As in, less risky than picking up food from a grocery store where infected people are shopping and touching things on a daily basis.
At least with a grocery store, you can wash off the produce before you use it. With a restaurant, there's nothing covering the food at all.
And remember, the chefs in the kitchen are paid peanuts, and have no safety net whatsoever, so there's zero incentive for them to get tested or to stay out of work if they get sick. This is also the case during normal times. Eating out is a good way to catch something in a country where we think it's a great idea to fire cooks and other low-wage workers when they call in sick.
Eating at home is still a better idea for the reasons you state, but takeout is an acceptable if less-ideal alternative.
There are a lot more places where things can go wrong transmission-wise in a restaurant than a grocery store. Presumably you will not be touching your face during your shopping experience. But to eat in a restaurant sort of dictates putting things in your face.
Wash your hands and use a paper towel on the way out, like you should always do.
> Sit in the waiting area next to a sick person.
No queuing.
> One of the chefs is sick.
But takeout and delivery is allowed. So this isn’t any different.
The point isn’t that it’s “zero risk” (there’s no such thing).
We’re going to have to live with some element of risk in our lives as long as COVID exists without a vaccine. This is totally normal and to be expected.
We lived with Measles for decades and it is much more virulent and about equally as deadly as SARS-CoV-2. In the 1980s there were still about 2 million people a year dying from Measles.
EDIT: You’re right, we’ve been living with Measles for millennia in fact. And as recently as the 1800s there are populations that have been decimated by it. Measles absolutely did consume a massive percentage of hospital resources, although it’s fair to say that hospitals were acclimated to the demand.
The “flatten the curve” graphic is extremely misleading. The axis have no scale and the two curves themselves are not to any scale. The actual ICU capacity is like 4 pixels off the y-axis.
But that’s besides the point. We should absolutely be taking common sense and appropriate actions to reduce the spread of this virus (and several other diseases come to mind which are more deadly). When possible we should do this in a way that doesn’t destroy people’s livelihood.
That means a rational and scientific approach, not the emotional reaction which is so prevalent and actually damaging. Restaurants cannot stay closed indefinitely, particularly when we have reasonable approaches which can make them safe.
We owe it to all of us to put on our critical thinking caps rather than downvote anything that says something other than “lockdown more, harder, faster, longer”.
We lived with measles for more than just decades, but it wasn't a sudden outbreak that was overwhelming medical facilities.
The key here is hospital beds. We need to flatten the infective curve right now so that the medical system isn't overwhelmed. Then we can go back to "just being cautious."
https://medium.com/@yishan/its-the-rate-of-hospitalizations-...
> In the 1980s there were still about 2 million people a year dying from Measles.
Again, irrelevant. It wasn't overwhelming the medical system because the infections were spread out. Also we had a vaccine by then.
Taiwan, Hong Kong, Japan, South Korea, Singapore...all have managed to contain this virus without kneecapping their economies. We should be following their examples.
Most of the US is nowhere near a crisis point, and locking down an entire city (or worse, country) over a small number of cases is like killing a fly with a nuclear weapon. Other, effective tactics exist to manage this kind of a threat.
Once testing becomes readily available we can look at loosening the restrictions.
As the Governor of Colorado put it, saving the economy doesn't do a lot of good if everyone is dead.
That's ridiculous, and I hope it's clear to you why it's ridiculous. You should feel silly for repeating it.
There's no rational, educated person who believes that "everyone" is going to die from this. It's not even close to a true statement.
Just maybe, somewhere in the middle, Rhyme and Reason can come back home from the Mountain of Ignorance and devise a plan that keeps people safe without cratering the economy.
I'm not sure how big a role testing actually plays. Even South Korea is only testing a fraction of a percent of its populace. And many cases are asymptomatic but apparently can also still spread. So I think what we need to be doing, regardless of testing, is seriously teaching extreme personal hygiene.
As in, shuttered restaurants need to be undergoing emergency training right now on how they can re-open and provide a safe environment.
EDIT: HN is preventing me from replying to you so I’ll edit it in here...
Yes, of course, all of it...
- They of course should remove the salt & paper shakers. Single use packets can be provided.
- They need disposable or wiped down menus.
- There can be no self-serve dispensers for napkins or utensils, those have to be distributed one by one.
- Seating must be reorganized to keep reasonable distances.
- Chefs and waitstaff all must check temperature before their shifts and record in a logbook
These are all reasonable common sense measures we can take to keep a massive segment of the economy alive.
Restaurants can add a $10 COVID cleaning surcharge if they want to.
I mean, it’s only worth like $1 trillion dollars to the economy. There are ~15 million jobs at stake, and that’s not counting secondary effects. And the problem isn’t going away in a few days or even a couple weeks.
I saw a video of the Tesla Factory in China and the changes they’ve made to protect workers. For example, the cafeteria tables have been converted into single-person cubbies enclosed on 3 sides.
Are they going to spray down the salt and pepper shakers, the menus, the hot sauce, the napkin dispenser, the chair seat and back? For self-serve places, how often are the trash cans disinfected, or the ketchup and mustard dispensers (or packet piles)?
All that not to mention the other patrons in close proximity while you dine.
We don't realize how many communal surfaces we touch in a normal day.
No, cooking it yourself is.