ALMOST 600,000 meals were claimed in Gwent during last summer's Eat Out to Help Out scheme.

The scheme encouraged people to eat out more, aiming to provide a boost to the economy by supporting restaurants, pubs, cafes and other outlets following the first coronavirus lockdown.

But research suggests the scheme drove the rate of infection up by between eight per cent and 17 per cent in the UK, accelerating the start of the second wave.

The scheme allowed customers to get 50 per cent off food and non-alcoholic drinks at participating outlets during August 2020, with a max £10 saving per premises.

In Gwent, 357 outlets participated in the scheme, not including big chains like McDonalds and Pret a Manger, and 598,000 meals were claimed.

The data does not include big chains as those with more than 25 premises are not required to provide individual restaurant details and so these claims cannot be allocated to a postcode.

Customers in Gwent saved more than £2.8 million, with the biggest savings, £876,000, coming in Newport.

However, the biggest average discount was claimed in Monmouthshire, with £6 saved on 140,000 meals.

Participating restaurants, cafes and other premises across the region claimed an average of £7,700.

Did eating out help out?

Research from University of Warwickshire’s Dr Thiemo Fetzer found the £500 million government initiative “caused a significant rise in new infections in August and early September accelerating the pandemic into its current second wave”.

It also concluded that the economic benefits of the scheme were “short-lived”.

Areas with a higher rate of uptake experienced a sharp increase in the emergence of new coronavirus infection clusters a week after the scheme began, while seeing a decline in new infections a week after the scheme ended.

In the week prior to the introduction of the Eat Out to Help Out scheme, the worst affected area of Gwent was Monmouthshire, with a rate of 3.2 cases per 100,000 people.

While the week following the end of the scheme saw rates in Caerphilly hit 95 per 100,000.

In Newport, Blaenau Gwent and Torfaen, the incidence rates were 16.2, 11.5 and 9.6 respectively.

The incidence rate continued to rise throughout September, before starting to steady and drop once local lockdowns kicked in.

Since then, the rate of infection has got much higher, partly due to the new variant, reaching a peak of 911.8 in Blaenau Gwent in the week from December 14 to December 20.

Over the last seven days, rates have fallen to 162.3 in Newport, 149.7 in Caerphilly, 145.8 in Torfaen, 120.2 in Blaenau Gwent, and 92.0 in Monmouthshire.

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Across the UK, more than 100 million meals were claimed, with more than £600 million saved and average of £5.74 spent per meal.

And just under 60,000 outlets took part, with an average of 10,198 claimed at each participating business.

Values for total number of meals claimed and total amount of discount claimed have been rounded to the nearest thousand, while the average discount claimed per premises is rounded to the nearest hundred.

The data has been released following Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs fraud and compliance checks to ensure all were accurate and legitimate.