PUBS, nightclubs and restaurants will need "intensive care" to get them through lockdown and beyond as the virus is threatening to kill businesses throughout Fife.

Some may call last orders and others could stay closed until next year as, although measures to reduce the spread of COVID-19 are lifting gradually, there are no easy answers for how and when they can re-open safely.

More than 20 pubs, restaurant and club bars have temporarily closed in the communities of the Cowdenbeath-Lochgelly area during the coronavirus pandemic.

Jeff Ellis, secretary of the Fife Licensed Trade Association (FLTA), said: "The big problem for the trade is going to be dealing with social distancing until such time as a vaccine is developed and administered widely.

"It's very difficult. The issue is that sticking to two metres will, for a typical outlet, reduce capacity by about 75 per cent. If it's 1.5m it's about 50 per cent.

"Some operators have already worked out that, with a 25-50 per cent capacity, businesses are not going to be viable.

"That brings us to the question of grants. Hospitality businesses will need some form of intensive care to get them through the easing out of lockdown and back to some form of normality.

"It's not a pretty picture at all."

The Nip, the FLTA newsletter, said: "A good number of licensees seem to have been through this thought process already and have concluded that at the very least they would be better off staying locked down until a vaccine is available and trading conditions return to something closer to normality.

"Others, unsurprisingly, have concluded enough’s enough and have opted for a more drastic and terminal solution."

Mr Ellis said: "For those that have a restaurant, quite a few people have said that spacing out the tables reduces capacity by 50 per cent, which means they'll barely be able to cover costs.

"And that pre-supposes that it's going to be fully occupied.

"The other element is consumer confidence. There's evidence from Texas and Georgia that, when they started bringing their businesses out of lockdown, footfall was down by 80 per cent compared to the prior year."

For the pubs, clubs, bars and restaurants that do re-open, they'll look very different.

Measures are likely to include screens to protect bar staff, table service, Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) such as masks and gloves for staff, contactless payments, hand sanitising gels and regular cleaning of table tops, chair backs and bar counters, as well as use of individual sauce, salt and pepper sachets.

Music may have to be turned down to enable staff to communicate more easily, floor mats could be used for social distancing and there could be queues outside the pub, "admitting customers on a one in/one out basis" in the same way as supermarkets. Use of toilets would also have to be monitored strictly.

Reducing social distancing to one metre – the advice from the World Health Organisation is that should be the minimum –would make life easier for these businesses but Mr Ellis added: "Reading the science, going to one metre, particularly in pubs, while it would make them more viable, it risks a further spike."

He said Hong Kong had re-opened bars and restaurants at 50 per cent capacity and five-feet spacing, only for infection rates to rise sharply again with half of the cases traced to bars.

He said that the Scottish and UK governments, who will be watching and learning from experiences elsewhere, were therefore unlikely to allow one-metre social distancing in pubs, bars, clubs and restaurants.

The Nip also states: "Furthermore, the more time spent in close proximity with an infected person the more likely are the chances of becoming infected.

"When viewed in these terms, hospitality venues would seem to be the perfect breeding ground for the virus."