In a webinar on 8 October, the government’s chief medical officer, Chris Whitty, informed MPs that the number of Covid-19 patients in intensive care in northern England might surpass the April peak – and that one of the main culprits was the hospitality industry.
Whitty showed the MPs unpublished figures that suggested pubs, bars, restaurants and cafés accounted for 30 per cent of common exposure settings in England, with the figure rising to 41 per cent for those under the age of 30.
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