"Asian-owned businesses are facing a crippling pileup of pressures during the coronavirus pandemic, advocates and researchers say — pressures that won’t all ease with the country’s piecemeal reopening. They’ve been hurting longer, seeing their group’s unemployment rate skyrocket faster and struggling like many minority-owned shops to access government aid, often in industries with especially uncertain roads to recovery.
Layered on top as they struggle to reopen: anxiety about attacks and discrimination, as Asian Americans get caught up in a political fight.
For some who think national leaders are encouraging people to link Asians and the coronavirus — blaming China for the pandemic has become a full-fledged Republican political strategy — the stakes are higher than the fate of family businesses and already-threatened Chinatowns. They’re about what kind of country the United States wants to be."
Everybody on this forum wants restaurants to survive the current crisis but we also have to be realistic that until we have a vaccine (or a good drug treatment as we might never get a (good) vaccine) eating out will have a significant risk for your health associated. Even with new rules (which you don’t know if restaurants comply to or will take shortcuts after awhile (because that’s what normally happens with most rules) being for a longer time in a space with a significant number of people you don’t know just to have a meal might be not worth it (at least for us cooking at home and perhaps take-out in the future (haven’t done it so far) will be the only options for the next 1-2 years).
Seems inevitable that premature reopening of restaurants and other businesses in some areas will cause a second wave. Or in the case of regions that have had it easy so far, an influx of visitors from elsewhere may cause a first wave.
Based on the SF Bay Area’s experience since the April 22 mask order, I’m now feeling comfortable shopping in stores where everyone is wearing a mask, but otherwise sharing indoor air with strangers seems like a terrible idea.
He said the pandemic has highlighted long-standing vulnerabilities for restaurants regardless of accolades, geography or cuisine: profits that are too slim and prices that are too low. “We’ve been open for almost 17 years and our average profit after tax is only 3%,” Redzepi said. “That is sort of the same all over the world.”
So, I guess, from what you’ve said, restaurants as we’ve known them – places to get professionally-prepared and often artfully-presented food – fresh and hot from the kitchen – are basically history. Because few will survive for the next 1-2 years without dine-in customers or at half capacity; especially not those in the “upscale” category or the small hole-in-the-wall paces that I love.
I’m willing to take the risk that you alluded to, “just to have a meal”. I’m of the Old Fart persuasion, one of those in the “high risk group” that’s “old” and therefore, in the view of some, disposable. Yet, I’m still willing to take the chance rather than live like a WWIII survivor. I’d rather have restaurants post signs saying “Warning: Dining in a Restaurant May Be Hazardous to Your Health”, than have them say “Closed”.
Without restaurants it’ll be a dreary existence for me. I’m not a good cook, as you seem to be. I’m used to dining out regularly. I’m willing to go into a packed restaurant (with good ventilation and low level noise/talking) to enjoy life. If I get the covid, so be it. My chances of dying are actually miniscule. Quality of life has to be balanced with life itself, as cancer patients know all too well.
I’m not sure Honkman’s point was that few restaurants will survive, as much as it was the risk to dining in a crowded restaurant is real and that diners will need to assess their personal risk level before going out and restaurants will probably need to change their current operational models. None of that is preventing you from making a decision to dine out once restaurants begin to reopen.
We’re in San Diego which hasn’t been hit nearly as hard as L.A, NYC and some other metro areas. Perhaps our local govt. learned from last years’ Hep A outbreak (tho’ I doubt it). If we as diners make good choices for ourselves about where we dine, and restaurants get creative about how they’re going to deal with all the factors they are required to for reopening, then we may begin to enjoy some dining options outside our homes. You may only have 1 risk factor, but I have 2. I don’t know if you caught the article in the U/T late last week where county health provided data on the underlying conditions in those that had died from Covid-19. 54% of them had my 2nd risk factor. There have been 209 Covid-19 related deaths in SD county, of those 113 are due to 1 single risk factor that is not age, high blood pressure. And altho’ my blood pressure has been well controlled for many years, I may or may not be more at risk than the diner next to me. I am not particularly risk adverse, but I’m also not particularly eager to test the limits of my own personal health.
I miss dining out, I miss going to happy hour, I miss trying new restaurants and new food, but for the immediate future, I’ll have to be okay with that and understand that at some point down the road I will be able to do that again. In the meantime my neighbors and I are going to give SDOC a whirl. What is SDOC? Social Distancing Outside Cocktails. Everyone brings their own beverage of choice, any food they want to eat, a folding chair and we meet in the middle of our street, 6’ apart of course
Damned if you do, damned if you don’t. Interesting assortment of restaurants that signed the petition. Seems like restaurants that are better adapted to partnering with delivery services, at least in terms of what they offer.
those who were infected were sitting downwind, positioned between the AC and an exhaust fan
Two of those infected were “upwind” relative to the AC’s supply vent. There was no exhaust fan: the AC unit was recirculating the air, creating a virus-particle-laden eddy on that side of the room.
yeah that’s basically how I read it too
