difficulties smaller ones like the Britons Protection (which appears from about 7 minutes into the programme) will still have when they're legally allowed to open their doors again.

Some beer gardens in Germany have already reopened, with table reservations (to stop people from more than two households sitting together), waiter only service, staff wearing gloves and face masks, hand sanitiser stations and payment by contactless card or app. The same model is also being trialled here by Wetherspoons, whose cavernous premises lend themselves to social distancing. I can't say that any of it sounds much fun, and older people, those with a health condition that makes them particularly vulnerable to the virus, and anyone who comes into regular contact with them, like health and care workers, will probably still be advised to avoid going in pubs.

There are only three ways that I can see pubs getting back to how they were before the pandemic, or smaller ones being able to open at all: the virus mutating into a less virulent strain which means that when people are infected by it they only have mild, or even no, symptoms; immunity to it building up in the population (although that doesn't necessarily mean that people couldn't still be carriers and transmit it to others); or scientists developing a vaccine against it. I think that, sadly, we're probably months, or even years, away from any of those things happening.