Thank you so much for posting this @JeetKuneBao! You’re giving folks the real and I hope all members and lurkers read it. Sooo happy you’re recovering and I wish you much improved health now and for the remainder of this horrible time we’re in. Big elbow bump to you!
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This is where it all falls apart. If there were any way to mandate AND enforce that, I’d bet outdoor dining would still be open. Then again, I’d also bet there would only be a small fraction of people choosing to dine out, if they were only allowed to do it with their household (the same household they’ve been locked up with since March 
).
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Yes, but what are the socio-cultural issues contributing to that (not that I think we should mention them here b/c that would be REALLY off topic)? I mean, public-health officials and elected officials are getting death threats, so I don’t blame restaurants for not being super anal about enforcement w/ customers.
@jlee the restaurants are being unfairly being blamed-- not because of what they are doing, but what patrons are doing. as @anneexploresla mention, its the social interactions at restaurants…people that post supposed negative tests on IG then go out and party with friends. People don’t understand incubation time and false negatives and of course, the Trump deniers.
One restaurant we dined out at, Phenakite, has explicit instructions that you must be in the same pod/household. But of course this is honor system. we feel horrible for restaurants, first responders, hospital workers. nurses, doctors…
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Yes and no - as everywhere there are restaurants who comply to the rules but also some who (partly) ignore them (particular around density numbers). Here in Boston for example some Italian restaurant in North End made it early on quite clear that they don’t want any rules (and I have read about similar stories everywhere in the US). One of the main issues is the missing financial support for independent restaurants through the government which would make it easier fir them to close down for some time especially during high Covid numbers. (At least in California outdoor dining is possible for most of the year, here on the east coast the restaurant are really screwed with winter starting (and many are now closing or hibernating)
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I think one of the sad realities for all of us is that we’ve also never seen a rate of increase as high as what we’ve just seen, and we know that places where people are gathering without wearing their face coverings are places where transmission is easiest and most likely
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This page is fascinating (and disturbing) b/c it shows where the number of cases at specific businesses and list of locations that are non-compliant (each sub-list is scrollable).
http://publichealth.lacounty.gov/media/coronavirus/locations.htm#case-summary
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Interesting data in the link. 11 cases at Langer’s. Not sure over what time period. I’m sure everything is vastly under-reported anyway.
Not being an epidemiologist, not sure what to make of all this data, other than apparently it’s not good.
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Good point.
https://twitter.com/SupJaniceHahn/status/1330715131685130240
I don’t have Twitter account, but maybe someone tell Ms. Hahn that the restaurant owners also need to understand the rationale behind this…
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At least restaurants were given a couple days notice this time and i get wanting to respond quickly to rising numbers. It would be nice if there was more back and forth / open communication with restaurant owners.
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Look out.
As of Monday, Pasadena (which has its own Health Dept) is not stopping outdoor dining. I’m not sure how to think about this, though have concerns that will result in people from surrounding areas coming here to eat.
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That’s one of the cases I was talking about.
The weekend before my symptoms appeared, for the first time in four months, I met friends for two dinners at two socially distanced patio tables. Nobody is required to wear masks at the tables, so I removed my mask when I sat, as did my dining partners, and we left them off during the entire time we were at the table.
He shared a table with people who were not in his household. Twice in one weekend. The tables were socially distanced (sounds like restaurants), he and his friends were not.
Berkeley also has its own health department, but from what I’ve read here, more restrictive county rules overrule less restrictive city rules.
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Typically, federal law trumps state law, which trumps county law, which trumps city law, etc. So for Corona-19, you would assume that whatever is the most restrictive ordinance at any level is the one that applies.
(Side note: There are exceptions to that hierarchical pattern, like insurance law, where the feds, in many cases, will leave everything up to the states.)
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Restaurant owners feel like they’ve followed the rules and thus it’s unfair to be shut down, but it’s their customers who have been flouting the rules by meeting up with people not in their households.
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I fail to see the logic of shutting down outdoor dining.
I would think that for a group of people from several different households outdoor dining in a restaurant is somewhat safer than indoor dining at home.
So now that same group of people order take out and aggregate at home without masks.
I guess we are at a point of the pandemic where any meeting of people not within one household should be avoided (which includes outdoor dining). Obviously it would be important that this also doesn’t happen in a private home but this is hard to control for any government and so they restrict/control what they can do.
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