Punch-drunk liquor industry staggers again

It’s not only boxers who know the pain of taking heavy blows, mounting the courage to get up, then taking even more to send you to the ropes. The alcohol industry, a sector employing about 60,000 people directly and indirectly, has had a year which feels like any one of Mike Tyson’s challengers during his rampaging dominance in the 1990s.

Since the first COVID-19 case was reported in the country on March 30, the liquor industry has taken blows, gone to the Ministry for relief, then taken more blows. Health authorities have identified liquor trade as one of several potential “superspreaders” of the virus, or sectors/activities that have the potential to disseminate the dreaded virus at a large, uncontrollable scale.