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The Cabinet decision to allow bars and nightclubs to reopen, albeit under tight medical and other restrictions, effectively completes the reopening of the economy with all businesses now able to operate in all sectors.
The leisure industry, where bars and nightclubs naturally belong, was the last sector to reopen and the first sector completely in the new normal. All businesses in this sector not only have to follow the health rules common across the country, such as masking, sanitising and social distancing, but they can only be enjoyed by the fully vaccinated.
If you want to play sport, go to a restaurant, go to a gym or health club, go to a cinema or theatre, visit an art gallery and now go to a bar or a night club, you need to carry your vaccination card. And, although the rules on bar staff have not been laid down yet, as those working in the rest of the leisure sector need to be fully vaccinated it is unlikely bartenders will be exempt.
Among the good reasons for delaying the reopening of most of the leisure industry until there were large groups of fully vaccinated people, safety was the obvious first.
There is a greater automatic and inherent danger of infection throughout this sector. Some areas, such as restaurants and bars, cannot enforce mask wearing all the time; you need to take it off before you eat or drink. Sporting activities and gyms can limit some contact, but again it is difficult to do heavy exercise behind a mask, and there are some activities where social distancing is simply not possible.
Even in cinemas and theatres following the 50 percent rule and operating half empty will be seeing customers more closely crowded than would be though desirable in many other businesses.
And a great deal of leisure activity, especially what happens in bars and nightclubs, tends to group friends and allow social situations where many get careless and a lot less worried about infection risks.
The compulsory full vaccination is required to ensure basic safety in these environments. Vaccination is not foolproof, which is why other precautions are required, but it is a major help.
Of course this prime condition needs to be enforced. Many businesses in the sector do this. Either you cannot get into the premises in the first place without a vaccination card, or you cannot get service without the card, and the leisure industry is not a self-service sector. But already you see some slackness in some businesses.
Regrettably the authorities will have to intervene. Police patrols will need to stop by at restaurants, bars and others in the leisure industry and ask to see the cards. Those without cards will not be the only ones in trouble.
The business owners and the sports clubs have a responsibility to ensure that they serve only the fully vaccinated, and if they skimp on this duty they could well be in serious trouble.
Some have already brought up the question of opening hours. Many like to take part in leisure activities after work, and this has been recognised in the sporting world, where there is an extra hour after most businesses have had to close.
Amid the general rejoicing yesterday there were voices of care pointing out that the general business hours were 8am to 7pm and that any change in any sector would require the new hours for certain types of business, not impossible but a change that would require good reasons.
A great deal would depend on how keen all involved, both as business owners and as customers, on following the rules, starting with that rule for full vaccination. Sloppiness cannot be rewarded.
But if there is a general acceptance of the need to be fully vaccinated before having fun, and there is a strong effort to ensure that this particular rule is enforced, then we would tend to go along with those who would like to see some extension of opening hours in the leisure sector.
The curfew, set at present at 10pm, provides a deadline for people to get home so it is difficult to see how the leisure deadline could be extended beyond 9pm at the latest, but perhaps it could be extended to that hour if everyone was prepared to co-operate, but a lot will depend on just how persuasive the sector is, with the test being its willingness to enforce all conditions set.
It needs to be remembered that there was another reason for delaying the opening of the leisure industry. This particular sector cannot be considered essential to the survival of the economy.
Business owners and their employees have obviously been severely effected, but the rest of the economy managed to keep ticking over and even expanding.
But the sector does add to the quality of life, all those things that make life enjoyable.
It starts as being a good sector to use for the pilot programme of what could well be needed as time goes on, the need to ensure that only the fully vaccinated can enjoy much of the extras of life. This can also be an incentive to being vaccinated.
With 2,34 million Zimbabweans now having had both jabs there is a very large pool of those who can participate in leisure activities and so there is no need for bar owners and others to cheat, especially as another 800 000 are coming up having had their first shot and are just waiting for their second. The Government has taken a major step forward in opening the last sectors of the economy. But it has done this in the context of what many now expect to be the new normal, where a dangerous disease will be kept at bay, if necessary for decades, by vaccination and other health precautions.
The Government’s decision, and the trust it is showing in our business sectors, needs to be repaid by those same sectors following and enforcing the rules that keep everyone safe.
Online Reporter