Has UK banned alcohol consumption amid coronavirus pandemic? Fact Check

ByCraig Haley

Messages online claim that a “strict ban of alcohol” has been issued in the UK amid the coronavirus pandemic.

FALSE

Most popularly this rumour is spreading in the form of a pictured press statement apparently released by the UK Government and the NHS, a screenshot of which is below.

CORONAVIRUS:
PUBLIC INFORMATION
A strict ban of alcohol has been issued with immediate effect.
Simon Stevens, chief executive officer of the N.H.S has ordered a ban on consumption of alcohol after his team have discovered that the toxin lowers immunity.
This means that all sales have stopped 29/02/2020. It falls under an emergency health legilstation, which means that it is now illegal to purchase, sell and consume alcohol.
Anyone caught breaching the new law will be severely sanctioned to protect everyone against the battle of Covid-19.

The messages and pictured press release above are all false. While at the time of writing some other countries including Greenland and South Africa have issued partial or entire bans on the sale of alcohol, the UK has not placed this restriction on UK residents.

The claim can be dismissed largely because such a measure has not been officially released by the UK Government. If a measure was to be taken, it would certainly be announced through a televised press conference in the same manner that other genuine restrictions have been announced. This, of course, would inevitably be followed by extensive mainstream media coverage of the restriction, and the restriction would be covered on the GOV UK webpage concerning information about the coronavirus and the measures the UK Government has taken to stop its spread.

However, no such press conference has taken place. There is no media coverage on the alleged restriction, and there is nothing mentioned about a ban on alcohol sales on the UK Government webpage.

This is enough to dismiss the above image as fake, but there are some other, more subtle tell-tale signs as well.


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Firstly, the message claims the NHS chief executive officer Simon Stevens ordered the ban on alcohol consumption. This would be inaccurate, since it would have to be the UK Government that orders any restrictions on UK residents and businesses. The NHS would act in an advisory capacity.

Secondly, in official releases and communications, the government refers to the NHS as “NHS”, not “N.H.S” as it is in the message above.

Thirdly, the press release above contains grammatical errors.

As such, the claim that the UK has banned alcohol consumption is demonstrably false at the time of writing.

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