Coronavirus and Empty Restaurants

[cjd]

. At some point I'll have to wear one, with how this will drag on for likely years unfortunately. I'll just have to get used to it around home and then going out.

I can say with a lot of confidence that this will not drag on for years. Wearing the mask isn’t that big of a deal. Just put it on when you’re close enough to other people that you could infect them if you had Covid19.

I figure on two years or so at least, but that's just going off of the Spanish Flu pandemic's length, which spread about as much as this has.

SARS and other more recent outbreaks are much more closely related to this case of Corona-Virus, and generally had a lot shorter length of duration than other outbreaks in history, but you can't really go off of that because those recent viruses didn't spread nearly as well or around the world as this has. Those, while often more deadly, were less contagious, and were far easier to contain and got stamped out within a short time when they disappeared.

Some things that could make this drag on longer than Spanish flu would be how much more traveling takes place now vs in 1918, plus back then people were often in rural areas and spread out, so they didn't interact as much, nor was there necessarily the need to. So with this I could say possibly 3-5 years even, if traveling continues on a wide scale. Plus people still have to go to the grocery store and other essential businesses in most cases, which spreads it more. In the past people were more self sufficient in a lot of areas of the country/world.

There are some promising vaccines out there in testing. Fortunately this is being pushed at a fast pace given how it's basically shut down much of the world. So hopefully at least one of those vaccines work. It would be even better if multiple ones worked and could be made at the same time, so even though it would be slow to make them, you could have multiples available and everyone that wanted to could get one or the other. Again, I'm not sure what the public's acceptance would be, and regardless vaccinating millions of people is a monumental task. But we really have to move on from this.

On the other hand, vaccines sometimes have limited success and there are a lot of people who wouldn't get it since they either never get them (I don't ever get the flu vaccine) or those conspiracy theorists who think it could be something sinister. Or others who wouldn't trust it's effects because it was developed in a rush. So whatever reason, it could still leave a large part of the world vulnerable, and we'd still have to social distance, masks, etc.

Aside from that all we have really is herd immunity which I think we are likely very, very far from. That's also very deadly given how we have practically no idea of how any person will fare if they get the virus. So it's certainly not the best route to take.

I'm hopeful but doubtful at the same time we could have wide-scale vaccines by next year hopefully. Still a long time but better than being shut down for two years or longer and being constantly in danger.

Now, if as some might believe, there is no immunity from antibodies, then most vaccines will not work. In that case this will keep circulating for many years possibly, and killing people. Although, I would think (hope) it would morph into something less harmful like other viruses have done, and eventually we could go out freely again without being much concerned about it. But that would take many years of isolating and masks, and would be indeed a terrible scenario. Not only for getting sick or dying, but the mental and financial toll would be grim.

[klkla]

This guy has some interesting ideas about how testing could be done:

https://www.forbes.com/sites/kotlikoff/ ... one-month/

I'm not sure if this works if it's 100% voluntary but it's more than we are doing about testing now... which for all practical purpose is NOTHING.

[cjd]

This guy has some interesting ideas about how testing could be done:

https://www.forbes.com/sites/kotlikoff/ ... one-month/

I'm not sure if this works if it's 100% voluntary but it's more than we are doing about testing now... which for all practical purpose is NOTHING.

Interesting read. Some good ideas there. I don't understand how the gov think tanks or testing companies would not have come up with similar ideas though. I thought the idea of testing was to enable us to get back to work and to normalcy. The testing doesn't seem to have a real focused purpose. In nursing homes and places like meat processing plants, it's more focused, but for the general public it's not doing anything.

Maybe the idea is to start something like this when testing is up to enough capacity. They're just starting to open testing without a doctor referral in my state, but they ran out of tests pretty fast...

Also just wondering, why you don't think this will drag on for years? Not saying I think that's wrong, but just wondering your reasoning for that. I have no idea myself.

[BillyGr]

I think we can plan to encounter mask requirements in certain scenarios like airplanes, medical offices, colleges, on an ongoing basis. Masks are a key part of most "reopening plans."

It may also be possible there is not enough supply of masks to require everyone to be wearing them.

I could see them being required on airlines, with the airline providing them. Too many people close to each other for hours at a time, going to all sorts of places. I'm surprised they weren't common already honestly. Medical offices probably as well.

I think the lack of masks is why the CDC downplayed them at first. They do prevent transmission of the virus, so they are an important measure against it.

That's already happened with many airlines (or they are planning to shortly), and at least here the airport itself requires them as well (though you could probably stay 6 feet away the majority of the time save security, when they said they had about 100 passengers a day - that's like 2 planes full normally with the smaller planes here, being a smaller airport that generally links you to the major ones).

[klkla]

Also just wondering, why you don't think this will drag on for years? Not saying I think that's wrong, but just wondering your reasoning for that. I have no idea myself.

I think eventually we will get our s--t together with testing. In the post above I mentioned one guy's idea of using these protocols that have been tested and used in somewhat similar situations. If not his exact idea, some version of what he's talking about will have to be done if we are ever going to move on absent a cure or vaccine.

The parts of the country that are rushing to get the economy going without having done anything to spread the growth in infections stand a very high chance of creating more hotspots which will lead to more preventable deaths. I'm also worried about a complacency that is happening now because of a decline in new cases. This is only happening because New York's cases have dropped. If you remove New York from the statistics you will see that cases are still rising in the rest of the United States.

"It seems many people are breathing some relief, and I’m not sure why. An epidemic curve has a relatively predictable upslope and once the peak is reached, the back slope is also predictable. Assuming we have just crested in deaths at 70k, that would mean that if we stay locked down, we lose another 70,000 people over the next 6 weeks as we come off that peak. That's what's going to happen with a lockdown.

As states reopen, and we give the virus more fuel, all bets are off. I understand the reasons for reopening the economy, but I've said before, if you don't solve the biology, the economy won't recover.

There are very few states that have demonstrated a sustained decline in numbers of new infections. Indeed, the majority are still increasing and reopening. As a simple example of the USA trend, when you take out the data from New York and just look at the rest of the USA, daily case numbers are increasing. Bottom line: the only reason the total USA new case numbers look flat right now is because the New York City epidemic was so large and now it is being contained.

https://erinbromage.wixsite.com/covid19 ... avoid-them

[storewanderer]

Here in Nevada we are reopening most retail and also restaurants on Saturday, it was announced today.

Restaurants will be at 50% capacity. That is worse than Texas with a 25% capacity requirement. Wow.

It is funny as previously the governor said he would not even consider reopening until 14 days of declines in active cases took place, which has not happened yet.

I guess the state needs money bad and is desperate. New cases in Reno area have been on the rise this week, especially earlier this week.

Will be interesting to see how case counts go the next few weeks.

[Alpha8472]

The issue is that restaurants are reopening and not taking enough steps to prevent infection. You have to assume that there are people who have COVID-19 and are not showing symptoms. They can spread it just through the air with a cough, a sneeze, or even talking.

These restaurants need to take steps such as they have done in Asia. They need to put up plastic barriers between tables and tape off tables in between so that there is more separation than normal. The employees need to wear masks and the food and drinks need to be covered in plastic wrap when being transported.

Hong Kong is a city of 7.5 million and they only had 4 deaths from COVID-19. This is due to the widespread use of masks even among children. They had a shortage of masks, but people made their own or imported them.

COVID-19 can be controlled but only if people wear masks. The last COVID death in Hong Kong occurred 2 months ago.

This would never work in America where people refuse to wear masks and still believe that the coronavirus is a hoax.

[klkla]

The issue is that restaurants are reopening and not taking enough steps to prevent infection. You have to assume that there are people who have COVID-19 and are not showing symptoms. They can spread it just through the air with a cough, a sneeze, or even talking.

You are correct. From that article I linked earlier:

Restaurants: Some really great shoe-leather epidemiology demonstrated clearly the effect of a single asymptomatic carrier in a restaurant environment (see below). The infected person (A1) sat at a table and had dinner with 9 other friends. Dinner took about 1 to 1.5 hours. During this meal, the asymptomatic carrier released low-levels of virus into the air from their breathing. Airflow (from the restaurant's various airflow vents) was from right to left. Approximately 50% of the people at the infected person's table became sick over the next 7 days. 75% of the people on the adjacent downwind table became infected. And even 2 of the 7 people on the upwind table were infected (believed to happen by turbulent airflow). No one at tables E or F became infected, they were out of the main airflow from the air conditioner on the right to the exhaust fan on the left of the room.

They have a chart that shows the details. It's about a third of the way down the page.
https://erinbromage.wixsite.com/covid19 ... avoid-them

[storewanderer]

Imagine how many people are involved in touching that restaurant meal, from the prep side, to the plates (washing then handing out). Plus the food is walked in the open air next to dozens of other guests while it is getting walked from the kitchen to your table. Restaurants seem extremely risky.

I expect a ton of restaurant closures because I do not think people will return. With a 50% capacity limit in NV, they have basically shaved 50% of potential revenue off the top right there as many of these places used to operate at capacity before.

At this point restaurants need to push take out options hard. The chains already have technology and building designs in place for this. But the local independent restaurants have had to make some mad dashes and fast to catch up. The foam police need to stop regulating what kind of container that a restaurant can put food in because at this point properly executing take out food is going to be essential in containing the virus as well as keeping many local independent restaurants open. And unfortunately when you are selling soup, and selling a lot of other prepared food, those foam containers are best at keeping the quality of the food up or preventing a massive spill/mess in transport.

Many restaurants will try to be "environmentally friendly" and not use foam, distribute expensive "environmentally friendly" packages, etc. But I am not really sure this is going to work when that stuff costs 2-3x what the foam or plastic costs and does not always perform as well. Sure you can throw a burger and fries into a paper container, or a salad, but if you are selling pasta or soup or Pho, good luck with that. If you are selling BBQ food or meat, good luck because it will get cold and dry out and the quality is ruined. So not only did you overspend on packaging but the product is not good when the customer gets it home and they likely won't return. You will go out of business. It is really a matter of getting whatever packaging preserves the quality of the food for the customer. That may mean the burger and fries goes fine into a paper container, but the soup needs to go into foam.

[Super S]

It looks like Souplantation and Sweet Tomatoes will be the first buffet restaurants to succumb to the current situation:
https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/20 ... 094319001/

To be fair, their restaurants had very limited appeal. My mother once described Sweet Tomatoes as a "Hometown Buffet with no meat" and I have never had the desire to eat there. However, this is worth noting because of the fact these are buffet restaurants.