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Back last April the usual suspects were freaking out about COVID lockdowns leading to a huge increase in drinking.
They pointed to supermarket alcohol sales rising by a third as a reason for concern.
That figure wasn't particularly informative... 1/
They pointed to supermarket alcohol sales rising by a third as a reason for concern.
That figure wasn't particularly informative... 1/
...because it didn't factor in i) the near 100% drop in alcohol sales at bars and restaurants, or ii) that all supermarket sales were way up due to people stocking up.
I made a note to come back and check on this once full data were in.
Now @BBCMoreOrLess reports that... 2/
I made a note to come back and check on this once full data were in.
Now @BBCMoreOrLess reports that... 2/
...in the UK total alcohol sales dropped 20% during the lockdown, and by 10% if you compare the full year to Oct 2020 with the previous 12 month period!
I wish policy advocates would stop talking smack and predicting doom and gloom every time on the basis of very little. 3/
I wish policy advocates would stop talking smack and predicting doom and gloom every time on the basis of very little. 3/
These days I just tune out this kind of talk except for fact checking purposes, as the accuracy record is no better than noise as far as I can tell. 4/
(One caveat is that drinking is way down among 18-30 olds, but up among the 50+ crowd, so there's still a risk for some people's drinking to have become more problematic due to spending a lot of time at home.) 5/
