Dr Anthony Fauci, now President Joe Biden’s chief medical adviser, told CNBC in December that it might not be safe to eat indoors until the fall of 2021. By that time, a significant portion of the population should theoretically be vaccinated. However, few local leaders appear to be following the sound advice, most notably Andrew Cuomo in New York. The death toll after Christmas was doomed, and the governor announced the other week that the five districts would bring in a quarter-hour social distance on Sunday, Feb. 14. Then he said yesterday that he would extend the date to this Friday so restaurants can make the most of the longer Valentine’s Day weekend.
The policy shift is a flawed attempt to start the city’s booming hospitality economy, which has shaken off more than 100,000 jobs and numerous permanent closures amid a lack of federal aid. Valentine’s Day obviously feels less chosen for any health milestones and more for the fact that it has historically been one of the biggest evenings for restaurants. And this is really unfortunate, as the economic damage of COVID-19 can be more easily undone than it does to human lives.
Cuomo’s announcement was also a headache for other reasons. Just a few days earlier, he had declared that he would keep indoor dining room closed; when he banned that eating style in December, he cites the cues for disease control and prevention centers that insist on avoiding “non-essential indoor settings” that pose a “preventable risk.”
Public health indicators, such as positive test results, will have to trend downwards to be able to start again to stay on track. It may now, but thousands of people are still getting infected every day, and twice as many people are dying as when the governor closed the indoor dining room less than two months ago. Local data shows that positive COVID test rates are declining, but more than 15 zip codes have more than 11 percent, including Hunts Point in the Bronx (more than 14 percent) and Flushing (more than 15 percent). And while the governor is expanding the initial admission to restaurant workers in New York balkend according to the proposal, the shortage of supply will still be difficult for many to vaccinate.
In fact, the governor has no concrete plan to vaccinate hospitality workers, which means placing an under-vaccinated workforce under the same roof as an under-vaccinated client. He does so as the national death toll creeps in to half a million, with new mutations threatening further atrocities. And he does so without improving his inadequate restaurant security measures. A more generous observer might say Cuomo falls into the trap of so many optimistic leaders and relies on hope as a strategy. Instead, I would argue that the governor turns on a generator in a water-laden basement filled with people wearing aluminum foil packs. He needs to know that it is a miracle to avoid more hospitalizations or deaths. He needs to know that it is wrong to eat inside.
To understand why vaccinations are an important issue for restaurant workers, you need to consider the following: They are collectively underinsured; they are not eligible for risk payment; they work close by; they commute regularly from parts of the city with higher COVID-19 rates; they belong to groups with higher mortality rates for pandemics; and they serve customers who spend much of their time in the premises unmasked. These facts have deadly, real consequences.
A University of California study recently showed that cooks, head cooks, bartenders and bakers risk the highest mortality rates during the pandemic. At indoor eateries, the possibility of infection is even higher. “There is evidence that people with COVID-19 under certain circumstances infected others who were more than 6 feet away,” the CDC said, referring to air shipment of aerosol droplets to indoor dining rooms.
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Gary Hy / Eater
Cuomo, after receiving criticism for failing to extend vaccine admission, said last week restaurant workers could finally start receiving shots. This is a good first step. If there were just enough vaccines to vaccinate a sufficient number of staff members and eaters. Yes, nationwide inventory will increase soon. For the time being, however, workers are already experiencing problems with vaccination appointments at the brand new premises targeted at the food service at Citi Field, which has been delayed until two days before the indoor dining room.
On a personal note: I could not vaccinate any of my parents, one of whom is a handyman who regularly interacts with customers. Both have been eligible for almost a month.
According to the local health department, only 413,000 residents of the city’s eight million residents have been vaccinated with at least one dose, with only 183,000 residents receiving a second dose (the number increases if you include people outside the country). five districts). What’s worse: Latinx men and women, who make up about 29 percent of the city’s population and who make up a significant portion of the hospitality industry, received only 16 percent vaccinations, compared to 47 percent for white people. Black people, just under a quarter of the city’s population, received only 12 percent of the shots.
One might ask why Cuomo can not wait a little longer until more vaccines come online, instead of conducting such a large social experiment on a group of staff members who struggled excessively during the pandemic. Latinx people, for example, have suffered COVID mortality rates that are almost double those of white New Yorkers.
Low vaccination rates should be of particular concern as newer strains of COVID-19 spread faster. “Fauci said last week that it does not protect you from reinfection,” Fauci said last week about dealing with the emerging South African variant. predominant ‘tribe in the US, the agency added that the British tribe, which was already found on Long Island, has the potential to increase the US pandemic trajectory, and that ‘taking measures to reduce transmission now could reduce the potential impact … and allow the critical time to cover the vaccination. ‘
This all raises a series of very basic questions. If vaccination is difficult to achieve, if Latinx and Black communities were marginalized during the first rounds of vaccination, and if the CDC asks the country to try to reduce the transmission for fear of new mutations, the debate should not be over not whether hospitality restrictions should increase even further, instead of loosening them up and making more staff sick?
However, in his initial announcement, Cuomo addressed safety in a more circular way. ‘I believe that if I said today that cinemas can open up to 100 percent, I do not believe that people go. I believe that people should trust that it is safe, ”the governor said, explaining his greater decision to allow indoor meals in February – and to resume” safe “weddings in March.
‘Safe’ is a disturbing word choice. The CDC’s website uses the language that refers to relative risk versus absolute security provisions. The agency calls declining a case with “the lowest risk”, an outside risk “more” risky and indoor “higher risk”, even if there is a distance of six meters. Fauci, which recognizes the financial devastation of restaurants, has supported the distance measures for areas that can eat inside. Although, one could argue that six feet – the New York standard – is more of a baseline than a failure, especially in the presence of more contagious variants. ‘Unfortunately, the [social distancing] six-foot guidance is likely to be impaired by a more transmissible virus and also by more virus [droplets in the air], ”The dr. Anne Liu, a physician at Stanford’s Infectious Diseases, told Eater’s Elazar Sontag.
The CDC also believes that the length of a meal is something worth considering. ‘Limit the time you spend in the restaurant or bar. The longer you stay, the greater the risk, ‘reports the CDC. Nothing in the guidelines of the state requires or even recommends that the length of the tasting menus, which is more than one hour, be necessary to start again with the return of indoor eateries.
Cuomo also banned indoor eateries last fall after he said visits to pubs and restaurants are the state’s fifth leading cause of COVID-19 infections; Hospitality groups opposed broadcasts accounting for only 1.43 percent of the cases, according to data derived from 46,000 responses to contact detectives.
But here’s the thing: if the percentage across the country reflects the spread of disease in the five districts – and perhaps not for various statistical reasons, including the fact that the voluntary nature of contact detection provides an incomplete picture, it may still still being translated into more than 1,600 new cases each month, based on the city’s current infection data. Since the numbers could rise even further in February as more eateries choose indoor seating above the outdoor tables in February, is it not high time to instruct patrons to wear masks while communicating with service personnel?
Take the case of Long Island, which sees more than 1,300 new cases every day, the highest outside the city. Dining rooms in Nassau Province are often half-filled (the legal limit) or on weekends, while my patrons, according to my anecdotal observations, almost never wear masks while not actively eating at the table. This is despite the fact that state guidelines recommend that restaurants encourage people to cover their faces during such exact circumstances.
Although I am no longer a behavioral psychologist like the governor, I’m going to suggest that many of the people who were already busy with indoor eateries are not as concerned about safety as Cuomo thinks. If the state says it’s okay to do something again, there will probably not be a shortage of customers in the cabin ailments.
Visitors are also unlikely to take safety precautions unless they are legally obliged to do so. some cocktails. Maybe it’s a matter of customer’s right, as Khushbu Shah recently argued Food & Wine. Perhaps it’s that customers are part of a section of the public that roamed the country during the holidays to mingle with friends and family members, contributing to the deadliest phase of the pandemic to date, with nearly 80,000 locals COVID-19 deaths in January alone. If so many Americans refuse to follow the advice of public health officials – to stay home to prevent the people closest to them from getting sick – we really need to trust them for the lives of fellow eaters they have never met , to protect. or employees of the service industry who in history have regarded them as an underclass?
Since it is one of the most basic duties of the government to protect its citizens, Cuomo must stay indoors until he can better guarantee the safety of the workers who suffer the most. And since eating is allowed indoors on Long Island and in other parts of the state, threatening more people and harming city restaurants under stricter restrictions, Cuomo must also close the service style in those regions.